Book review: Landline

The subversion of the genre category

TECHNICAL INFORMATION:

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Publication date: July 2014

Genre*: YA (Main), Contemporary, Romance, Fantastical

Punctuation: 4/5

PREMISE:

“Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble; it has been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems beside the point now.

Maybe that was always beside the point.

Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her — Neal is always a little upset with Georgie — but she doesn't expect him to pack up the kids and go home without her.

When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything.

That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts...

Is that what she’s supposed to do?

Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?"

REVIEW:

*Looking into the genre of the book on the internet I found no two sites that said the same thing, even in Rainbow Rowell's page it is described as “Landline belongs to a genre of its very own.” I understand why some call it Young Adult and others refuse the title and others say its main genre is fantasy. However, Wikipedia calls it a sci-fi book which is completely inaccurate (I have no further opinions on Wikipedia’s lack of research, I just wanted to make sure no one confused).

As for me, I wrote YA as the main genre even though the main character, Georgie, was 39 years old dealing with marriage problems and there was a magic element; As I read I felt it focused more on Georgie holding herself accountable and how her understanding of her marriage grew. Though the story is focused on the marriage I wouldn’t say romance is its main genre because the relationship between Georgie and Neal didn’t actually change until the very end, the relationship was presented both to the reader and to Georgie, that’s why I do include romance as a genre.

Let’s address what to me was the elephant in the room, the magic. I didn’t know going into this book that it had an element of magic (I didn't read the premise, which I would NOT recommend). Finding out slowly that there was one magic part used was not fun, I won't go into detail because it was my mistake as a reader to not read the premise and blame my expectations on it. Personally, I don't love books that have casual magic because it feels like a cop-out to me, however, Rainbow Rowell has a tasteful way to write simple plots. The magic didn't feel like self-serving. Even though it had one only factor of magic it was used through the whole book and Rowell wrote it to be a pivotal part of the plot. I usually don’t like that casual magic has no reason and no universe, it feels convenient to the writer, this was the case for this book too but in a bearable way. I consider Fantasy to be a genre this book is a part of as a warning to those who don’t enjoy magic in romance, I would not consider it to be a real Fantasy because it only has one magical object and that’s it.

So… the characters. It was very obvious Georgie was the Main Character, that's normal, right? Well, in this case, it was because the main plot was only important to her and it didn't affect anyone outside of her (which usually happens in YA but in this case it was too extreme). All the characters were like caricatures that somehow had depth in them, because their backstory was told (except Seth’s, poor Seth) or because they had a subplot. As entertaining those subplots were and even though they showed the character’s personality they didn’t advance the story all that much. I didn’t mind it, they were nice breaks to me, not that the main plot was tiring but it could become too much easily.

As an entire book, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys Rainbow Rowell's books, to anyone looking for a YA that doesn't feel childish and wants a romantic element. If knowing how much I would like it, what I would hate from it before reading it I would choose to read it.