Book review: Landline

Title: Landline
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Summary: Georgie McCool's marriage to Neal is in bad shape.  A successful show runner, the TV pilot that she's been developing since college is finally getting picked up.  The problem?  It's a few days before Christmas.  And Georgie, Neal and their two daughters are supposed to head to Nebraska to visit Neal's family.  Georgie is forced to choose between family and work and she chooses work. Neal is pissed to say the least and takes the girls on his own to Nebraska.

Georgie ends up spending a lot of time at her mom's house and calls Neal at his mom's house when she cna't get ahold of him via his cell phone.  She quickly realizes that the Neal she's talking to is the Neal she knew when they first met.  Georgie has her future in her hands--would her and Neal have been better off if they had broken up?

Review: That's a long summary for me.  As somebody that struggles to balance work and family life, this book resonated with me a lot because I'm often pulled in both directions and I end up feeling like somebody is going to lose because I can't balance the two effectively.  And while Georgie and Neal's marriage isn't perfect, it has produced their two daughters, so even if Neal ends up leaving Georgie, that makes Georgie and Neal worth it, right?  But would their lives have been better if they hadn't gotten together?  I've always loved books like Sliding Doors and The Post Birthday World and while this isn't quite along the same lines, your mind sort of wanders to that place at times.

Time to write: 4:29