In Delhi, we’re having what I like to call “bestseller weather”. Outside, it’s a grey and gloomy November day and all anyone wants to do is lie under the quilt in bed and read till they’re glutted. By “anyone”, I mean me. What I’ve been doing a lot of, besides all the books I mean to read someday, truly, is get loads of chick lit and indulge myself in other people’s romances and foibles. Of course, I’ve reread all my old favourites — Marian Keyes, Sophie Kinsella and so on, but I was in the mood for something new.
So, I went online, searched for “good chick lit” and lo and behold, a site came up that had a list of what they thought were the hundred best chick lit authors and books. Of those, I had read the top five, but was curious to see what the other authors were like. Totally randomly, then, I came across Emily Giffin, author of many books, but the one recommended on the site was called Something Borrowed. I began it with not very high expectations, so there’s a Plain Jane girl and she has a beautiful best friend who everyone loves, yes, same old story. Until, that is, the end of the first chapter, when the beautiful best friend’s fiance suddenly leans across and kisses our heroine. This was something new.
You hear about people cheating on other people all the time. But you’re seldom in a position where you’re rooting for them. With Something Borrowed, I found myself first condemning Rachel (the Plain Jane) and as the book (and their love story) continued, actually thinking it might not be such a bad idea after all. It’s always interesting to me as a reader when I’m put in a dilemma like this. For instance, the first time I read Gone With The Wind, I finished it with mixed emotions. Wasn’t I supposed to be on the side of freeing the slaves? Why was I then suddenly full of sympathy for the people who didn’t want to give them their liberty after all? It was an odd feeling then and it continues to be an odd feeling now.
But I really enjoyed reading Giffin, even though she was an author I didn’t know much about. Maybe I’m the last to this party, maybe all of you are huge Giffin fans from the get-go, but really, I usually dismiss chick lit as not a genre where I’m curious about the authors themselves. This time, though, I looked her up on the internet and found that not only is she very prolific, she also knows how to do the Moonwalk, had her first kiss with a French exchange student and also wrote a young adult novel which got rejected by several publishers. And she has (as you might have guessed) a pretty good and detailed website, from where I’m getting all this information.
I plan to move on now to the sequel Something Blue, told from the point of view of the cheated-upon, Rachel’s former best friend. Although through all of Something Borrowed, she was built up to be this selfish, self-involved person, I’d like to see her redeem herself. What bliss to be indoors on a cold day with a good book. I hope you’re equally lucky.
The writer is an author