Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Attachments | 2011 | Rainbow Rowell | Buy |
| 2 | Eleanor & Park | 2012 | Rainbow Rowell | Buy |
| 3 | Fangirl | 2013 | Rainbow Rowell | Buy |
| 4 | Landline | 2014 | Rainbow Rowell | Buy |
| 5 | Slow Dance | 2024 | Rainbow Rowell | Buy |
| 6 | Cherry Baby | 2026 | Rainbow Rowell | Buy |
Rainbow Rowell published her first novel, Attachments, in 2011 after leaving journalism. Set in an Omaha newspaper office in 1999, it follows an IT worker who is supposed to be monitoring employee emails but instead falls for a woman through reading her messages to a friend. The premise sounds slight but the execution is warm and funny, and it established Rowell as a writer with real skill for rendering relationships through the small things people say to each other.
Eleanor & Park (2012) and Fangirl (2013) are the young adult novels that made her name. Eleanor & Park is a first love story set in 1980s Omaha between a girl from a difficult home life and a biracial boy who falls for her over shared comics and mixtapes on the school bus. It earned a Michael L. Printz Honor and remains one of the most discussed YA novels of that decade. Fangirl is quieter and funnier, following a college freshman who writes fan fiction for a fictional fantasy series and has trouble letting go of the life she had before.
Landline (2014) returned to adult fiction with a story about a TV writer who discovers she can call her husband in the past through a rotary phone. Slow Dance (2024), Rowell’s first adult novel since Landline, became a number one New York Times bestseller and a Reese’s Book Club pick. It follows two former high school friends who meet again at a wedding in their thirties and have to reckon with the fourteen years between them. Cherry Baby is due in 2026.