Something Borrowed

I'm a high school English teacher who likes poetry and wine, so I turned in my man card a long time ago. Still, when my wife said I should read this book, I hesitated. The cover is a soft pink. It has a wedding ring on it. These gave me pause.

Fast forward a few years to when I've just finished reading Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale and need something less epic in scope and language to read. Something Borrowed was still on my nightstand. (I'll also confess that, since my wife first read the book, I have met the author--our relationship is somewhere between casual acquaintances and friends--and I felt a wave of guilt over not having read this book.)

I'm sorry I waited so long.

Something Borrowed, as my wife described it, is "chick lit for show more smart people." It isn't Charles Dickens, nor is it trying to be. It's clever, witty, and seemingly dead-on about life for twenty-to-thirty-something professionals in Manhattan. Sometimes the plot is familiar, and a handful of minor characters--like Les the workaholic boss--are straight out of Central Casting.

If plots that are (at times) predictable run you off, two things will redeem this novel for you. The first is the writing. It's sharp and observant in a slightly cutting but not overly-bitchy way--picture a smarter and less mannered Sex in the City, for starters. Conversations are dramatized without undue dramaturgy, and there are longer scenes of description that do not drag but merely underscore the significance of what has or is about to happen. Emily Giffin knows when to show us a scene and when to just tell us a few things and move on. Her writing is at its best when describing and showing people. The main character, Rachel, offers insights not only about the people and the Manhattan life around her, but also about herself, her own feelings and interior plottings and calculations.

Which leads to the second thing that's very strong about this novel: the main characters. Rachel sweeps you up in her story--written in present tense, Rachel's narration pulls you along effortlessly--and reveals a lot about herself and her woes while avoiding saccharine, pity-party theatrics. Her best friend, Darcy, is a raging narcissistic bitch who is also a lot of fun to read about--she sharpens every scene that she's in and makes you understand why, even though she can be insufferable, everyone puts up with her, even cares for her. Dex, Darcy's fiance, could almost be a fantasy pin-up--brilliant, courageous, sensitive, and hot--except that he's portrayed as a real human being with emotions and baggage of his own...in other words, he's not perfect. (Although some readers might disagree.)

The premise is simple: on her thirtieth birthday, Rachel, who is single and constantly in the shadow cast by her best friend, party-girl Darcy, drinks one too many and ends up in bed with Dex, who in a few short months will be married to Darcy. Awkward! But Emily Giffin takes the time to explore not just the pratfall comedy that Hollywood would make of this in a movie but also issues of loyalty, betrayal, friendship, and love, along with the ever-present issue, for Rachel, of getting older and having fewer and fewer options for potential partnership bliss.

I often joke with my students about genre devices. Romantic comedies, for example: boy meets girl, boy almost gets girl, boy seems to lose girl, sad emo music plays while it rains, then boy redeems himself and gets girl. Something Borrowed is a romantic comedy of the old school set in early 21st-century Manhattan, a version of Bridget Jones' Diary that you could actually imagine happening.

Rachel's voice was fun to read and hear, and I'll miss it and her. Until the next time I pick up the novel. show less

Heavens, what a tense novel this is. I am finding the dilemma faced by Dex (the about to be groom) and the maid of honour to be very real. I don't know yet how it will be resolved - one part to go.

OK. This novel was excruciating! Of course, we only saw one point of view, Rachel's, but how on earth did she stick with Darcy. I thought I maybe didn't understand it because I never had such a friend from childhood, with all those memories to share before I married. But, a long time ago I read about not tolerating crazy people - they suck you dry. Leave you with a deficit in life. My good sense tells me the same should be said of boring narcissists like Darcy.

Is Dex spineless? as Ethan says. Certainly Rachel is spineless ... she values being show more rational and caring and patient - but she's excessively self-sacrificing - or how much is she a coward? or disastrously passive?

Until finally she asks him the million dollar question. Up till then, she avoids talking to him. She's afraid of the possible outcome if they make decisions. When she makes her demand of him, she doesn't talk about it. She doesn't even explain the Marcus thing. Always, each of them, they are strangely opaque. Not honest? Yet Dex always seemed earnest with Rachel - it mustn't the partner of honest that I thought it was. In the light of what he has told Rachel, how can he then not leave Darcy? He doesn't explain much of the reasoning behind his final decision to Rachel, and what's more thoroughly annoying, Rachel doesn't ask him, and she doesn't fight for him. One can't help but think her love for him is a little shallow, bound up in her passivity, and her competitiveness with Darcy.

