Landline
by Rainbow Rowell
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"In New York Times bestselling author Rainbow Rowell's Landline, 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 besides the point now.Maybe that was always besides 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 show more 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 home 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?Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?"-- show lessTags
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souloftherose Time-slip romance
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When Georgie and her writing partner, Seth, are offered the opportunity they've been waiting for their whole careers, Georgie is thrilled except for one thing: it means working like mad over Christmas. Rather than cancel the trip they've planned to his family home in Omaha, Georgie's husband, Neal, decides to take their two daughters on the Christmas trip and leave George in California. Georgie is less than thrilled, particularly when she can't get ahold of Neal on his cell. While spending the night at her mom's, she tries reaching Neal on the landline and discovers that somehow she's able to speak to Neal in the past during the week before he proposed to her over twenty years ago. Are the phone calls into the past a way to fix her show more problems in the present or is she meant to save Neal and herself heartache by preventing the proposal altogether?
Another thoroughly charming and beautiful novel from Rainbow Rowell. I've always been fond of time travel and found the idea of a phone that is able to call into the past a fascinating idea. Georgie and Neal are fully rounded characters and while neither of them are entirely likeable the entire time, I was so wrapped up in their relationship that I rooted for them even when they were terrible to each other. Full of truly funny moments as well as some sentences so poignant I needed to put the book down to fully absorb them, I am totally satisfied with this book from an author who's made her way onto my list of favourites. show less
Another thoroughly charming and beautiful novel from Rainbow Rowell. I've always been fond of time travel and found the idea of a phone that is able to call into the past a fascinating idea. Georgie and Neal are fully rounded characters and while neither of them are entirely likeable the entire time, I was so wrapped up in their relationship that I rooted for them even when they were terrible to each other. Full of truly funny moments as well as some sentences so poignant I needed to put the book down to fully absorb them, I am totally satisfied with this book from an author who's made her way onto my list of favourites. show less
3.5 Clever and pleasant and just right for right now - it's a great reminder about not taking people (especially spouses) for granted. Georgie McCool is a Tina Fey-type comedy writer in LA with a high-pressure job and unforgiving deadlines. An important one has just come up: the chance to pitch her own show to a media mogul - 2 days after Christmas. This means she bails on the long-planned trip with her husband Neal and young daughters to his family in Omaha, NE to stay in CA and work on the show with her long-time best friend/business partner, Seth. Essentially she is choosing her job over her family and Seth over Neal. Georgie messes up the time zones when she tries to call, forgets to charge her own phone, and Neal won't answer his, show more so communication becomes challenging and Neal essentially goes incommunicado because he is rightfully angry over the turn of events. We learn he is the stay-at-home Dad to the 2 little girls, he cooks, does the laundry, puts up with Georgie's erratic hours and basically suffers in silence. In his absence, Georgie starts to see what a good thing she's got. The twist that makes this and explains the title, is that the only way Georgie is able to get thru to Neal is on the landline phone in her mother's house to the landline phone at Neal's mother's house. BUT, those calls are taking place in 1998 at the turning point in their young relationship when they first got together. It gets a little mind-bendy - for me - and Georgie but the ultimate goal is served. Rowell is so good at depicting relationships in all their private quirkiness and the little things that create attraction and build foundations for long-term. And though it's a rom-com, no one is perfect and the characters aren't always likeable. Rowell always stays grounded in reality. A couple samples of her wisdom: "You don't know what it really means to crawl into someone else's life and stay there. You can't see all the ways you're going to get tangled, how you're going to bond skin to skin." (p.201) and "That's what love is. Accidental damage protection." (p.244) Without giving much away, Georgie has her Georg(ie) Bailey Christmas miracle moment which makes for a satisfying ending, but I wanted to know more about the after - and the magic phone. show less
I got really swept up in this novel. I saw so much of my relationship in Georgie and Neal that I couldn't put it down. I loved this novel. A love story told backwards. A really, really unique concept (not the love-story-backwards-part, something even better). Georgie and Neal love each other so much, it hurts. Literally. But after having kids and the kids coming first for years and ignoring the things they should be working on, their relationship has become almost too much to bear and he leaves her. Not leaves her, leaves her. Just...leaves. And when she calls him on the old phone in her childhood room, something magical happens. What I loved most was learning their love story and how comfortable Rowell is with the language of Need. show more Some shy away from it because admitting you need your partner can come off as desperate or anti-feminist. But I need my partner. I would be a total mess without him, and this novel reminded me of that fact. I can easily see why this won Fic of the Year on GoodReads, I really loved it. show less
Oh, how I love Rainbow Rowell. I’m sure if I knew her personally, we would totally be BFFs. Landline is funny and heartwarming at the same time. I could relate to both Georgie and Neal. Georgie is an over-worked, stressed out television writer and Neal is a stay-at-home dad. The story was primarily set in the present day, showing Georgie and Neal’s strained relationship but also flashed back to the back to when they first met so the reader gets a clear idea of how they ended up in the state they’re in today. Even the secondary characters, like Seth and Georgie’s mom and sister are well drawn. And they have the most hilarious lines. I was laughing out loud several times. I love Rainbow’s sense of humor.
