03 (re)read in 2025

there’s something so beautiful about the book that you can visit time and time again and have it always feel deeply personal and relevant to the current period in your life.

Darcy Rhone, my love, I will always be there for you and you will always be there for me.

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I first dipped my toe into this endearing series (duology? I still don’t really know) when I was about to go into seventh grade. so about 16 years ago. an entire teenager has grown in the time since I first met Emily Griffin! I was on a trip with my friend and her family to the Bahamas and we went to her favorite used bookstore; it was in this random run-down church and filled to the brim with goodies. the pale pink cover and lowercase text of Something Borrowed caught my eye, and I spent some of the cash my parents had given me to take her home.

I dove into the text and became enamored with Rachel and Darcy’s friendship and, of course, swept up in the taboo romance of Rachel and Dex. I still love the name Dex, I think that’s probably why I eventually became so obsessed with David Nicholl’s One Day a few years later. but I think what really made the book stick with me was the fact that I myself was in a deeply enmeshed and probably competitive best-friendship. I mean, between the ages of 10-17, what other kinds of friendships do girls have? it was so remarkable to me to have an author capture something so intangible and yet so all-encompassing in my life. I was an avid reader at the time, but this was probably one of the first books (if not the first) to be so open and honest about the realities of being a woman. the selfishness, the jealousy, the anger, the obsession. I mean, hello, Rachel and Darcy are both pretty terrible friends. but that doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. in fact, they’re probably so terrible because they love each other too much and aren’t sure how to disentangle their personal value of themselves from each other’s perception.

and Dex is, y’know, there I guess.

I don’t quite remember when I read the sequel, Something Blue. I assume it was later that year at some point, I think I stumbled upon it and exclaimed out loud “There’s a SEQUEL?!” I at least know I read it long before the god-forsaken movie came out in 2011; I had already fallen in love with and forgiven Darcy wholeheartedly before Kate Hudson embodied her in dreadful blond form. but within the first pages of Blue I knew, I was a Darcy girl.

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before I ramble too much about how much this book means to be and why it’s one of my prized possessions and everything I would do for the well-being of Ms. Rhone, let me first break down the plot. for those of you who haven’t seen the movie (count yourself lucky), Something Borrowed revolves around the friendship of two 30- and 29-year-old women: Rachel White (the narrator) and Darcy Rhone, respectively. they’ve been friends since elementary school and have always seen themselves as two different categories of women. Rachel is the mousy nerd and Darcy is the hot socialite. it kinda can’t get any more classic than that. but then, in the midst of Darcy getting engaged and swept up in wedding planning, Rachel breaks out of her mold and sleeps with Darcy’s fiancé, Dex. to the reader (and to Rachel), it feels destined — Rachel met Dex first in law school and only accidentally introduced Darcy and Dex to each other. she initially wanted him but believed herself to be just too mousy and too nerdy for such a handsome, accomplished guy. and hey, ya snooze, ya lose, so Darcy snapped him up.

the first book revolves around Rachel and Dex’s love affair and Rachel’s confrontation with the worst parts of herself. but still…she’s a little self-righteous! I mean, she is the smart one, after all. aren’t we supposed to root for the underdog?

that’s where Blue comes in. we pick up after Darcy learns of the affair. she and Dex had broken up (she truthfully fell out of love with him anyway, if they ever were in love to begin with) and she went to Rachel’s apartment to relay the sordid details. it’s there she finds Dex’s personalized Rolex that she got for him, and realizes she’s been, as she says, sucker punched. through the beginning of the book, she tries to lift her spirits by fully committing to her own affair partner, Dex’s groomsman Marcus who she’s been sleeping with for months and who also impregnated her. but she finds this doesn’t fulfill her in the way she thought it would. so she decides to take her pregnant self to London to crash with her & Rachel’s other childhood friend, Ethan.

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Ethan, Ethan, Ethan. what a great male love interest. Blue is almost an enemies-to-lovers tale in the way that Darcy and Ethan are so diametrically opposed. as explored in Borrowed, Ethan is On Rachel’s Side. in the first book, Rachel even goes to visit him in London to get clarity on wtf she’s doing sleeping with her “best friend’s” fiancé. he reassures her and comforts her. but he doesn’t tell Darcy, drawing a line in the sand.

cut to Blue: Darcy doesn’t know he knew about The Betrayal. of course it’s eventually revealed, and she has a breakdown over Ethan choosing Rachel over her, but Ethan gives her a reality check: what the hell does he owe Darcy? she’s Not A Good Friend. and honestly…she kinda deserved it (he doesn’t say this, of course, but we the reader can see that that’s what everyone thinks. and Darcy feels it, too). and, Ethan reminds Darcy, she’s pregnant now! why is she worrying about who knew what when when she’s growing a life inside her and hasn’t even done anything to prepare?! so, rightfully so, Ethan’s sucker punch launches Darcy right into a form of ego death.

and then over time they fall in love and he’s a great friend and he’s super supportive and blah blah blah.

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Darcy’s ego death, her confrontation with her poor decision making skills, poor life choices, and, honestly, poor personality, is one of the reasons this book is so near and dear to my heart. how often do we get books where the main character really is an unreliable narrator? she’s the villain of the first book! she honestly is a pretty terrible person. and it’s not that she actively does things that make people’s lives worse, she’s not some billionaire CEO or anything, but she doesn’t think about anyone but herself. she cheats on her partners. she lies to her friends. she manipulates people into doing what she wants because she knows that her beauty and charm can trick people into liking her. but, in the beginning of the book, there’s not much about her to like. sure she’s hilarious (hence why I quickly fell in love with her) and she’s outspoken, but she doesn’t really have any morals.

how cool is that?! a female main character who’s actually a bad person?!

Borrowed is about a woman who clings so tightly to superficial morals that don’t serve her finally letting her hair down, which is cool, but Blue is about a bad person finally learning values. and honestly, it’s a lot more compelling to follow a woman who you probably shouldn’t root for, but you do, really make something of herself, than to watch a woman who finds herself better than everyone get a little bit dirty.

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the obvious lesson that I find myself learning each time I read Something Blue is that it really is never too late to evolve. but the more underlying core of the book, the lesson that really sticks with me and comforts me when shit hits the fan, is that even selfish women who make bad decisions are loveable. we do not have to be perfect to exist in the world.

it seems like a well-worn concept now, I mean My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh is a great example of girlfailure and how enticing it is to readers. but Emily Griffin tapped into something back in 2005 that I think a lot of writers still don’t accomplish successfully — she really makes you root for the villain, not for her to win, but for her to take herself seriously enough to change. and she makes it fun and rom-com enough to appeal to casual readers. you willingly go through the fire with Darcy and come out unscathed but anew.