Something Borrowed
by Emily Giffin
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Book Reviews of Something Borrowed
Book Review: A few hours of my life that I'll never get back
Summary: 1 Stars
First a positive- its an easy read and does keep your attention until the end and THANK GOODNESS it only takes a few hours to ready it.
NOW onto the negative- I couldn't agree more with the other reviews of this book. Are you seriously supposed to relate to Rachel and think of her as a protagonist- someone who carries on an affair with her supposed best friend Darcy's fiance and justifies it by concentrating on the things she dislikes about Darcy and the petty jealousies she's felt for Darcy throughout their friendship? Sure, Darcy has done some distasteful things to Rachel and others but Rachel chooses to stay friends with her to the point that she's Darcy's maid of honor. No one can FORCE you to stay friends with someone. I view Rachel as an insecure, jealous person who has no moral compass. And onto Dex- you're supposed to view him as a romantic hero. Again, how is this possible, you have a spineless guy who starts up an affair with his fiance's best friend. Doesn't break off the engagement until the 11th hour.
What irks me the most is how the author tries to provide a scapegoat for any ill will you feel towards Rachel and Dex by having Darcy confess that she too had an affair with Marcus, one of Dex's groomsmen. UH, no it doesn't work like that. Not justifying what Darcy did but let's think about this, she starts up with Marcus weeks after Darcy and Dex hook up and she does this one weekend in the Hamptons while Dex and Darcy are back in the city carrying on their torrid affair. Dex clearly has been pulling away from Darcy (its mentioned at some point they weren't having sex) and she senses this and I think this makes her vulnerable and take the action that she did. However I think the author is basically trying to say- see Darcy is a horrible person she had an affair too so Dex and Rachel were right all along to have an affair behind her back.
Its a shame the novel ended this way, I was looking forward to Rachel and Dex being caught and seeing how they handled it and how Darcy would react.
Book Review: I don't get the hype...
Summary: 1 Stars
Something Borrowed is about a woman who on her 30th Birthday gets drunk, does the unthinkable and sleeps with her best friend's fiance'. Oops, you mean that doesn't happen all the time? As if that is not bad enough, she and the friend's fiance' decide they have feelings for each other (while sober) and start an affair behind the best friend's back.
Now, with that mentioned I must say I really disliked this book. I truly do not consider myself prudish in any way, but I strongly disagree with the reviewers who state you find yourself rooting for the deceptive couple. They are having an affair behind her best friend's back! It really doesn't matter if the best friend is an awful, selfish jerk. That is the great thing about friends, YOU CHOOSE THEM! If she is that bad why continue to be friends with her? The basis for this is the "heroine" in Something Borrowed is somewhat of a pushover and a supposed good person who can't be mean to her best friend and tell her where to go. But it's ok to sleep with her fiance'? I just don't get it.
Again, I don't think myself close mined or prudish but the author just did not create a sympathetic enough heroine for me to say it was alright for her to cheat with her best friend's fiance'. And if it is true love (which of course the author had to spin it as if they were completely in love with each other), CALL OFF THE WEDDING! Dex (Mr. Cheater - the hero) takes forever to make the decision to call off the wedding.
There were so many different ways this book could have been plotted to make a more agreeable and acceptable situation. Make the fiance' that of her worst enemy (which I guess Darcy would have fallen under the category of frenemy). At least then when describing the horrible things that were done to the heroine I would have formed a bit of sympathy, not something she would put up with because she is weak.
Bad heroine, bad hero, bad secondary characters make for a bad book I do not recommend to anyone.
Book Review: You Just DON'T Cross That Line....
Summary: 4 Stars
Although the book was well-written, I also thought that what Rachel did was so wrong - that I had trouble liking Rachel. She crossed a line that I would never go near. You just DON'T do that to your best childhood friend!
I managed to finish the book and hesitated about reading, "Something Blue." I'm glad that I did, however.
