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Overview
The smash-hit debut novel for every woman who has ever had a complicated love-hate friendship.
Rachel White is the consummate good girl. A hard-working attorney at a large Manhattan law firm and a diligent maid of honor to her charmed best friend Darcy, Rachel has always played by all the rules. Since grade school, she has watched Darcy shine, quietly accepting the sidekick role in their lopsided friendship. But that suddenly changes the night of her thirtieth birthday when Rachel finally confesses her feelings to Darcy's fiance, and is both horrified and thrilled to discover that he feels the same way. As the wedding date draws near, events spiral out of control, and Rachel knows she must make a choice between her heart and conscience. In so doing, she discovers that the lines between right and wrong can be blurry, endings aren't always neat, and sometimes you have to risk everything to be true to yourself.
Synopsis
Everyone is raving about Emily Giffin and Something Borrowed!
"Emily Giffin brings a fresh, new voice to women's fiction. Something Borrowed is a deftly written and convincing tale of a friendship gone comically—-and at times poignantly—-awry."
- Meg Cabot, author of The Boy Next Door and The Princess Diaries
"Something Borrowed is a winner; it has rare emotional depth. In Something Borrowed, Rachel, a perpetually self-sacrificing nice girl, shocks herself by launching an affair with her best friend's fiancé. This first blow for freedom sets off a chain reaction that will inspire pathologically nice girls everywhere to strike blows of their own."
- Valerie Frankel, author of The Accidental Virgin
"Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin is a luxurious page-turner of a debut novel that marks the arrival of a tremendously bright, clever new voice in women's fiction. In quick-moving, captivating prose punctuated with dead-on dialogue, Giffin deftly captures the complications and humor of love, betrayal, career, and friendship for a city girl at the edge of thirty; you forget this is just a novel and won't want to put it down."
- Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, author of The Dirty Girls Social Club and Playing with Boys
"I absolutely loved it and read it in two sittings because I could not put it down. It was amazing to me how Emily handled this complex moral issue with such compassion and clear-sightedness. I believed it all the way and forgot about the rest of my life while I was immersed in it. Her three main characters are portrayed as multifaceted and endearingly flawed—-just like real human beings. Something Borrowed is also very well written—-nice, spare prose, which kept me pressing forward, agog to know what happened. This is a book which takes a clear-eyed look at the rivalry that exists in even the best of friendships. Congratulations to Emily on having written such a compelling, engrossing, and uplifting book."
- Marian Keyes, author of Sushi for Beginners
Publishers Weekly
Jennifer Wiltsie's warm, emotionally expressive voice immediately draws listeners into Giffin's story and makes them sympathize with Rachel, whose growing attraction to her best friend's fiancé eventually develops into a guilt-ridden affair. Wiltsie handles the other characters deftly; Rachel's best friend, Darcy, is especially vivid (and hilariously shallow and self-centered), and Rachel and Dex's romance is portrayed with exceptional sensitivity. This is definitely one to bring along in the beach bag this summer. A St. Martin's hardcover. (May)
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Ever since law school, "nice girl" attorney Rachel has secretly nurtured a crush on dashing classmate Dex. Finally, a bit tipsy while sharing a cab-ride with him, she confesses her deep crush. The inevitable happens: She sleeps with him, waking up the next morning to the glaring realization that her new bedmate is married to her best friend Darcy. What follows made Something Borrowed a coast-to-coast in hardcover and a popular 2011 starring Ginnifer Goodwin, Kate Hudson, and John Krasinski. Now in mass market paperback and NOOK Book.
— Tim Flannigan
Publishers Weekly
An unexpected love affair threatens a long-lived friendship in this soap opera-like debut from Atlanta ex-lawyer Giffin. Since elementary school, Rachel and Darcy have been best friends, with Darcy always outshining Rachel. While single Rachel is the self-confessed good girl, an attorney trapped at a suffocating New York law firm, Darcy is the complete opposite, a stereotypical outgoing publicist, planning a wedding with the handsome Dex. After Rachel's 30th birthday party, she knocks back one drink too many and winds up in bed with Dex. Instead of feeling guilty about sleeping with her best friend's fianc , Rachel realizes that Dex is the only man she's really loved, and that she's always resented manipulative Darcy. Rachel and Dex spend a few weekends in the city together "working" while Darcy's off with friends at a Hamptons beach share, but finally Rachel realizes she'll have to give Dex an ultimatum. The flip job Giffin pulls off-here it's the cheaters who're sympathetic (more or less)-gives Dex and Rachel's otherwise ordinary affair extra edge. Rachel would be a more appealing heroine if she were less whiny about her job and her romantic prospects, and rambling dialogue slows the story's pace, but this is an enjoyable beach read-one that'll make readers cast a suspicious eye on best friends and boyfriends who seem to get along just a little too well. Agent, Stephany Evans. (June) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.Publishers Weekly
Jennifer Wiltsie's warm, emotionally expressive voice immediately draws listeners into Giffin's story and makes them sympathize with Rachel, whose growing attraction to her best friend's fiancé eventually develops into a guilt-ridden affair. Wiltsie handles the other characters deftly; Rachel's best friend, Darcy, is especially vivid (and hilariously shallow and self-centered), and Rachel and Dex's romance is portrayed with exceptional sensitivity. This is definitely one to bring along in the beach bag this summer. A St. Martin's hardcover. (May)Library Journal
In this debut novel-a bit of bridal lit just in time for the wedding season-good girl Rachel finally breaks the rules in a big way when she sleeps with best friend Darcy's fianc . Rachel knew Dex first (they met in law school), but she introduced him to Darcy, whose friendship has conditioned Rachel to accept being second best. Rachel and Dex's affair continues even as the wedding draws near, and it becomes clear that Dex is going to go through with the nuptials, leaving Rachel to suffer through the day as maid of honor. Things aren't all bad, though: Rachel begins to see Darcy for the superficial manipulator that she is, and when Rachel confronts Dex, she starts to realize what she's been missing by not going for what she wants in life. A surprise twist at the end seamlessly wraps up this fast-paced, enjoyable read. Recommended for most popular fiction collections.-Karen Core, Enoch Pratt Free Lib., Baltimore Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.From the Publisher
"A modern-day Jane Austen." —Vanity Fair
"What kind of self-described ‘nice girl’ would sleep with her best friend’s fiancé? One who’s seriously flawed, like this delightful debut novel’s heroine, but also surprisingly winning and real." —Glamour
"This page-turning, heartbreakingly honest debut…deftly depicts the hopeful hearts behind an unsympathetic situation." —Entertainment Weekly
"Both hilarious and thoughtfully written, resisting the frequent tendency of first-time novelists to make their characters and situations a little too black-and-white. You may never think of friendships – their duties, the oblique dances of power and their give-and-take – quite the same way again." —Seattle Times
"A thrill to read." —Washington Post
"Sharply observed and beautifully etched." —Newark Star-Ledger
"Dead-on dialogue, real-life complexity and genuine warmth." —Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"Forget ‘Bergdorf Blondes.’ The [book] you want in your bag this year is Emily Giffin’s SOMETHING BORROWED. It’s smarter, less arch and more believable. The characters are authentic. Best of all, SOMETHING BORROWED captures what it’s like to be 30 and single in the city, when your life pretty much revolves around friendships and love and their attendant complexities." —San Francisco Chronicle
Marian Keyes
"Compelling, engrossing — I absolutely loved this book and read it in two sittings because I could not put it down."Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
"A luxurious page-turner...that marks the arrival of a tremendously bright, clever new voice."