Something Blue by Emily Giffin

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 fiance, 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. Its a novel for anyone who has ever, even secretly, wondered if the last thing you want is really the one thing you need.

When I read the earlier book that is connected to this one, Something Borrowed, I didn't really like any of the main characters. There didn't seem to be a lot of integrity in any of them. I was however sufficiently hooked in the story to want to know what happened then!

The first portion of this book covers a lot of the same ground that was covered at the end of Something Borrowed, but instead of being from Rachel's point of view, it was from Darcy's perspective, and I have to say that I still did not like Darcy at all. She was annoying, bitchy, shallow, hypocritical, particularly in her relationship with Marcus, focusing completely on the fact that her ex fiancee had cheated on her despite the fact that she had done the same with Marcus, to the extend of getting pregnant by him. I did wonder if the author had gone too far and therefore would not be able to redeem this woman at all!!

Having said that, once we got beyond the actual events that occurred in the first book, things picked up. Darcy was left basically with a baby on the way, no boyfriend, hardly any true friends, had fought with her parents, and felt that she had no option but to go and live in London with the childhood friend to both Darcy and Rachel, Ethan. Poor Ethan. He had to put up with a lot from Darcy, but once he gave her an ultimatum about her behaviour, particularly in relation to her burgeoning pregnancy, things got better, and of course being chick lit, Darcy was finally redeemed and found the kind of true happiness that can't be found in designer brand handbags, although they certainly accessorize happiness well! I did like that there was some kind of resolution found between Darcy and Rachel, but I was glad that the author didn't go the most obvious total and fabulous reconciliation between the two of them. There had been too much pain and hurt to ever go back completely, so it would have been unrealistic in my opinion to have done so!

I did like what little we saw of Rachel and Dex (Darcy's ex fiance) in this book. It seemed that despite their tumultuous beginning they did indeed develop a great relationship and partnership.

Given how little I liked the main character in both the last book and the early parts of this book, it did surprise me that I really enjoyed this book. I think probably because I actually was in the mood for reading some chick lit. I was reading something else, and rather optimistically thought I might finish that book and therefore put this one in my bag. I had read one page of the other book, and then thought "you know what...I don't want to read this", so started reading this book, and enjoyed it so much that I basically couldn't put it down and finished it in a day!

Really enjoyable read.

Rating 4.5/5