| | |  | Amazon Kindle | Home » » » Something Blue | | | | | | | Description: | | From the New York Times bestselling author of Something Borrowed comes a novel that shows how someone with a ‘perfect life’ can lose it all—and then find everything.
Darcy Rhone thought she had it all figured out: the more beautiful the girl, the more charmed her life. Never mind substance. Never mind playing by the rules. Never mind karma.
But Darcy’s neat, perfect world turns upside down when her best friend, Rachel, the plain-Jane “good girl,” steals her fiancé, while Darcy finds herself completely alone for the first time in her life…with a baby on the way.
Darcy tries to recover, fleeing to her childhood friend living in London and resorting to her tried-and-true methods for getting what she wants. But as she attempts to recreate her glamorous life on a new continent, Darcy finds that her rules no longer apply. It is only then that Darcy can begin her journey toward self-awareness, forgiveness, and motherhood.
Something Blue is a novel about one woman’s surprising discoveries about the true meaning of friendship, love, and happily-ever-after. It’s a novel for anyone who has ever, even secretly, wondered if the last thing you want is really the one thing you need.
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Average Customer Review:
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254 of 261 found the following review helpful:
 First, "Something Borrowed." Now, something better.May 31, 2005
By Benjamin
Last year, after meeting author Emily Giffin in my bookstore (where she was buying her first copy of her first book), I read her debut novel SOMETHING BORROWED during a long plane ride. Even though I knew it was better-than-average chick lit. Even though I'm a guy.
Its tale of a nice girl named Rachel - who finds romance while misbehaving with her best friend's fiance in the weeks before his wedding - was very fun. In it, I liked how Rachel came off as sympathetic and interesting, someone you could root for, in spite of the terrible thing she did to her "best" friend, Darcy the bride. In SOMETHING BORROWED, Darcy came off as an entitled, spoiled, superficial, mean girl who always got what she wanted, and watching a villain like that get her comeuppance was part of the book's fun.
Of course, Emily Giffin had a twist in mind for the sequel to SOMETHING BORROWED, and the resulting book is a terrific pageturner that surpasses the first one in pretty much every way.
The heroine of SOMETHING BLUE is the same spoiled, mean, jilted bride Darcy Rhone. And the new book, thankfully, finds her just as mean and spoiled as before. Giffin doesn't make the mistake of "changing" the character's voice from the original book. Darcy's self-centered, delusional, greedy, wicked and ... pregnant with a groomsman's baby at the beginning of SOMETHING BLUE. It's a bad situation that would jar anyone, but her fiance's betrayal with her best friend Rachel is what really throws Darcy for a loop.
As Darcy tries to recapture her fabulous life, she finds that things are more difficult for her. Accustomed to getting any man she wants to fall in love with her, she suddenly has to fend for herself without her friends, with her reputation tarnished and with morning sickness.
At one point, Darcy finds herself robbed of all her usual resources, and, with that, things finally start to turn around for her. But, again, Darcy never changes her voice or changes her methods. If you hated her in SOMETHING BORROWED, you'll still find yourself hating her in this book. But you won't be able to ignore her or turn away.
SOMETHING BORROWED, about basically nice people who find themselves doing bad things, was a fun read. SOMETHING BLUE, about awful, manipulative, lying people who learn that they can't always get things their way, is more of a juicy, guilty pleasure. Darcy's hilariously bitchy, and I found myself laughing out loud, unable to put the book down, especially after Darcy meets her match.
The fact that Giffin was able to establish a layered antagonist in one book - and then dare to tell another whole book from that antagonist's perspective - shows that she's a very smart, very capable and very good writer. I didn't think SOMETHING BLUE could equal the first book. But it topped it.
I bought SOMETHING BLUE on Saturday, and I finished it this afternoon. And I never, ever read things that fast unless they're really, really fun. And the ending, which ties both books up, is terrific and touching.
I only hope to see Emily Giffin again soon so I can tell her how much I loved SOMETHING BLUE.
65 of 66 found the following review helpful:
Excellent follow-Up!!!Jun 11, 2005
By Mercedes L. Johnmeyer
"The Most Happy"
Even though I loved 'Something Borrowed', I really hated Darcy Rhone, and when I found out 'Something Blue' was all about her, I was very skeptical. Much to my surprise though, I LOVED this book. I think I may even like it better than the first one!
The book starts out with a couple chapters rehashing the final pages of the first book, when Darcy finds out about Dex and Rachel's affair, and Darcy discovers her own surprise. The following chapters are Darcy being her shallow, manipulative, immature, whiney 'ol self...I still hated her, and thought nothing would change that. But about half-way through the book, when she gets to London friendless, man-less, and at her lowest, she finally starts to grow up and take a mature look at her life and where it's heading.
Figuring she needs to end her obsession with Rachel and Dex, find a job, and not be so judgmental based on shallow observations, she sets about trying to right all the wrongs in her life. With the help of her childhood friend Ethan (the one who lives in London) she slowly starts making progress in becoming a better person overall.
Bottom line...this was a marvelous read. I loved the ending, and even grew to like Darcy herself. Kudos to Ms. Giffin who has given us two very readable story's that are next to impossible to put down. I will definitely be keeping my eye out for her future novels, she really has a great talent for storytelling.
