Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Attachments (2011) by Rainbow Rowell is a story set in Omaha, Nebraska in 1999 and 2000. The novel begins after Lincoln has returned home to live with his mother after earning his second Masters degree. He gets a job in IT security at the city’s newspaper, but is stuck on the nightshift. His job ends up being a disappointment to him. There are no hackers to stop. Instead, he’s tasked with reading internal emails that are flagged as potentially inappropriate.

Lincoln begins reading the flagged emails between Beth Fremont, the newspaper’s film critic, and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder, the features copy editor. Jennifer is married to Mitch and terrified of getting pregnant. Beth has been in a long-term relationship with her college boyfriend, Chris, a guitarist in a rock band. Beth wants to get married, but Chris hasn’t proposed. Lincoln is amused by Jennifer and Beth’s email dialogue and can’t bring himself to send them warnings about their emails. Even though he knows it’s wrong, he continues reading their conversations.

In many ways, Lincoln is stuck. His first love Sam broke his heart in college, and though years have gone by, he’s never truly recovered from it. As he reads the emails between Beth and Jennifer, Lincoln begins falling for Beth, noting her humor, kindness, and way of expressing herself. Meanwhile, Beth notices Lincoln around the office and is infatuated with him. Beth begins emailing Jennifer about the new cute guy in the office, and eventually, Lincoln realizes she’s writing about him.

What should Lincoln do? He knows that he’s invaded Jennifer and Beth’s privacy. If Lincoln confesses the truth about reading their emails, will Beth forgive him, despite the weirdness of the situation? Does love before love at first sight exist?

The book has a fun premise with realistic characters. For instance, I liked that Lincoln played Dungeons & Dragons and enjoys pie at Village Inn. The pop culture references also struck a note with me and were skillfully used. I really loved the openness and intimacy in the email dialogue between Beth and Jennifer. So many people made deep connections online during this era, and their conversations reminded me of how much I loved writing emails during that time.

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