Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
June 4, 2004 by St. Martins Press
Hardcover, 322 Pages
Bought

Rachel and Darcy grew up as best friends, typical A and B type personalities, Darcy is the fun beautiful and vivacious wild child while Rachel is the level headed quiet beauty who focuses more on others than herself. While Rachel loves Darcy and sees her strengths as confidence, since the 5th grade she has tried to be independent and shine outside of Darcy. However, Rachel has always been background to Darcy's huge personality and things stay that way all through highschool. She really doesn't find herself until college and later in law school when she branches out and experiences sex, relationships and her friend Dex, the gorgeous guy she wants but knows she can't have because he's out of her league. As the friendship grows the romance go's nowhere, due to Rachel's guarded heart or lack of self worth, the guy who she desires, is the guy who meets her best friend Darcy and gets engaged to her a few months later........

Everything changes on the night of Rachel's 30th Birthday party. After a long night of drinking Dex and Rachel rekindle that old friendship and Rachel admits to him that she always liked him during law school. Dex is shocked because he always had the hots for Rachel and thought she wasn't interested. The night leads to the duo in bed and the aftermath results in scorching affair that leaves them both breathless and wanting to share their life together. Of course there is that moral dilemma of Dex being engaged to Darcy and Rachel being Darcy's best friend. I guess they just got so swept away with each other, they forgot about the moral consequences. Not only will the affair ruin Darcy and Rachel's friendship, but the girls family's, friends and traditions will all be thrown into an upheaval. The sneaking around, the jealousy and the lies compound into significant choices, ones that break hearts, showcase weakness and strengths and test the question of real loyalty.

While the novel focuses mainly on the romantic plights of Darcy and Rachel, the true story is about friendship and the levels of toxicity that destroy trust and the lengths of loyalty one will go to preserve a friendship. It takes Rachel almost the entire book to realize that Darcy (even before Dex) was an unhealthy relationship in her life, but due to parents and social circles breaking away from Darcy was next to impossible. The girls were on the brink of a breakup, Dex just catapulted things along. Even though everything was so jacked up in these characters lives, I liked that Rachel and Dex knew what was happening was wrong and that they did try and do the right thing, Dex by working with Darcy and Rachel by trying to move on for a potential relationship with Marcus, not that it made the moral question any less relevant, but it did show the characters not being total butt-wads, as much as that was possible due to the situation.

I also really enjoyed the past information the story sheds light on, Rachel spends a great deal of time telling us about her past relationships, some good, some awful and the constant competition with Darcy, not so much on Rachel's part, but the despicable selfishness Darcy projects on a regular basis. The book basically sets up Darcy as an unlikable character immediately and that feeling pretty much sticks until the end. Not that I wanted to see Darcy be cheated on, lose her guy or her dreams, but the girl was beyond any type of friend I would tolerate in my own life and she needed a wake up call. Partially by Rachel and partially by her own actions, Darcy does face that wake up call in drastic ways.

I don't know what it is this year with me winding up reading cheating books and you have all heard me say countless of times, cheating is cheating no matter how you color it, but due to the flawless, quirky writing overall I really liked this book. Were the characters and their actions careless, thoughtless and despicable? Why yes, they all reeked of debauchery and immorality, Rachel just came out a little less stinky than the rest of them.

Rating

Something Borrowed is recommended to adult readers and contains: Language, sexuality-including dialog, sexual situations & sex scenes, infidelity/cheating and drinking/clubbing.

4/5- Contemporary Romance


Something Borrowed~The Movie
May 2011 by Warner Brothers

Rachel- Ginnifer Goodwin
Darcy- Kate Hudson
Dex- Colin Eggelsfield
Ethan- John Karsinski
Marcus- Steve Howey




The characters of Rachel, Darcy and Dex were spot on, I though the casting was perfect and the script stayed very close to the personality's in the book. I thought both the actresses played the parts perfect. Dex was great, he could of been a tad more involved, the book has him much more passionate about Rachel when it came to the intensity of the affair, but he still came off as a cardboard character in both book and movie. In the little space of movie time I thought the actor brought Dex to life in a fantastic array of teeth and abs and eyes. Especially the library scene, I loved that part!!

Ethan- What I loved about the movie was the change of Ethan's character, in the book he was just Rachel's old friend who lives in London, in the movie he replaces the character of Hillary in the book, and he gets tons of her lines. I thought the change worked fantastic, as Ethan was one of reasons why I loved the movie so much. Outside of the major oops they had when they made Ethan "loving" Rachel at the end, the character was hysterical.

Warner Brothers- Movie Still (CC)

Marcus- Im on the fence with Marcus, in the book he was actually a very likable guy, he was nice and not portrayed as a player. His and Rachel's relationship had a tad bit of chemistry in the book and was only surface level in the movie. (Darcy went after Marcus in the book due to the fact she thought Rachel had a thing for him, the constant competition really wasn't the focus in the movie version I suppose that's why that angle wouldn't have worked). Marcus was also presented in the movie as an unemployed airhead, in the book he seemed pretty smart and had a good job, so Im not sure why such the drastic change in his personality, while it was funny, it really didn't make any sense.

Claire- I loved Claire...shes such an airhead in the book and is pretty much an airhead in the movie, however I thought the movie made her much more colorful.

Overall the movie stays very close to the original story line, a few changes here and there were made to fit it into a movie length plot-line and some stuff was changed about Darcy and Rachel's friendship with Ethan, some childhood memories and the roles their moms and dads played. The only change I hated was the added stuff about Dex's parents (not even a factor in the book) the story with his mom, all added threads not needed.

All in all a great romantic movie to watch on girls night........but of course I would recommend the book first then the movie for a fun follow up.