Friday, May 6, 2011

Something Blue by Emily Giffin

Something Borrowed was the story of Rachel and how she fell in love with her best friend Darcy’s fiancé, Dex (see my review here). Something Blue is the follow-up novel with Darcy’s side of the story.

SPOILER ALERT (for those who haven’t read Something Borrowed)

Something Blue starts shortly before Something Borrowed has ended. Although Darcy is pregnant with another man’s child, she is more than a little bit angry to find out that Dex is with Rachel after their break-up. The novel tells the story from Darcy’s point of view of her friendship with Rachel, relationship with Dex, and her attraction to Marcus.

Darcy is selfish and self-absorbed, but she doesn’t really seem to realize this or how it affects her relationships. After her obsession with Rachel and Dex affects her relationship with Marcus, she flees to London to visit her friend Ethan. There Ethan is able to finally able to break through to Darcy and to get her to think about life in broader terms than just herself.

SPOILER END

Giffin did a superb job of telling the story through Darcy’s self-centered voice. This is also the one flaw of the novel; Darcy is not as likeable a heroine as Rachel. Darcy is really not overall a bad person, she does genuinely think that she is a good friend to Rachel and really cares for her. But she is so self-obsessed that it’s hard to bear her at times. That being said, I still enjoyed the book and liked that Darcy was able to redeem herself. It was nice for Darcy to have a chance to become more than a one-dimensional “mean girl” and to grow into a nicely rounded character.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and read it quickly. I thought it was a great companion book to Something Borrowed, but I don’t know if it would be a good book on its own if you hadn’t read the first book.

Is anyone going to see Something Borrowed? I’m going with my FLICKS Book and Movie club probably sometime at the beginning of June – I’m excited!

Book Source: The Kewaunee Public Library

5 comments:

  1. I have both of these books and hope to get to them sometime. I will probably wait for the movie to come out on dvd although it does look like a great movie to see with a bunch of girlfriends.

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  2. Nice review of Something Blue!
    Have a wonderful Mother's Day, Laura!

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  3. I haven't seen Something Borrowed yet. I read Something Blue but didn't enjoy it as much. It's hard to transition when Darcy was the villain in the first book.

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  4. I liked this book, and Darcy, a lot better than I liked Something Borrowed. The characters seemed a lot more likeable in this one.

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  5. Interesting Marg! Do you think it is because you got to finally hear Darcy's side of the story, or because it wasn't about the morality of cheating with your best friend's fiance?

    I identified better with Rachel than Darcy, but I think you must give Darcy her due. She always thought she was being a good friend.

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