"Landline" by Rainbow Rowell

      Landline is the latest novel by Rainbow Rowell, and author who has written both adult and YA romance novels. Landline follows the story of TV writer Georgie McCool as she struggles to balance her work life and her home life, while the state of her marriage declines. When she attempts to postpone a family holiday vacation as the result of an emergency at work, her husband, Neal, insists on taking their children home for Christmas anyway without Georgie. During the holiday week, Georgie tries to call Neal at his mother's house--however Neal's habit of never charging his cell phone leads to Georgie resorting to her parent's old rotary land-line phone to call Neal's mother's land-line. What Georgie soon realises is that this land-line connection allows her to call Neal in the past before they were ever married. Georgie now has an opportunity to either fix her marriage before it begins or to end it and see if they would have been better off never being married in the first place.
      I first discovered Rainbow Rowell's novels when her YA novel Fangirl hit the library shelves and I found myself faced with another author who's novels I wanted to binge read. Unfortunately until July of 2014, there were only 3 novels to binge read--and it's very difficult to binge read slowly when you're a speed reader. So when Landline was published in July, I jumped on it. Immediately I realised that this wasn't going to be like her other books. This one seemed to be darker, and less idealistic that Attachments, Fangirl, or Eleanor & Park had been. Not to say that it crosses the border into Gone Girl territory--not at all. Rather, it paints a picture of the "what happens after the happily-ever-after" that all her other novels end at. While all of her novels have an element of realism and identifiable situations andcharacters (that's what hooked me in with Fangirl, after all), this one takes it a step further and describes a romantic relationship that has already reached the happily ever after stage and now has to deal with the reality of...reality. It made the story of Georgie and Neal much more emotional.
      Landline by Rainbow Rowell, as well as her three other novels, are available at the Ocean City Free Public Library.

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The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker

For some reason, I felt like it took me forever to finish this one, which is strange because it was a rather cute little story. Truly is a heroine of enormous proportions - she was born big (which ultimately kills her mother and turns her father into an alcoholic) and continues to just grow and grow throughout her life in upstate New York. All of this is compounded by the fact that her older sister, Serena Jane, is beloved by the rest of the town for being little, dainty, beautiful and perfect. Despite all of these hardships, Truly remains a kind figure, if something of an outcast. However, after her sister's untimely demise, Truly must move in to take care of Serena's nefarious husband and child. And this is where things start to get a little...crazy. There's lots more to this story than I'm describing - betrayal, murder, mysticism and true love. The pacing is quick and Baker does a nice job of characterization. Overall, a good read.

OCFPL Book Club - January

Welcome to the 2023 OCFPL Book Club season. We chose quite the range of books this year. We hope you can join us in our monthly virtual discussions as we set off on this year's reading adventure. This month we discussed The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan. Overall many members of our book club enjoyed this book. They loved how the stories of the various characters intertwined with each other. Bridging the past to the present. Going back and forth with these stories at first does not make sense until the end, when the final puzzle piece is placed do you see the whole picture and it is quite delightful to see all that unfold. One of the elements of this book is the story of how random things that are found have stories to them. A lost puzzle piece found on the road or a random hair bobble found on the ground in the park may mean nothing to a simple person who may walk right past it. Yet for Anthony, our keeper of lost things, revered these items. Carefully recorded where and

OCFPL Book Club - February

This month we discussed Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Most of our discussion group enjoyed this book. They loved how the story started with two sisters and how the lineage grew with each of them but at the end, those who were once separated have found their way back to each other. Also, seeing the impact and development of history throughout the generations in this story. While the book only touched the beginnings of the history of Ghana, we discussed how through this book we learned more about slave history that what we knew before. It was eye opening and though provoking. The element of trauma that can cause a generational fear in the family was interesting to see unfold through the story. How the fear of water was caused by a drowning from the past and the fear of fire was caused from a massive fire from another past trauma through in the family. It may seem insignificant but it led to the discussion of how we reflect on our own fears and the fears off our parents or family members

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