Picking out a book is like dating before computers: all you’ve got to go on is cover and genre. Let’s say bleak non-fiction is your wheelhouse. Today you’re not feeling it—hundreds of pages about the Holocaust is enough for one week—so you think, hey! time for something new. Look at this handwritten recommendation on the bookstore shelf. Look at that cute paperclip…aww, it’s a workplace romance. Not my type, but maybe I’ve changed! Maybe there’s still feeling left in my pessimistic soul!
I breezed through this book in 24 hours, waiting for stirrings or longing in my lions (not a typo). Alas, it’s no Outlander. It’s not His Girl Friday or When Harry Met Sally, either. Instead, it’s Sleepless in Seattle mashed up with You Got Mail, late 90s setting and all.
The workplace is a Midwestern newsroom (quaint!) right before Y2K (remember that?). Chapters alternate between a work BFFs’s ongoing email exchange and an affecting third-person-limited novel about a failed-to-launch man finally growing up. Lincoln reads Jennifer and Beth’s emails because it is part of his late night IT job to make sure employees don’t abuse the new internet connection. Because the women treat their work email like it’s AOL Instant Messenger, their emails get flagged. Constantly. Lincoln notes the two of them get personal but, finding nothing damning, he chooses not to report them. Again and again, because he’s bored and they’re entertaining. This is all fine until Lincoln realizes that he’s invested in their lives—and falling for Beth. So our “A” plot is waiting for Lincoln and Beth’s meet-cute. Uh-huh.
Our “B” plot involves all the other people in Lincoln’s life: the smother mother who overfeeds him and insists he keep living with her; his older half-sister who needles him to get out of his rut; his sweet nerdy friends who play Dungeons & Dragons (ed: author has obviously never played a game of D&D, don’t include this detail without further research!); his good-time buddy who drags him to bars and concerts; the vending machine lady at work who comes to share his desserts at break time.
The would-be romance pales next to Lincoln’s actual relationships, which feel like lived-in denim. His small but brave efforts at self-improvement are emotionally poignant. (I see you, man using hair product for the first time!) If only I could delete the emails entirely. But then you don’t have artificial tension or a window on the Perfect Girl. Instead of a high concept romantic comedy you’d have…a beautiful novella.
If you like Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan together, this novel is your jam. If you know/knew a man in his late 20s struggling to get his life together, it might be your jam, too.