23 of 23 found the following review helpful:
A Delightful Sequel, A Warm and Lovable StoryJun 29, 2005
By Book Beauty
I must admit, while reading Emily Giffin's "Something Borrowed," I didn't care very much for Darcy at all (though I did LOVE the book). But after reading "Something Blue," I have come to absolutely love her! "Something Blue" finds Darcy Rhone newly pregnant--and alone. She has lost virtually all of her friends, and her parents do not approve of, nor do they have compassion for, Darcy and her impending motherhood. Desperate for a change in her shallow existence, Darcy makes an impulsive move to London and stays with her childhood friend, Ethan, much to his dismay. She tells Ethan that her stay is "just a short visit," no longer than a month, although she knows in her mind that she plans on staying in London a lot longer than a month. Along the way, the reader will grow to understand Darcy as a person, and appreciate her genuine strive for change in a world where everyone is so focused on societal status and outward appearance. The reader will also fall completely in love with Ethan, someone who is distant with Darcy in the beginning, but grows to genuinely admire her for the good-hearted, nurturing person she truly is inside; and he eventually comes to cherish the sweet, innocent closeness that blossoms between them. This sequel is a winner! It is warm and charming, a story about the true meaning of friendship and love, and the power they have to change us all. I do hope Emily Giffin's admirable, lovable characters pop up again in a new book sometime soon! Highly recommended!
16 of 16 found the following review helpful:
 As Silly As the First - For different reasonsJun 04, 2009
By Almostliterate
"Argle Bargle and Rhubarb Pier"
In "Something Borrowed" we meet the evil Darcy and how she was betrayed by her fiance and her best friend, mostly because she deserved to be. This was payback for her shallowness in general and the years of abuse she gave her so-called best friend.
Now we see Darcy alone and pregnant and no more improved in her personality in the last book. She wheedles and manipulates others into getting what she wants because she thinks she deserves it. It's what you have come to expect from the character.
I found the path the book took to be as unrealistic as the happy ending of "Something Borrowed". All it took was for Darcy to be told off just once. All she needed was for some down-to-earth, straight-talking hero to explain everything she's going wrong and BOOM she's cured of all of her shallowness and now she's truly worth of true love.
I didn't buy it. The transformation is too quick and too obvious. If Darcy were really the kind of person Griffin wants us to think she is, she would have been outraged and slunk away looking for someone new to mooch off of. She would have married the doctor because she knew she could wrap him around her little finger.
Like "Something Borrowed" it was a quick, fun read, but it's far from believable.
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Well-written, amazingly fun books with interesting charactersDec 15, 2005
By M. Prince
"voracious reader"
When I first saw "Something Borrowed" pop up in my Amazon recommendations and saw the cover with the engagement ring, I scowled. Oh god, another story about someone engaged and something getting messed up with the wedding... it seemed like the story had been told a million times and a million different ways. But I clicked on it anyway, and after reading the description and a few reviews, I thought it sounded more interesting than what I previously thought would be a somewhat typical chick-lit-guy-meets-girl book. I was right.
I was very intrigued to see that the author, Emily Giffin, is a graduate of both Wake Forest University (a school I greatly admire and applied to as an undergrad) and UVA Law, where I was an undergrad and now a staff member. These are two exceptional schools and proved to me that this author was extremely intelligent, so it came as no surprise to find that both Something Borrowed and Something Blue were very well-written, above average chick-lit.
Beyond the great writing, however, it is a very talented author who can make you root for someone who is behaving in awful ways towards someone he/she cares about (i.e. Rachel in Something Borrowed). I happen to be quite a stickler for morality and, naturally, the concept of someone carousing with her best friend's fiancee does not please me. I was shocked to see how much I identified and sympathized with Rachel during the entire ordeal in Something Borrowed, and was so desperate to read the sequel that I bought Something Blue in hardcover, which I NEVER do.
I will say that I found the ending of Something Borrowed a tad too convenient, but Something Blue was such a fantastic sequel that it doesn't even matter. In fact, I think it had to be set up in this way to really get Something Blue to mean as much as it did. Like everyone else, I found Darcy to be a fascinatingly annoying character in Something Borrowed, and the journey from selfish, appearance-minded spoiled brat to normal human being with feelings for others besides herself is one that I always find touching.
The best thing about Something Blue is that this transition does not in any way dilute Darcy's colorfulness and character, the very things that made her so interesting in the beginning. She doesn't morph from devil woman to the Virgin Mary and drip sap for the rest of the book; she's still the same person, just a little improved and with a hell of a lot more perspective on life. The latter half of the book could have and would have been sappy and over-sweet were it not for the wonderful characters and excellent writing.
I'm realizing that most of this review is geared towards people who have read Something Borrowed or at least know a little about the story, but I will say that you absolutely need to read Something Borrowed before Something Blue. Without that order, you can't get the unsettling sensation of rooting for someone you previously disliked. Although the beginning of Something Blue does show Darcy off as a grating, unlikeable character, you just don't get all the backstory about the events leading up to her situation without Something Borrowed.
At any rate, I thought both books were absolutely fantastic. Giffin does a great job of taking very uncomfortable, borderline bizarre situations and making them and the people involved seem very down-to-earth. The books are well-written and quick, easy reads, and they honestly stuck with me (and still do) long after reading them. I can't wait for her next book to come out.
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