I've mentioned before that I used to read Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising each Christmas. This year I thought I would start a new tradition by rereading Rainbow Rowell's Landline.
It takes place at Christmas, when the main character, Georgie, stays in L.A. to work through the holiday to get her big break in television writing while her husband and two young daughters leave to visit his mom back in Omaha. I don't want to say much about it but here are a few things:
- Rowell does a great job of capturing the reality of a long-running relationship — the part that comes after the usual happily-ever-after of romantic novels.
- She's an unabashed romantic (read more about her thoughts on the gendered criticism of romance), which is key to the book's success.
- The reversal of the usual gender roles in Georgie's family creates a quiet tension that runs throughout the book, but it's never labelled as such; it's just the way they are.
- The plot involves a telephone in a way you wouldn't expect.
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