Score: 2.5 ★ / 5 ★
I’m back with another book review because like the train-wreck that I am, I decided to read two books in a week and neglected every other task that I was supposed to do. When I say my laundry was piling up? It literally was a mountain. It was a thrill though, staying up late reading in the dark while my husband and kids were sleeping, the threat of waking up early and mountains of chores that I ignored ominously lingering. I felt like I was back in college and blowing off that paper I should have done days ago.
Anyway. Let’s move on.
This book was on my TBR list for YEARS. I don’t know why I kept putting it off because Rainbow Rowell is one of my auto-buy authors but I finally got around to finishing it a few weeks ago.
I have mixed feelings about this book honestly and to be completely honest with you, if I had read this book when I found it, which was in high school, I would’ve thought this was the ultimate love-at-first-sight love story and easily would have given this book a 5 star score.
BUT, now I’m older and (hopefully) wiser and more aware of red flags in people, I slightly got the creeps.
This book tells the story of Lincoln O’Neill, who works in IT and is tasked to monitor his co-workers’ work email and flag them if he finds anything inappropriate. This was set in like the start of the 2000s, with the Y2K and the transition to newspaper offices using the internet. Beth and Jessica knew that someone was monitoring these personal conversation they keep having using their work emails but they didn’t care, they thought ‘what are they actually going to do? we’re just talking about our weekend.’
Lincoln got hooked reading their banter and witty exchange. He knew he was supposed to stop reading them and getting invested, and he caught feelings for Beth, oops. At first he didn’t know what to do, but after a few excruciating chapters of pining and guessing if any of the women he talked to on the editorial floor was Beth, they eventually met and he confessed.
Happy ending.
This is where I started having problems.
The entire time I was reading this book, I felt violated almost? Like as if I was Beth and the thought of someone reading my emails and enjoying them as if they’re his daily reading material instead of just flagging it and move on, I would be absolutely terrified. There is no other possible outcome other than me freaking out that someone had been so engrossed in reading my emails that they developed actual feelings for me. I mean sure, Beth wasn’t supposed to use her work email for personal conversations, but that’s just creepy.
Like if you change the ending and the tone a little, this could pass as a Criminal Minds episode.
The only reason why I still gave this book a 2.5/5 instead of straight up abandoning it was the side relationships. When I started reading this book, what immediately got me interested was Beth and Jessica’s relationship. Their conversation was written through email, and while the conversations were short and simple, the stuff they talk about was anything but. They talked about marriage, failed relationships, miscarriages, feeling like you’re not good enough that you’re willing to settle in your relationships. Y’know, real life shit. It was also written like how I would talk to my friends, but with less dick-jokes and swearing.
The only thing that I have trouble picturing was how a basement dwelling IT guy who has very little social life and no success in relationships to look like Chris Evans. Ok maybe not Evans but the way he was described was how handsome and jacked he was and I was like, uh, what? Immediately thrown off.
Would I recommend this book? Probably not. Like, it’s alright, but you won’t be missing out on anything special with this one. I would recommend Rowell’s other books like Fangirl, Eleanor & Park, or Carry On. Now those are great reads.
Until next time!
xo, Briana
briana salmun 