Monthly Book Review - August

"She read's books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live" - Annie Dillard

Well its offically the last Tueday of August, I can't believe how fast this year has gone by. I feel like as soon as I write a book club review I am getting ready to write the next one straight away.
For August the book club listed Landline by Rainbow Rowell and Trokia by Adam Pelzam, lets start with Landline shall we since Rainbow Rowell has been all the rage lately. *Please be aware possible spoilers ahead!*

I was excited to read Landline because Rainbow Rowell has had such success with Eleanor & Park and Fangirl, everywhere I read people where raving about Landline so I thought I would pick it for August. I have to say I was quite disappointed, now don't go hating me just yet but I just couldn't get past the fact that they never explained why the yellow landline was a portal to her past and the characters seemed to annoy me most of the time, I could not relate to Georgie (even though we have the same name) because I know that if I was in her position I would likely have done the complete opposite if it was my family on the line.
I am not saying that I didn't enjoy the book because it was actually quite a quick light hearted and easy to read book I just couldn't stand the characters and felt that certain aspects could have been left out whilst other area's could have used a deeper explanation.

SUMMARY:

Georgie McCool (I hate the fact that her name is McCool straight off the bat) is a career driven television comedy writer married to Neal and mother to 2 girls Alice and Naomi (nick name Noomi for most of the book which I think is adorable). Georgie is one half of a comedy writing duo with her best friend Seth whom she met at college, the duo have just been given the green light to write a pilot episode and another 5 episodes of their own show, the only chat they have a 2 week period to write them which happens to fall over Christmas and Georgie's family have already organised to spend Christmas with Neil's mother in Omaha.
Georgie and Neil's marriage has been slowly dying, he is not going to deny the girls a white Christmas with his mother, so he get on the plane leaving Georgie confused and devastated whilst trying to write the sitcom. Georgie cannot face the long drive from work back to her empty house so opts to stay at her mothers house where her family constantly bombard her with the idea that her marriage has ended (this annoyed me again, I felt that they where putting questions into Georgie's head), to try and fix her marriage she calls Neil from her old room with her old yellow rotary phone which for some unexplained reason transports the call back to 1998 when Neil broke their relationship off the first time.
Georgie spends the next few day's talking to 1998 Neil and deciding whether its worth changing her past and letting Neil go or continue to lie to Neil telling him it will get better when she knows that it never did. Can she and should she change her past to better her future?
THE QUESTIONS:

What did you think of the book?

Did you feel that Georgie made the right decision to stay in LA?

What did you think of Neil's reaction? Did you think he should have called her to talk things through when he got to Omaha?

What where your feelings about the magic phone? Did you wish they had explained it more?
When did you start thinking that perhaps her past had been changed by the phone call she made and that was why Neil proposed?

The monthly book review for Trokia by Adam Pelzam will be updated shortly.

Did you read these books? Do you have any book suggestions?