First love, young love, unexpected love—any kind of love with a deep vein of naiveté and innocence—this is Rainbow Rowell's wheelhouse. She manages to capture raw emotion with a wave of nostalgia that captivates not only her primary audience of young adult readers, but also those of us who, at least in theory, have moved past the age of soaring crushes and crushing heartbreak.

Rowell's new novel, Landline, aims to capture adult fans with the story of sitcom writer Georgie and the conflict between her relationship with her best friend, the womanizing Seth, and her husband, the long-suffering Neal. Thankfully, Rowell avoids the played-out chick-lit love triangle and creates a much more interesting story of the tension between friendship and love, and between a successful woman's work life and her family life. Georgie has complicated choices even before she discovers the magic telephone.

That's right—the title refers to an old phone Georgie uses to call college-age Neal, the boy she fell in love with. Rowell uses the phone to play with the differences between old technology and new, and she leverages it to echo the differences in the relationship between young-in-love college students and the married adults they grow up to be.

The sci-fi elements make Landline a bit of a bumpy ride, and Rowell's description of adult relationships lacks the authentic feeling of her description of young love. Still, her characters are incredibly true-to-life, and her writing is consistently fun. We may not all have access to magic phones, but Landline gives us all a way to travel back in time and remember the emotional roller coaster of loves we may have left behind.

 

This article was originally published in the July 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The New York Times best-selling author of Eleanor & Park and Fangirl makes a leap back to the world of adult relationships we last saw in her Attachments. Georgie McCool (her husband Neal didn't want her to change her killer name, either) writes with her best friend/writing soul mate, Seth, for a TV show, but they've just sold the program of their dreams to a network—as long as they can deliver four episodes by December 27. When she's supposed to be in Nebraska. With her family. For Christmas. After Neal takes the girls to Nebraska without her, Georgie's world begins to crumble. Neal seems to be dodging all of her calls until she starts phoning to the old rotary phone in her mother's house—and finds an odd connection to the past. Georgie's progress with her writing stalls as she tries to figure out her past, present, and future. VERDICT While the topic might have changed, this is still Rowell—reading her work feels like listening to your hilariously insightful best friend tell her best stories. [See "Editors' Spring Picks," LJ 2/15/14; national tour; library marketing.]—Julie Kane, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA

Rowell follows up children's novels Fangirl and Eleanor and Park, both released in 2013, with an adult novel about the ups and downs of marriage. Georgie McCool (yes, that's her real name) is a successful TV writer with a handsome writing partner and a chance to finally take her career to the next level; she's just been offered her own pilot, which means no more writing jokes for characters she didn't invent. The only problem? Her husband, Neal, is growing increasingly discontent with Georgie's endless work and his status as stay-at-home dad to their daughters, Noomi and Alice. When Georgie cancels the family trip over Christmas, Neal takes the girls and leaves Georgie behind. This is where the story gets interesting. When Georgie calls Neal's home, she doesn't reach the husband who's on the verge of leaving her—she reaches the moody cartoonist she fell in love with during college, a past version of the current Neal. This magical plot device allows Georgie to investigate what drove her and Neal apart in flashbacks, and consider whether they were ever truly happy. Rowell is, as always, a fluent and enjoyable writer—the pages whip by. Still, something about the relationship between Georgie and Neal feels hollow, like it's missing the complexity of adult love, despite the plot's special effects. First printing of 100,000. (July)