Lara is haunted by her great aunt Sadie who insists that Lara help her find a necklace, so she can rest in peace. To save Sadie's body from getting cremated, Lara states that she thinks her great aunt was murdered, which was ridiculous. Lara makes up an extremely ludicrous story about her great aunt being poisoned and is taken down to the police station to be questioned. After this incident, that thread of the story is dropped. Lara never has any repercussions from leading the police on a wild goose chase except for a couple of toss away moments where one of the PI's calls or reappears.

This would have been easier to overlook if Lara wasn't such a twit for the rest of the book. She's freakishly obsessed with her ex-boyfriend and she's so wishy-washy about her own business that I want to shake some sense into her. Then there's Sadie who is constantly screeching in her ear about a necklace to the point that I was hoping the cops would come and arrest Lara to put her out of her misery.

I think Lara was supposed to be a Bridget Jones type character, but she lacks the charm and wit that Jones had. Lara's screw-ups and embarrassing moments are supposed to be funny, but all they achieved was to make me squirm. The only highlight to the novel was when Sadie stopped acting like a spoiled 5 year old. Once Sadie stopped yelling that things are "MINE!" and screeching about things, she was an interesting character. In fact, it got to the point where I started wishing that the two characters would swap places. I much rather have read about Sadie falling in love, getting a career, and making her life work rather than Lara who just coasted through everything.

Attachments is set in the year 1999 amidst all the Y2K craziness. During this time, technology was taking off and most companies began scrambling to find ways to monitor their employees' computer activity. Fear of slacking off at work and using company time for illicit internet viewing made many employers hire IT people to monitor the worker's online activity.

Lincoln is one of those IT people. His job consists of basically three things; reading red flagged e-mails, fixing occasional computer problems, and being bored out of his mind. He hates his job. The late hours and reading other people's e-mails makes him feel like a voyeuristic troll. Despite his aversion to the job, he can't help but enjoy reading the red flagged e-mail exchanges between employees Jennifer and Beth.

Attachments alternates between Lincoln's story and the e-mails between Beth and Jennifer. Lincoln eventually develops a crush on Beth despite never having seen her and eventually travels out of the basement to figure out who she is.

All in all, this is a pretty sweet story. I was a little leery at first since the plot sounded like it could easily venture into creepy stalker territory but luckily, it managed to avoid that. Lincoln's interest in Beth felt like a crush you'd get on an oblivious co-worker and I thought him reading Beth and Jennifer's e-mails was handled really well.

Lincoln was definitely the highlight of the book for me. Still reeling from his break-up with his longtime girlfriend, Lincoln took the job in the IT department thinking of it as something temporary until he figured out what to do with his life. Incredibly shy, Lincoln has a hard time branching out and meeting new people. He has his small group of friends and family, but otherwise isolates himself from the rest of the world. Throughout the novel, we get to see him build up his confidence and find direction in life.

In contrast to Lincoln, Beth is outgoing and doing a job she loves. However, we only get to know Beth through her e-mails with Jennifer and this started to annoy me as the story progressed. While I enjoyed the e-mails, I wanted to know more about Beth and Jennifer than what you could get through their correspondence. Both of their characters were great and I got sucked into their individual stories. So, I would have liked to have seen a couple of chapters from their points of view interspersed throughout the novel.

All in all, this was a pretty fast and light read. I would recommend it to people who enjoyed Bridget Jones's Diary, Meg Cabot's non-young adult books, or Jennifer Crusie's writing.

My Rating: Omitted. (Fluctuates)

Initial Thoughts: Creative and engrossing.

Post-Thoughts: A bit too long in comparison to what the author had to say but the author certainly has a way with words.

My Review:

This is such an incredibly hard book to write a review for and because of that I’ve decided to omit a rating. Not because it doesn’t deserve one but because, similar to the main character, my rating seemed to reset itself over and over throughout the book. Sometimes the rating was high, sometimes the rating was low, and sometimes the rating was completely null.

First, though, let’s start with why the rating could be high. Kate Atkinson has a way with words and storytelling. At every turn, it was so easy to get swept away. Whether Ursula was living or dying, a child or an adult, I found myself completely engrossed in the plot, which is intricate and creative enough to keep things going at a steady clip. That’s no small feat for a book that is over 500 pages (hardcover).

The problem, I think, comes in later, which leads me to why the rating could be low. I found the characters to be a bit dull overall – don’t get me wrong, they have their moments, but none of them were particular standouts. Similarly, while the plot was interesting, I just found the constant resetting of Ursula’s life a bit repetitive – I know, I know! You don’t have to tell me that was the whole point – the exploration of choices leading to different outcomes – but with this book having such a high page count, it gets a bit tedious.

Now, as for the null rating that I’ve chosen, it’s a two-fold thing. On the one hand, I really do think that was a superb read for the writing alone and that many people will just love it to pieces. On the other hand, I found it a bit too long (there were a few times that I wish Ursula would die and stay dead) and, personally, didn’t find it to be a standout anything. I mean, am I glad I read it? Sure. Do I want to read it again? Absolutely not.

So, again, no rating from me, but it’s definitely a book that’s worth a ratings discussion at the very least.