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Book Review:
Something Borrowed, Emily Giffin
Meet Rachel White, a young attorney living and working in Manhattan. Rachel has always been the consummate good girl - until her thirtieth birthday, when her best friend, Darcy, throws her a party. That night, after too many drinks, Rachel ends up in bed with Darcy's fiancé. Although she wakes up determined to put the one-night fling behind her, Rachel is horrified to discover that she has genuine feelings for the one guy she should run from. As the September wedding date nears, Rachel knows she has to make a choice. In doing so, she discovers that the lines between right and wrong can be blurry, endings aren't always neat, and sometimes you have to risk all to win true happiness. Something Borrowed is a phenomenal debut novel that will have you laughing, crying, and calling your best friend.
SOMETHING BORROWED
Format: Paperback
Pages: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publishing Date: June 1, 2004
[Warning: This review contains slight spoilers. Like you couldn't have guessed anyway.]
I'm a sucker for books that claim they're New York Times bestsellers, so when I spotted this pink gem at my university book store, I picked it up and tried to hide the fact that I'd just picked up a book with a completely pink cover. It's not that I was embarrassed about wanting to buy a book per se, but I was somewhat chagrined to find that nowadays, chick-lit books automatically come with pink covers. All the more to proclaim your grrl power to the world, I suppose. After perusing the back cover, I contemplated spending the whole $16.95 on it when I could use that money toward, say, one ridiculously expensive martini, or one month's interest on my student loan. More alarming than my cheapness was the fact that right on the cover was a magnificent review from Lauren Weisberger, the same woman who shamelessly penned The Devil Wears Prada. "Here's a heroine you'll root for and a book you won't want to put down," Lauren foreshadows for me.
After perusing the magazine racks for a while, I found myself back at the new paperbacks display table, staring at the pink book. "I need this book," I told myself. "I've been reading textbooks and boring theoretical papers for the past seven months. I need something mind numbing and fun. I need to read something that doesn't require me to look up every other word in a dictionary." (I must point out that I often talk to myself in bookstores, so this was no new development.) I flipped the book open to an arbitrary page. There was something on it about paying a cover charge and going into a club in the Hamptons. I looked around, and then quickly shuffled to the cashier with my pink item.
On the first page there are hundreds of reviews from other reputable publications, all saying the same thing, more or less. "Instead of falling back on easy chick-lit clichés, Giffin deftly depicts the hopeful hearts behind an unsympathetic situation," writes someone from Entertainment Weekly. Glamour agrees: "[Rachel] is seriously flawed…but also surprisingly winning and real." Ripsaw Magazine would also like to add, "Giffin's attention to detail and love for her central female characters gives Something Borrowed an endearing edge…goes beyond a selfish quest for love to take a semi-critical look at female relationships." You know that girl in the thriller-of-the-week movie, who runs around the first half of the film telling everyone that so-and-so is crazy, and ends up getting killed first just so that everyone finally believes that so-and-so, who seemed like the epitome of sane, is actually nutty? After reading these reviews, I felt like the fanatic girl, running around telling everyone that this book isn't what it seems; that is, it isn't that great. But who's going to listen after it's been praised to high hell? And then I thought maybe I was being too critical and I needed to read it with an open mind, although I can't think of any reason why I would be biased against Emily Giffin, a woman I've never met and who looks like a pretty nice person in her bio picture.
The difficult thing about writing any novel is that the protagonist has to be likeable, or else the reader isn't going to relate to the book at all. Even a psychotic cannibal like Hannibal Lecter was redeemed somewhat by killing people that were even less likeable than him. Plus, he was pretty complex and interesting for a bad guy. By setting Rachel up as a big ol' cheater - which is hard to redeem any way you look at it - Giffin already has her plate full. But the premise isn't the part that's hard to swallow. I can swing caution with any situation; after all, it's not that far-fetched that sometimes people are attracted to the wrong person. It's Rachel. She's uninteresting and whiny and has the backbone of a jellyfish.
So Rachel is the perpetual good girl. She's the girl who returns her library books on time and always writes thank you notes for every gift she's ever received. And she has this best friend, Darcy, who is the spoiled beauty queen. Darcy is gorgeous and has the perfect life. They've known each other since grade school, and now Darcy is getting married to Dexter, who is also supposed to be pretty perfect himself. Rachel is happy for her friend, but she's also bitterly jealous and really has self-esteem issues. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it too soon.
After Rachel's birthday party, there's a contrived situation that allows Dexter to hang out with Rachel longer than he should. After many, many beers - which Rachel downs like a champ without batting a drunken eyelash - they find themselves back at her place, with sexy results.
Now that the deed is done, Rachel feels guilty, but the guilt is less along the line of I've-just-slept-with-my-best-friend's-love-of-her-life and more like I-forgot-to-feed-my-neighbour's-cat. This comes as no shock, if you've been following my description of Darcy closely. Darcy is spoiled. Darcy is a brat. Darcy is selfish. In many ways, Darcy could very well be Carrie from "Sex & The City." Because Darcy is all of these negative things it should, in the reader's eyes, propel Rachel to a likeable zone far above Darcy.