Georgie and Neal could show more have easily been caricatures. I’ve seen the working spouse vs. the stay at home spouse many times in other books and in TV and movies. But this book is a fresh and original take on that storyline. There is not much more I can say about the plot that I can say without spoiling it. There is one device that requires a heavy suspension of belief but it’s worth it and I didn’t have a problem doing that at all.
Call me Rainbow. Anytime. We can hang out. show less
Georgie and Neal could show more have easily been caricatures. I’ve seen the working spouse vs. the stay at home spouse many times in other books and in TV and movies. But this book is a fresh and original take on that storyline. There is not much more I can say about the plot that I can say without spoiling it. There is one device that requires a heavy suspension of belief but it’s worth it and I didn’t have a problem doing that at all.
Call me Rainbow. Anytime. We can hang out. show less
You can't really categorize this as a romance novel, although romance and what happens to it after marriage is what it's all about. Georgie McCool has a name she can't make anyone believe she was born with, an inside-out traditional marriage where her husband Neal stays at home and makes all the sacrifices, two little girls she loves so much it hurts, and a comedy-writing career that is about to take off big time. That is, provided she and her writing partner/best friend Seth (who is decidedly not gay) can come up with four new scripts for the original series they've finally maybe sold --- in a week. In the week before Christmas. The week which Georgie was supposed to be spending in Omaha with her family at Neal's mother's home. The show more title refers to the old yellow hard-wired phone in Georgie's childhood bedroom. A landline, and maybe a lifeline, to her past, and to recharging her marriage, if she can figure out how not to screw it all up. I was surprised at how I was drawn into this story. Rowell (rhymes with towel) is brilliant at characterization and dialog. You just have to believe in her people and their interactions, even when her plot elements might stretch the bounds of credibility a bit. show less
Neal Grafton is the caregiver in his family of four, because his wife, Georgie McCool, is a successful television comedy writer, and the two girls, Noomi, 4, and Alice, 7, still require full-time tending.
As the story begins, the whole family is about to leave for a Christmas visit to Neal’s mother’s home in Omaha, when Georgie has to cancel. She and her writing partner since college, Seth, have got an opportunity to get a show of their own if they can come up with four episodes by December 27th.
Neal is hurt, maybe angry, but he takes the kids and goes without Georgie. She keeps trying to call him in Omaha, but he doesn’t pick up his cell phone, and soon the message box is full. So Georgie, now sleeping at her parents’ house, show more gets her old landline out of the closet and calls the Grafton’s landline. But when she reaches Neal, it is Neal from fifteen years before, the first time he left her for Omaha before Christmas.
Georgie is pretty sure Neal isn’t happy any more. Maybe now, with their nightly conversations in this bizarre time gap, she has a chance to make it right. But making it right could mean one of two things: Georgie could take the altruistic high road, and encourage Neal to go on and be happy without Georgie, or Georgie could try harder, and fight to save her marriage to this man she still loves so much.
Discussion: I thought that Georgie’s meditations about what Neal meant to her were just lovely. I found it so touching how much Georgie looked forward to talking to Old Neal every night for hours and hours - the Neal before all the baggage of their marriage and the current contretemps:
"Georgie wasn’t ready to lose Neal yet. Even to her past self. She wasn’t ready to let him go. (Somebody had given Georgie a magic phone, and all she’d wanted to do with it was stay up late talking to her old boyfriend. If they’d given her a proper time machine, she probably would have used it to cuddle with him. Let somebody else kill Hitler.)”