I felt that Rachel had known Darcy since she was five and that in many ways, she HELPED to create the person that Darcy had grown into. (Not to mention that Darcy's mother taught her that this "superficialness" was what life and marriage was all about.) Rachel never really tried to teach Darcy that there might be a better way as they were growing up. She had known Darcy since they were five - and you are telling me that Rachel couldn't have greatly influenced Darcy's behavior and character if she had helped her? She was so insincere with Darcy - not only during the affair, but throughout her life. If Darcy was such a terrible person, WHY was Rachel her best friend for 25 years? The truth is that like all of us, Darcy had some real strengths and some major weaknesses as well.
And Darcy was with Dex for SEVEN YEARS. (That doesn't sound like a flighty person to me!) Seven years of being faithful when men are constantly throwing themselves at her on a daily basis. I think that it is easy for people to say that they would be faithful, but I think that if others were constantly tempting them - it might be a different story. I think that it is easy to judge beautiful women - however it is true that the world DOES treat beautiful people in a different manner.
I think it is possible that BOTH women were self-absorbed. Rachel with her intellect and Darcy with her beauty; both women seemed pretty proud in these areas - which isn't necessarily wrong.
Something Borrowed was beautifully written. However, it was like a painful train wreck that I couldn't take my eyes off of.
Book Review: Entertaining, but empty in the end.
Summary: 2 Stars
One of the reasons I bought this book was because of the outstanding reviews. However, I was disappointed. I know I am supposed to sympathize with Rachel, but I don't. She paints her best friend Darcy as this horrible person. Certainly, their friendship isn't perfect. Darcy is selfish and competitive. However, Rachel never speaks up! Besides, how dare she criticize Darcy when all the while she is the one sleeping with her fiance. I found her behavior disgusting. I can't believe that Rachel would have been loveless for the rest of her life without Dex. Why couldn't she mourn her loss and find someone who was NOT engaged to her best friend?
Secondly, Rachel is a wimp with Dex. She is supposed to be in love with him, but for the longest time accepts that fact that he will marry Darcy. Then, when she does decide she wants him, she does absolutely nothing about it and carries on their disgusting affair, pathetically hoping that Dex will eventually decide to break things off with Darcy.
Thirdly, I am supposed to think that Dex is a dreamboat, but I hated him. The deception of sneaking around and carrying on an affair with your fiance's best friend all the while giving no hint that he was planning to break up with the fiance or mistress makes his pond scum no matter how much the author couches it in the "but they were in love" scenario. Whatever happened to breaking ties with a bad relationship BEFORE venturing on another? What is wrong with our society that this kind of thing has almost become acceptable? Sorry, I just couldn't get over that one. I never bought that Darcy was really all that horrible to begin with anyway. And if she was horrible, why on earth was he with her for seven years?
In summary, I found the book to be contrived and the characters to be unsympathetic. The only positive thing I can say about it is that it was an entertaining read. I certainly flew through it.
Book Review: Hate the characters, love the book.
Summary: 3 Stars
There seems to be a sub-genre in chick-lit which has impossibly good girls doing impossibly bad things, and this is supposed to be some sort of redemptive good thing; like a transition into womanhood. And in all these "good girl turned bad" books, the characters that are hurt are so stereotypically horrible, that we are led to believe that we shouldn't be at all sympathetic to them.
The thing is, nobody is as "good" as Rachel, and nobody is as "bad" as Darcy. If Darcy was that bad, and Dex still loved her, then what does that make him? And why on earth would Rachel be interested in him?
I just can't get my head around why Rachel would be a sympathetic character. And I certainly would identify more with her than a Darcy character - I suspect most people would - but nonetheless, I kept wanting to slap her and shake some sense into her.
The character I liked the most was Rachel's friend from her law firm. She spoke sense and called a spade a spade. I wish Darcy would have listened to her.
And what about Dex? Why does he get off so easy? All the characters seem to have sympathy for him in the end. I don't get it. He's not man enough to admit to his fiance, the woman he's supposed to have been in love with for SEVEN years, that he loves her best friend. Regardless of whether he still loves her, he at least owes it to her to be honest and tell her the full truth, something he didn't do even in the end. And some people might say, "oh, well she did the same thing, even worse..." and the answer to that is, "well, then that makes him just as bad as her, in which case Rachel needs to show them both the door..."
I don't regret reading this book, and it's definitely good chick-lit and well written; just because I don't like the ending doesn't mean I can't appreciate the story, and the way it was written.