Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin

“I love him wholly and unconditionally and without reservation. I love him enough to sacrifice a friendship. I love him enough to accept my own happiness and use it, in turn, to make him happy back.” - Rachel White

Synopsis: 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.

There is a lot of hype surrounding Something Borrowed, and I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked it up. Other than the fact that it heavily featured drama surrounding a maid of honor falling in love with her best friend's groom, I didn't know much else about it.

Unfortunately, after finishing it I must say that I have some concerns.

First, let’s talk about the characters. 

It was made apparent almost immediately that the author intended for us to hate Darcy so much that Rachel would earn the reader's favor. And she didn’t entirely fail; Darcy truly was insufferable. She was selfish, manipulative, painfully superficial, obnoxious, and expected to be the center of attention no matter the occasion. She was a horrible person. That fact was presented to us over and over again. Now, if Rachel was a complex, likable character, this would have painted her in a positive light.

Unfortunately, I think I might have disliked Rachel even more than I disliked Darcy.

She was equally as selfish, as well as behaving immaturely and having more than enough self-pity to go around. She also was possibly one of the most spineless characters I have ever read about, never confronting Dex about the wedding or Darcy for nearly their entire affair, never standing up to Darcy when she was being ridiculous or downright hurtful, and never telling anyone how she felt about anything until it was long overdue. Characters are supposed to have flaws. They would be boring and uncompelling otherwise, but this was so excessive that I wanted to slap her.

Now, to dive a bit into the plot, let’s talk about Rachel’s attempts at justifying her actions.

Maybe I’m biased because I view cheating as a pretty significant offense, but the justification of the affair felt shallow and unbelievable. Rachel and Darcy have been friends since they were young children, and we see Rachel reexamining a number of these moments where Darcy wasn't a good friend. However, she uses these moments, such as stealing a middle school crush, as proof that her stealing her fiancé when she is Darcy’s maid of honor is equal payback. On top of that, she has the idea that Darcy stole Dex from her to begin with because Rachel was friends with Dex while they were both in law school. Which is a very interesting take, considering that Rachel turned down all of Dex’s advances when he had a crush on her and was the one who introduced him to Darcy in the first place. She practically told the two of them that they should date! Clearly, Rachel and Darcy’s friendship is toxic, and I would strongly suggest that it would be in their best interest to go their separate ways, but I still don't think this justifies having an affair with her fiancé right before their wedding.

My primary complaint that I have with this book is that, in my opinion, Giffin wrote an entire novel dedicated to romanticizing cheating while marketing it as an exciting romance. All of Rachel’s friends are overjoyed when they learn about what she is doing, and they encourage her to push for Dex to call off the wedding. They even assist her in using Darcy’s past actions as fuel to justify her affair, all because they are not fond of Darcy themselves. Even Rachel herself has very minimal remorse for her actions, only feeling guilty after Darcy screams that they will never be friends again. Even this, however, is short-lived, and she is quickly back to being happy about getting her way. At no point is there any real contemplation of the damage that this affair will cause to the other people involved, which is a heavy message to send out to readers.

On a different note, there were some writing issues that I noticed in Something Borrowed as well. As a creative writer myself, I will admit that I can be a bit of a writing snob. That being said, some parts of this were painful to read. There are many rules to creative writing, various dos and don'ts, and she did a lot of the do-nots. For example, a common rule is to show, not tell. The goal is to let the reader draw conclusions themselves, but she spelled out most things for them. This is especially noticeable during instances where Rachel explains why everyone might have felt or acted a certain way despite having no way of knowing this herself. This might not be as prominent of an issue to the average reader, but it was something that I found difficult to ignore.

To sum it up, this book was not for me. I have come to the conclusion that novels that specifically revolve around cheating just aren't my cup of tea. If you have a differing opinion, please feel free to message me or a leave a comment - I would love to hear it!

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars