Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell

Confession: I’m not a huge fan of the romance novel genre. I like Jane Austen, and Charlotte Bronte and that’s about it. I enjoy romance inside other genres, but when the whole tension of the plot rests on “are they going to get together” ….well of course they are, it’s a romance, and what kind of plot tension does that leave you? But if they aren’t getting together, that’s a waste of time because who picks up a romance novel wanting to wallow in a painful breakup?

This book is my one exception to my dislike of the modern romance novel. It’s so much an exception that I’ve read it three or four times. Part of why I like it so much is that it also nearly qualifies as a coming-of-age novel—bildungsroman! (Ha! How often do I get to pull that piece of vocabulary out and dust it off?)

Lincoln is a young man, out of college, struggling to make something of himself. Or rather, he’s not struggling. He’s given up. The love of his life cheated on him and destroyed all his dreams and for years afterward he has drifted, purposeless.

It’s the early 2000s, when internet and email in the workplace is new, so he is hired for a nightshift as a newsroom’s internet security; if anybody in the newsroom sends an email that falls outside of their professional duties, his job is to send a warning to the emailer.

Then emails from two friends, Jennifer, an editor, and Beth, a journalist, begin to hit his filter. They’re just exchanging back and forth banter and conversation about their day. They seem so nice, and their conversation is so harmless, it seems extreme to send them a warning email—so their emails keep coming, and he keeps reading them.

Beth in particular attracts him, her humor and zest for life. And then (he discovers through their emails) that she has noticed him around the office, though never close enough to interact with, and has been very impressed. Lincoln is torn—delighted that this wonderful woman thinks he’s cute, and horrified to realize that he can’t approach her because he’s the creep who’s been reading her emails. He also doesn’t know what she looks like since he works night shift.

But the things Beth says about him to Jennifer and the moral conflict of his job slowly drag him out of his stupor. Lincoln begins to reclaim himself; going to the gym, reconnecting with old friends, getting an apartment of his own. And all of this leads him inevitably to the key problem—he can’t be the kind of guy he wants to be, the kind of guy who would deserve Beth, if he’s the kind of guy who reads people’s private emails. He must pick one or the other, and it doesn’t seem like either option will hold Beth in it.

What I love about this book is that by the end, I’m so stoked for Lincoln to finally get himself back on his feet that it almost (almost) doesn’t matter whether or not he ends up with Beth. I’m just excited that such a nice guy is living life again. I won’t tell you what happens, though. You’ll just have to read it.