And here lies my first criticism of the book. Darcy and Rachel have a classic dysfunctional relationship. Although they are supposed best friends, you can tell that the friendship lies more in comfort than it does in respect. Darcy competes with Rachel, and Rachel, through years of putting up with this crap, has developed an inferiority complex. She just assumes that Darcy is the better person, the one that all the boys want to hook up with and the girls all want to be. Instead of stopping this unhealthy comparison (i.e. Darcy gets all the breaks, Darcy has a better body, Darcy has a better tan), and moving on with her life, Rachel only fuels the fire. We can see this when Rachel decides to bring up a story about a damn backpack, or when in the sixth grade, Darcy decides to like the same boy that Rachel does and winds up dating him for a couple of weeks. As I turn the pages, I can't believe Rachel still talks to an obviously self-centered and spiteful person. But, as this all unravels on page 25, I know that I will have to hear more of it. So Darcy is mean and maybe not such a good friend, but I just can't sympathize with Rachel because she just lets it go on.
The second criticism comes about five pages later, when Giffin decides to let us in on some background story. Now we learn that not only has Rachel known Dexter for about ten years, she is also the one that has set Dexter and Darcy up. The context of Rachel and Dexter hooking up would have made a lot more sense if the reader had been privy to the fact that Rachel and Dexter were actually good friends since law school and knew each other independently of Darcy, but that's just a small issue. The larger one stems from the fact that as Rachel reminisces about her friendship with Dexter, she makes it clear that she had never liked him that way, or that she did but never considered him because he's out of her league or something. But after the great drunken sex, Rachel is suddenly realizing that he's her soul mate - which either means that now that he's paid attention to her, she thinks she has a chance and this has awakened her innate feelings, or she is suddenly in love with him because he showed interest. Either way, the Rachel's feelings seem contrived and artificial. I know they're not supposed to be, but Giffin writes them as if they were.
Rachel decides to break things off, but Dexter is obsessed with her, or something, and keeps calling and harassing her. Well, that's one version - the other is that Dexter is also guilt-ridden but can't help his feelings for his old school chum. Rachel becomes the Other Woman and lies to her friends, and herself, about what is happening. She tells herself that she can't be jealous or petty because Dexter is supposed to marry someone else, although it breaks her up inside. She finally tells an intuitive friend what is going on, and the friend, perhaps the most likeable person in this book, advises her to confront Dexter and give him an ultimatum. This is around page 125, and by 250 Rachel still hasn't done anything. Any sympathy I may have had for her situation quickly disappears with her spine. I do understand the tricky Other Woman situation, and the depressing prospect of having a broken engagement on your hands, but really. Rachel put herself in this situation, and she can either go along with it and stop whining, or put her foot down and face the consequences. Her wishy-washiness is irritating.
To make things even more contrived and predictable, we go along with Rachel on another reminiscing journey, where she recalls a study break with Dexter that is straight out of a movie. Upon hearing a very funny story told by Dexter, Rachel laughs her ass off so much so that she begins crying. He tenderly wipes the tear off and stares deep into her eyes. Because Rachel does not think she has a chance with Dexter, or doesn't like him that way, or whatever she's supposed to be thinking, she breaks off The Moment and calls it a night. Because it's not important until now, it is tucked away deep into the recesses of her subconscious until it's convenient to pull it up. Either Rachel is really dense and doesn't know what boys do when they like you, or Darcy has brainwashed her into thinking no man would ever want her. As it turns out, Dexter remembers The Moment too, and was actually really hot for her. My advice to him: Dexter, do not wait ten years and an engagement later to ask someone out. That is really pushing the statute of limitations on any crush.
As more and more people find out about Rachel's indiscretions, it comes as no surprise that everyone is rooting for her, not Darcy. As you might recall, Darcy is a horrible person that doesn't deserve to get married - at least not to the man that proposed to her, because he's actually perfect for Rachel. Rachel eats this up, of course, and it gives her more confidence to continue the affair. As you might also recall, Rachel has low self-esteem and needs validation from other people to make her life choices. She probably owns a copy of The Rules also, although it is only implied by my overactive imagination and Rachel's doormat attitude. When someone comments on her pale skin and says it's attractive, you can see Rachel drop her mouth and say, "Really? Because Darcy is tanned and so I thought being pale meant I was ugly, but because you tell me otherwise, this means I can land a man too. I can't wait to write this in my 'I Hate Darcy' notebook."
Just when you thought it would finally end, there are a bunch of Reading Group questions included in the back pages of the book. They ask things like, "Was Rachel's moral dilemma made easier because of Darcy's personality?" and "Is anything about Rachel and Darcy's friendship genuine?" Thank you, Reading Group Guide, for clearing up the intricacies of this book for me. And by golly, there is a follow up book called Something Blue, which is told from Darcy's point of view. Who wants to bet that underneath Darcy's shallow façade lays a damaged and scared little girl?
Something Borrowed is chick-lit at its stripped down finest. Giffin's writing style is relaxed and casual, and she has a habit of including every little thing in her narrative, including five lines of a dialogue that serves absolutely no purpose than to show you that two people are having a conversation. Also, as we learn without fail, all the attractive people in this book are described as having "full lips" and a tan. Despite the fresh premise, the book is ultimately riddled with clichés about character development and happy endings. And there's nothing wrong with that, especially when you're looking for a light and fun read that will leave you satisfied at the end. But with the way Rachel is written, you'd kind of wish that she didn't get the guy at the end. In fact, you might wish that all three main characters would end up single. At least this way they can all take time to grow an extra layer of substance. ¤ C.Ho.
SOMETHING BORROWED:
out of 5