I was hopping a train home the other day and I needed to find something to keep me busy. While skulking around a newsstand in Grand Central, I found a flimsy looking paperback with John Krasinski’s face on it and thought, “what the hell?”
The book was “Something Borrowed” by Emily Giffin. Yeah, judging the book by its cover is wrong (especially when it’s the post-optioned, movie-inspired cover) but the smiling faces of John and the other generically pretty, symmetrical actors weren’t making the book look any better. I hadn’t indulged in a shit-show novel for a while and my mind was in need of some numbing, so I picked it up.
I wasn’t surprised with what I found. We have the protagonist fitting the anti-mold of the romantic lead– a driven career-woman in a romantic slum. If we combine that with the heroine pining after her best friend in spite of his bitchy significant other, we have a plot worthy of any high school hallway. The only change in the formula is that the characters are all in their late-twenties, early thirties. Ack.
Basically, our narrator, Rachel, is a young lawyer in love with her good friend (who is also her best friend’s fiancé). It’s messy and dramatic and something I’d typically care to avoid spending time with. Her best friend Darcy is a social-climbing character who’s given little dimension other than her being an uber-bitch. You root for Rachel because she’s less vapid, but you can’t help but roll your eyes and continue not to care.
My low expectations were rewarded with a low and uninspiring reading experience. After a while, hearing the same story with slightly different drag and drop details, becomes a drag.
The movie based on this book will be in theatres this Friday, and I can promise you I’ll be skipping it.