Merle

I loved Fangirl and enjoyed Eleanor and Park, but this, Rowell's first novel, was not doing anything for me, so I set it aside after 55 pages. It could be that Rowell hadn't found her sea legs yet, or that because I am in the same demographic as these characters, I had less patience with them.

Our protagonist, Lincoln, is a loser. There's no getting around it. At age 29, he lives with his mom, who still bosses him around and cooks for him; he works a boring, unfulfilling job monitoring other people's email on the night shift, where he has virtually no interaction with anyone; he has no hobbies, unless you count D&D, and spends his free time watching reruns and surfing the internet; he has almost no friends; and he still hasn't moved on from his high school girlfriend, who (apparently) dumped him nearly a decade ago. This is supposed to be a romance! The guy needs some attractive (or at least adult) quality. It's interesting that Rowell went on to write male leads who were almost too perfect - maybe based on reactions to Lincoln; I don't know.

The gal, Beth, by page 55 we know only through her emails with her work BFF. This is based on the rather unlikely premise that two close friends who work together would conduct their serious conversations through email rather than actually talking - and since they aren't the losers Lincoln is, I'm not really buying it. Although Beth, at 28, and despite hearing wedding bells, is still with her college boyfriend, who is clearly not ready for any adult responsibilities and has probably only been with her this long because she pays the bills. I'm not sure Lincoln is much of an improvement, but maybe one of you who finished can let me know.

Anyway, a lot of people loved this and it's quick reading, so give it a try if you're interested. But to me, it needed to be cuter or funnier than it is to pull off these characters.