After staying home to work on Christmas, Georgie isn’t sure if her husband is leaving for Omaha with the kids, or leaving her with the kids. Instead of sleeping alone in her Los Angeles home, the television writer spends the night at her mom’s house- then another, and another. Why? In the tiny closet of her childhood bedroom, Georgie’s uncovered something impossible- a phone that can call back in time… call to Neal, before things were like this.

Rowell’s novel shows Georgie’s one-week struggle to save her marriage, and the lessons she learns along the way- in love, family, and friendship. Most importantly of all, though, she finds the answer to the question: can you change your fate?

When I took Landline from the shelf of my favorite bookstore back in October of 2015, I was only giving it a try because I had just finished Eleanor & Park, my now all-time favorite YA novel. I was now practically entranced by Rowell’s ability to rip my heart into millions of pieces, and while I had just glued mine back together, I was looking for it to be broken again. Landline’s plot wasn’t something I would usually read, especially at my age. I had never enjoyed fantasy or out-of-this-world situations (ahem, time warping phones), and walking out of the bookstore that day, I was convinced I would only get thirty or forty pages in before becoming uninterested and adding it to my (ridiculous) collection of unfinished books.

Boy, was I wrong.

This book changed my view of how to love. It taught me that you can still be in love, even when you have numerous bumps in the road. It reminded me that, no matter what you go through, or how much you screw up in life, your family will be there for you- whether you like it or not. Rowell’s eloquent hand sings the song of love in such a way I have never read before in another author; she writes new verses throughout her books, careful not to make any two the same. You can practically taste her love for writing in every book, page, sentence, nay- every word this author writes. I have, and always will have, a deep appreciation for this book and Rainbow Rowell’s work.