5 ‘HOPELESSLY IN LOVE’ STARS!
Goodreads summary: “Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It’s company policy.) But they can’t quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.
Meanwhile, Lincoln O’Neill can’t believe this is his job now- reading other people’s e-mail. When he applied to be “internet security officer,” he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.
When Lincoln comes across Beth’s and Jennifer’s messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can’t help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories.
By the time Lincoln realizes he’s falling for Beth, it’s way too late to introduce himself.
What would he say . . . ?”
Rainbow Rowell is not a new obsession for me, or for the Cannonball Read in general. This is the third book I’ve read of hers, and it might be my favorite? I don’t know. Eleanor and Park was also perfect. Shut up, don’t make me decide.
This won’t be a review as much as a collection of squees and superlative words. I will say right out of the gate that, based on other reviews, I get a YMMV vibe off of this book. For me, it really worked.
- Lincoln — beautiful, sweet, crippingly shy Lincoln. I feel his struggle. I don’t have overbearing parents and siblings who are fighting with each other over how they think I should live my life, but like him, I am guilty of massive insecurity about the future. Lincoln hates his job, but it’s a job, and it’s just secure enough that he doesn’t really feel like he has to stretch for something that would challenge him or actually make him happier. THAT, I feel.
- Jennifer and Beth have a perfect friendship. I can’t say enough how much joy I have when credible female friendships are portrayed in the media, because they’re so frequently non-existent or written hilariously by men who have no idea what female friendships are like.
- Jennifer’s marriage and child-fear, well, someone who is in that exact situation may speak better to the veracity of her feelings better than I can, but they still rang true for me. She seems so real: clearly happy in her marriage and in love with her husband, but not without any normal human’s share of doubts and worries that sometimes send us down a rabbit hole of behavior and moods that we KNOW are crazy, but help us cope so that we aren’t rubbing our neuroses all over other people. Still, that Jennifer shares these thoughts with Beth allows us to laugh and cry with her and, again, appreciate their friendship, and that Jennifer has someone she trusts and loves enough to share her craziest moments with that person and know she’ll still be loved.
- Beth’s relationship with Chris, the gorgeous guitarist… HOO BOY.
Okay. She had a nine-year relationship with this guy that started off really well, but then became something less good, but not something so bad that there were any red flags. There was just a feeling of something missing, but not anything so profound that it would be obvious. Like watching your own hair grow, you don’t notice the difference, because the steady change blinds you to the progression. Chris sometimes “needed space,” or was “far away,” but he also would do things that were so loving and thoughtful that it lulled Beth back into a false sense of security. Guess who else was in this relationship? That’s right, me. Right down to the nine years detail. I don’t want to spoil what comes next for Beth, but suffice it to say every moment mirrored exactly feelings and experiences that I’ve had, down to finally being with someone who “could love me like this… Could love me and love me and love me without…needing space.”
I loved all of the people in this book and the prose of this book and the story of this book and this book in general. I’m attached to it and, as the title says, inseparable. I want to read it again and again forever.
