May 9, 2011

Something Borrowed and Something Blue by Emily Giffin

Friday night I went to see the new romantic comedy Something Borrowed with one of my good girl friends. It was exactly what I needed. It wasn't until after the movie that I actually realized that the movie was based on the novel, Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin. Since I liked the movie so much I immediately asked my friend to borrow the book and went to the library on Saturday to pick up the sequel, Something Blue. And proceeded to read both books in the course of 48 hours.

Let me just throw it out there before I get to my reviews - this is one book where I just recommend you see the movie. It had the perfect combination of believeable humor, stolen kisses, and plot to keep me entertained and I'm already planning to go see it again.



Something Borrowed was okay, but for once in my life I actually preferred the movie. The book is about two best friends - Rachel and Darcy - who have been best friends forever. The friendship is dominated by competition, with Darcy always winning. Darcy is more beautiful, more glamorous, more wealthy, etc.  Rachel is her dutiful and loyal sidekick, the straight A, good-girl who never does anything wrong. Until she sleeps with Darcy's fiancee, Dex, on the night of her 30th birthday. And doesn't feel bad about it. The novel is told from Rachel's point of view as she learns to stick up for herself and not let Darcy win for the first time i her life.

Maybe I would've felt different if I'd read the book before the movie, but I feel that the movie portrayed the relationship between Rachel and Dex in a different light than the book did. The movie built up more of a pre-Darcy relationship between Rachel and Dex, which made me more sympathetic with what she'd done. In the book, the birthday incident just happens, and it's not quite as forgiveable when it doesn't come with the build up of a pre-Darcy law school crush.

Then there's Something Blue, which is the sequel to Something Borrowed, and follows Darcy on her journey after the whole Rachel/Dex fiasco. I'm not going to give many details so I don't spoil anything for you, but I actually kind of hated the book. This again might be the fault of seeing the movie and falling in love with the characters in the movie, but the story in Something Blue was just unrealistic to me. I may just be a cynical person, but I couldn't get over how Darcy could just change her life and have such a perfect ending after the book (and movie actually) forced me into hating her.

So to sum it all up, I would skip the books and go see the movie.


5 comments:

  1. I actually disagree with your review. I loved the books and thought that they were great. I didn't mind the movie, I was afraid I was going to have problems with it but it was alright. I still loved the books better. I think its very believable that Darcy would grow and mature in the way she did in the second book.

    Spoiler Alert:

    You have to remember that she didn't have everything turn out perfect, she wanted a little girl and to marry a dex thaler type. When she found out that she wasn't having the girl and that she was having boys her life got much more complicated. She had one of those life changing awakenings. I am glad that the second book was exactly the way it was. Because we the reader/audience hated her and the writer created her story and changed our hearts.

    Thanks
    Regina Roy
    Wordless Thoughts
    http://wordlessthoughts-pseudoname131.blogspot.com/

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  2. I agree with the review. Although I did enjoy Something Borrowed, and was completely glued to it for 2 days, I was sorely disappointed in "something Blue". Although the book was VERY entertaining, I too, felt it just wasn't believable. I truly want to beleive that someone's character could change as drastically as Darcy's did, but I just thing it could happen. The Darcy character had too many flaws.

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  3. how could anyone be disappointed with something blue...it was the better of the two books. I agree with @regina's comment. I loved something blue, and felt that the change in darcy's character is what made the book more interesting.

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  4. Based on everyone's comments, I really do wish I'd read the books before I saw the movie. It sounds like my opinion may have been different if my view of Ethan and Darcy's characters and relationships hadn't been skewed based on the Hollywood version.

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