Why didn't Rachel bow out of being the maid of honour? Wouldn't that have been the right thing to do once she'd decided to continue her affair with Dex? Parallel to what we expected of Dex - that he should withdraw from the engagement, once the liaison became an affair and he allowed it to continue through the lead up to the wedding.

I loved and hated this novel. it was long, drawn out - which is a pet peeve of mine. I was sick of Rachel's "voice" - or was it simply anger at the stalemate? - Rachel is the narrator. I was frustrated at not getting inside Dex's head. I could do without getting inside Darcy's head, which is why I have no desire to read Something Blue, since it is supposed to be from Darcy's perspective.

I'd have to agree with some other comments below, that this wasn't a romantic comedy - it was neither romantic or a comedy. The writing was clever, and to me it was more of an issues novel.

I'm curious about the movie, but I'm afraid I would find it too depressing!

PS: I've read some comments about "cheating" being the theme of the novel. Mmmm. Rachel is racked with guilt about it. I don't get that sense from Dex. Though he doesn't want to cause Darcy pain ... It seemed to me the guilt should be reversed. He was the one who should have felt guilt, as he was betraying both women by not committing wholeheartedly to either. Who was he? He was painted as quite noble - possessing worthy traits. Yet his conduct was reprehensible. It didn't seem logical that he would stay with Darcy unless it was out of pure cowardice. And Rachel's guilt distorted her good sense - as evidenced by her continued sycophantic behaviour towards Darcy. I found my feelings about Dex's reprehensibility startling - as I usually believe it is the single person - the one outside the established relationship - around which her life spins and goes nowhere - who plays the fool, and forfeits her life. And this is somewhat deserved since they are the outsider. But in this novel, I didn't think that - it shows the manipulative power of both Rachel's narration AND her passivity. Most of the time I felt that Dex alone was the cheater. Of course, both cheated. If he had chosen Rachel, I could have forgiven them both ...

Jennifer Wiltsie is the audiobook's narrator - she has a charming velvety voice, and I have a feeling Rachel benefits more than she should from her talent! show less

Author Emily Giffin can certainly tell a story. Rachel, the narrator, is a Midwest girl transplanted to the East Coast--first Duke for college, NYU for law school, and now working as a lawyer in a Manhattan law firm. Rachel has lived her life "by the rules" until her 30th birthday, when she sleeps with her best friend's fiance.

What I liked: Rachel felt real, for the most part. She is somewhat self-reflective and does grow and change over the course of the book. The flashbacks to elementary, middle, and high school back in Indiana were right-on. Rachel's friendships with Annalise and Ethan are authentic and heart-warming. The descriptions of life for successful twenty-somethings in Manhattan also seemed real, but how would I know?

What I show more didn't like: For someone as intelligent as Rachel, for her to be so blind to Darcy's true personality for over 20 years is astounding, and very sad. It only took one or two anecdotes for me to want to take Rachel by the shoulders and shake some sense into her! Yes, Rachel does occasionally see Darcy for who she is, but she quickly dismisses it or turns it into a condemnation of herself. I understand that Darcy is the bright candle to which all the moths are drawn, but after getting singed once or twice (or fifty or five hundred times), don't you think the moths would learn? Maybe not... and that is a sad commentary on popularity vs. friendship.

What else I didn't like: Dex and Marcus both remain rather one-dimensional. I realize we are seeing them only through Rachel's eyes, but I would have liked to know them more fully.

So, to sum up--I read this book in a day. It's a quick read, very well-told, but the problems I had with the characters kept me from giving it more stars. I understand Giffin's next book picks up where this one ends, but is told with Darcy as narrator. I may keep my eyes open for that... show less

I loved this book. I loved the main character Rachel, and I loved how the entire book, I could feel myself fearing that I would become her. Not because I have a best friend like that, but because I honestly think that my world would suck horribly and I know I'm just like her. At the end of the day, I am a nice girl, I am a doormat, and the few times that I have done something with little to no fear for personal pleasure, it has always backfired.

I can honestly assign so many traits and characters to each and every one of my friends in correlation to the book. I know that I am not the perfect Rachel, however I do embody so many of her qualities. I have no Darcy in my life to speak of, however I have befriended girls like her in the past show more and have usually let them steal the spotlight when we were in public. Lastly, Hillary is my Adam. Sorry dude, you're yet again a chick character, but you are honestly the person in my life who will yell, tell me the things I don't want to hear, and stick up for me when I am allowing myself to be put down or hurt.

The writing was so easy to read and I honestly couldn't put it down. I had to take a break from it, but I read it so quickly that I never wanted it to end. I even saw the movie first, and I still couldn't put the book down.

