Something Borrowed
Where to start? I suppose I should confess that this is one of those rare times that I went into a book with a preconceived notion about what I’d find. To be more precise, I thought I would hate it. The jacket copy alone set off my “ick factor”. A girl who falls in love with her best friend’s fiancee? And proceeds to have an affair with him? How in the world could I possibly like this book? I, who believes that there is NEVER an excuse for cheating, or for being in a relationship with someone currently in a relationship with someone else. But I won the book in a giveaway, so I figured I’d give it a shot. And I really enjoyed it.
It was so nice, for once, to read a bit of contemporary women’s fiction that did not have a tidy, happy ending. That never even promised one at any time in the story. But by the same token, Something Borrowed never devolved into Lifetime-Movie-of-the-Week melodrama, either. It was a very honest book, with very real characters - whom I greatly disliked, I must admit. Their personalities did not win me over, and their behavior just did not earn any sympathy from me whatsoever. But I appreciated the overall sentiment of the novel: that life is not black and white, but many shades of gray. That things are not always simple, but that complications aren’t always earth shattering tragedies, either. Sometimes life is just a series of mistakes, piled one on top of another, until a person becomes faced with a crappy choice or a crappier one. And it is possible to find happiness on the other side, but that happiness will cost you. And somehow, you find a way to live with yourself, and be grateful for the joy that you do have.