As she considers what Neal means to her, she also gets insight into what she hasn’t meant to him:
"She should tell him about this magic phone insanity. Right now. She could tell him, she could always tell Neal anything. Georgie and Neal were bad at a lot of things, but they were good at being on each other’s side. Neal was especially good at being on Georgie’s side, at being there when she needed him.”
And then she thinks about all Neal does for her all the time. There is no listing of all that Georgie does for Neal, because, while she may be bringing in the salary, she has also spent a lot of time staying late at work (with Seth), and acting depressed or crazy or obsessed with fear of failure. But Neal was always there, always on her side.
Marriage, she thinks, also brought them closer:
"You don’t know what it really means to crawl into someone else’s life and stay there. You can’t see all the ways you’re going to get tangled, how you’re going to bond skin to skin. How the idea of separating will feel in five years, in ten—in fifteen. When Georgie thought about divorce now, she imagined lying side by side with Neal on two operating tables while a team of doctors tried to unthread their vascular systems.”
At the end, when Georgie makes her decision, it is totally in keeping with what we know about her. And Neal’s reaction is totally in keeping with what we know about him.
Evaluation: I loved this book. I think Rowell is just outstanding at crafting dialogue that is fast-paced and wickedly funny but yet still realistic. Her insight into relationships is excellent as well. I think it’s a mistake to focus on the magic phone - this book is all about dialogue and relationships, two aspects of writing at which Rowell excels. show less
As the story begins, the whole family is about to leave for a Christmas visit to Neal’s mother’s home in Omaha, when Georgie has to cancel. She and her writing partner since college, Seth, have got an opportunity to get a show of their own if they can come up with four episodes by December 27th.
Neal is hurt, maybe angry, but he takes the kids and goes without Georgie. She keeps trying to call him in Omaha, but he doesn’t pick up his cell phone, and soon the message box is full. So Georgie, now sleeping at her parents’ house, show more gets her old landline out of the closet and calls the Grafton’s landline. But when she reaches Neal, it is Neal from fifteen years before, the first time he left her for Omaha before Christmas.
Georgie is pretty sure Neal isn’t happy any more. Maybe now, with their nightly conversations in this bizarre time gap, she has a chance to make it right. But making it right could mean one of two things: Georgie could take the altruistic high road, and encourage Neal to go on and be happy without Georgie, or Georgie could try harder, and fight to save her marriage to this man she still loves so much.
Discussion: I thought that Georgie’s meditations about what Neal meant to her were just lovely. I found it so touching how much Georgie looked forward to talking to Old Neal every night for hours and hours - the Neal before all the baggage of their marriage and the current contretemps:
"Georgie wasn’t ready to lose Neal yet. Even to her past self. She wasn’t ready to let him go. (Somebody had given Georgie a magic phone, and all she’d wanted to do with it was stay up late talking to her old boyfriend. If they’d given her a proper time machine, she probably would have used it to cuddle with him. Let somebody else kill Hitler.)”
As she considers what Neal means to her, she also gets insight into what she hasn’t meant to him:
"She should tell him about this magic phone insanity. Right now. She could tell him, she could always tell Neal anything. Georgie and Neal were bad at a lot of things, but they were good at being on each other’s side. Neal was especially good at being on Georgie’s side, at being there when she needed him.”
And then she thinks about all Neal does for her all the time. There is no listing of all that Georgie does for Neal, because, while she may be bringing in the salary, she has also spent a lot of time staying late at work (with Seth), and acting depressed or crazy or obsessed with fear of failure. But Neal was always there, always on her side.
Marriage, she thinks, also brought them closer:
"You don’t know what it really means to crawl into someone else’s life and stay there. You can’t see all the ways you’re going to get tangled, how you’re going to bond skin to skin. How the idea of separating will feel in five years, in ten—in fifteen. When Georgie thought about divorce now, she imagined lying side by side with Neal on two operating tables while a team of doctors tried to unthread their vascular systems.”
At the end, when Georgie makes her decision, it is totally in keeping with what we know about her. And Neal’s reaction is totally in keeping with what we know about him.