I honestly have decided to make this book an inspiration for the way I allow myself to be treated in life. Reading how Rachel justified things in her head helped me to understand why it is that I do the things in my life that caused me stress and pain. This book is acting as a warning to me for future incidents. show less

Very cute, although I just couldn't like Dex very much. And Rachael's martyr complex got annoying after a while, especially while she was using it as an excuse for having an affair. I kept thinking that this story would be much more interesting from Darcy's POV, so by the end I was mostly looking forward to getting it over so I could get to "Something Blue". Rachael and Dex deserved each other, and were so unrepentent that I can't help but think they'd better keep a close eye on one another when the thrill wears off and the relationship enters its ho-hum stage.

Updated May 6, 2020. I don’t support racist authors.

So here's the thing. I used to read Emily Griffin books. For some odd reason I have this book and the sequel to this on my Kindle from way back when. After overstuffing myself with true crime books, I decided to switch to some chick lit. I honestly don't recall reading this book and I am kind of horrified that I ever bought it in the first place.

"Something Borrowed" I think takes way too much pangs to absolve the main character in this one (Rachel) from the guilt she rightfully should feel about having a one night stand with her best friend's (Darcy) fiancee. I think my main romance book reading rule is for the most part, no cheating. I hate reading it and I have a hard time show more cheering on characters who are doing it. So I ended up finishing this one and the next one in the story "Something Blue" and found that one to actually be much better than this one. Not by much though, I gave the sequel to this one three stars, while the first book just two.

The main character in "Something Borrowed" is Rachel. She's about to celebrate her 30th birthday and is doing well professionally. However, she ends up drinking a lot at the birthday party her best friend Darcy throws for her. She ends up sleeping with Darcy's fiancee Dex and most of the book is her being upset at times about what she did and her trying to justify it because Darcy is evil incarnate.

I think the big issue for me is that Rachel cheats with her best friend's fiancee. I don't think that Griffin did a great job of showing that this was a clearly black and white situation, and had to amp up how terrible Darcy is/was in order to justify it to readers. I also don't believe that Rachel would have stayed friends with Darcy from childhood to her 30s if she was this flawed.

I also don't believe that Rachel and Dex were fighting off some long held attraction for each other. I found him boring and also to be an ass if I may say so. He sleeps with his fiancee's best friend and pretty much runs around most of the book trying to get her to do it again.

Rachel and Darcy have a mutual friend, Ethan, who honestly I think was a better match for Rachel. I was hoping that was the way things would go, but nope. Ethan was better than the other characters in this book by far.

I honestly didn't really dig the writing in this one. This is not my first foray into Griffin's books, but it's really boring reading about someone justifying cheating with a guy who is engaged to their best friend. Heck, even Carrie from Sex and the City realized she was garbage for cheating with Mr. Big and didn't dance around it.

The flow was awful in this one. Maybe because I was tired of Rachel's voice about at the 50 percent point.

And then the book ends on what is on what I think the author believes is a hopeful note. Ugh. I promptly went and read book #2 because that one was Darcy's story.

Also, I sadly recall this was made into a movie that I never did finish. I was trapped on a plane many many moons ago (years) and I recalled when this was offered as a selection. I tend to like Kate Hudson movies (or at least older ones) so put this on and turned it off about 20 minutes into the movie. This is not a romantic comedy. Lord. show less

Full disclosure: I probably should not have tried to win this book. I’ve liked some chick lit books but it’s not a genre I normally read.

Once I realized what it was about, I was really afraid I wouldn’t like it at all. I am relieved that I did like it, but only parts of it; parts I found very annoying.

I suspected and was partially correct that I could not get beyond: 1. a woman who would sleep with her lifelong best friend’s fiancé (no matter how flawed the friendship might be) and 2. why a woman would want a man who would cheat on his fiancé.

I did feel very exasperated during much of the book and I didn’t much like the end, and I rolled my eyes at some of the included discussion questions. (I skimmed through the excerpt of show more Something Blue, the next book in the series, and while I thought it was told from an interesting point of view, I doubt that I’ll be reading on.)

However, I did enjoy this book much more than I’d anticipated. The first person narration is told in an engaging way. If it had been about something only slightly different, I think I could have really liked it.

I really enjoyed the parts that talked about the childhood friendship; all the material from childhood and adolescence was fun and held my interest. I felt fond of quite a few of the characters, had fun reading the stuff about Manhattan, and parts of it were sufficiently funny to entertain me. I didn’t really identify with these characters, but I felt some pleasure in spending a finite amount of time with them, the time it took for me to read this book.

Much to my surprise every character was endearing, so it was worth the read. show less