Landline

I'm fairly new to Rainbow Rowell's work. I've only read Eleanor & Park (many years ago) and Almost Midnight, a small collection of short stories and after I read its blurb, Landline enticed me enough to grab it in audiobook format.

The story has an interesting premise - a woman learns that through an old landline phone from her teen years that she can speak to her husband in the past, before their marriage got off the tracks. This is a story that explores relationships and marriage and has an interesting sort-of-time-travel aspect, but it was just an okay listen for me.

I found the story pretty dull, to be honest. The main character Georgie teetered between being stubborn and selfish, boring and just plain miserable. I liked the concept of Georgie being able to communicate with her husband Neal in the past, but I think the problem was I wasn't rooting for the couple to fix things.

Interesting idea but the story and romance were lackluster and often felt repetitive. It was chosen as a GoodReads Choice winner in 2014 so take my harumphy review with a grain of salt.

My Rating: 2.5 stars

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Type and Source: eAudiobook from public library

Narrator: Rebecca Lowman

Run Time: 9 hours

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

First Published: 2014

Book Description from GoodReads: Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. That it’s 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 to him to pack up the kids and go 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?