Evaluation: I loved this book. I think Rowell is just outstanding at crafting dialogue that is fast-paced and wickedly funny but yet still realistic. Her insight into relationships is excellent as well. I think it’s a mistake to focus on the magic phone - this book is all about dialogue and relationships, two aspects of writing at which Rowell excels. show less
Georgie tells her husband that she needs to stay in LA over Christmas - something has come up at work - and hopes he will agree to stay with her. He doesn't, and takes the kids to visit his mother, leaving Georgie wondering just how much trouble her marriage is in.
She's desperate to talk to her husband, but when she picks up the phone, what she gets is a chance to talk to Neal of 15 years ago. Neal as he was before kids, before marriage, before university graduation...
This could make for an oddly lopsided love story, because Neal of the past gets more of a say than his present-day self, whose presence is felt more through his absence. However, I thought it actually worked really well: 20-something Neal is grappling with a lot of the show more same questions as 30-something Georgie: What sort of sacrifices and compromises does staying together require? Can they deal with the pressure Georgie's career puts on their relationship? Is love enough?
What Georgie's inexplicably magic (time-travelling) phone gives her is not so much a chance to pretend to be 22 again as a chance to talk with Neal honestly about themselves. Without being able to hide behind chatter about their girls, or what's going on at work, or current events. And, in getting to know past!Neal better, she gets to understand her Neal better.
Rowell's really good at writing this sort of story. I loved the conversations and the descriptions and the characters and everything. show less
She's desperate to talk to her husband, but when she picks up the phone, what she gets is a chance to talk to Neal of 15 years ago. Neal as he was before kids, before marriage, before university graduation...
This could make for an oddly lopsided love story, because Neal of the past gets more of a say than his present-day self, whose presence is felt more through his absence. However, I thought it actually worked really well: 20-something Neal is grappling with a lot of the show more same questions as 30-something Georgie: What sort of sacrifices and compromises does staying together require? Can they deal with the pressure Georgie's career puts on their relationship? Is love enough?
What Georgie's inexplicably magic (time-travelling) phone gives her is not so much a chance to pretend to be 22 again as a chance to talk with Neal honestly about themselves. Without being able to hide behind chatter about their girls, or what's going on at work, or current events. And, in getting to know past!Neal better, she gets to understand her Neal better.
Rowell's really good at writing this sort of story. I loved the conversations and the descriptions and the characters and everything. show less
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ThingScore 100
What really makes a book of the summer is when we surprise ourselves. It’s not just about being fascinated by a book. It’s about being fascinated by the fact that we’re fascinated.
The odds:4-1
Landline
Rainbow Rowell
Pros: Keen psychological insight, irrepressible humor and a supernatural twist: a woman can call her husband in the past.
Cons: Relative lack of violence, perverse sex.
The odds:4-1
Landline
Rainbow Rowell
Pros: Keen psychological insight, irrepressible humor and a supernatural twist: a woman can call her husband in the past.
Cons: Relative lack of violence, perverse sex.
added by feeling.is.first
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Author Information
119+ Works 43,315 Members
Rainbow Rowell's adult debut, Attachments, was published in 2011. Her other books include Landline, Eleanor and Park, and Carry On. Fangirl won the Silver Inky Award in 2015. (Bowker Author Biography)
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Landline
- Original title
- Landline
- Original publication date
- 2014-07
- People/Characters
- Georgie McCool; Neal Grafton; Alice Grafton; Naomi "Noomie" Grafton; Seth; Scottie (show all 11); Heather Winsor; Liz Lyons; Kendrick; Margaret Grafton; Paul Grafton
- Important places
- Calabasas, California, USA; Omaha, Nebraska, USA
- Dedication
- This book is for Kali.
(Everything that matters is.) - First words
- Georgie pulled into the driveway, swerving to miss a bike.
- Quotations
- Neal was easy to stare at. Maybe not breathtaking; not the way Seth could be…. Neal didn’t take Georgie’s breath away. Maybe the opposite; but that was okay. That was really good actually; to be near someone who f... (show all)illed your lungs with air.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)He whispered: Enough, Georgie. You're here now. Be Here now.
- Original language
- English
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 3,370
- Popularity
- 5,016
- Reviews
- 236
- Rating
- (3.58)
- Languages
- 10 — Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 38
- ASINs
- 10