Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin, A Review

by Sandy Day, Posted on August 1, 2019

Are you looking for something to read this summer? This book is not brand new but maybe you haven’t heard of it yet. I learned about, Something Borrowed on the Don’t Keep Your Day Job Podcast. (I highly recommend this podcast, which stole the motto for my life btw.) Host Cathy Heller recently interviewed author, Emily Giffin, and I knew I had to read the book.

For me, while I enjoy the heck out of them, a little chick-lit goes a long way. I like my stories darker and more domestic. The focus on youthful attraction to courtship to commitment feels icky to middle-aged me but Something Borrowed was a refreshing surprise.

Most love stories have triangles and this book has a doozy. The narrator, Rachel (why are all the twisted-sister heroines so aptly named Rachel?) is lusting after the man her best friend is about to marry. In fact, Rachel is the maid of honor. Ouch. Talk about conflict.

Giffin’s treatment of the best friend character, who is kind of a bitch but likeable anyway, is deftly handled. The two women have much to be in friction over including the suspicion that the bride-to-be has been dishonest and in competition with Rachel for their entire lives. Rachel has the typical low self-esteem of a chick-lit heroine but not obnoxiously so. The two women ring true for me. I could identify. I don’t know which one I’ve been in my life, probably both.

Emily Giffin took the risk of alienating us readers with a heroine who commits such a despicable act so early in the story. What kind of person cheats with their best friend’s fiancé? Call me a prude, but that is a big-big-no-no. On the other hand, in the heat of passion, have I done despicable things to other women behind their backs? Yes, I have, and I’m not proud of it. But I would argue, like our heroine that I couldn’t help myself. The desire I felt was stronger than all my own arguments, morals, and ethics. Call it mating instinct, call in phenylalanine, whatever it is, it’s kryptonite. Have I had it done to me? Yup. The grievous feelings of the betrayed are hiding in my heart as well.

Giffin does an amazing job describing the attraction, jealousy, and desire of our two lovebirds. It was palpable and visceral and for me it excused Rachel’s terrible behavior. I am currently putting the finishing touches on a coming-of-age story about a teenager trapped in desire and obsession. I’m also in the process of planning another book about a middle-aged woman trapped in a bad marriage and tempted out of it by a sweet-talking colleague. This topic is of endless fascination to me so it’s satisfying to read a novel that touches on the same crazed emotions but with a lighthearted and oftentimes comical perspective.

I’m looking forward to the next books in the series, in fact, I will read everything Emily Giffin writes. She’s that good. (If you’re already a fan, you’ll be happy to know she has a new book called All We Ever Wanted.)

Let me know what you think of Something Borrowed in the comments.

Small Talk by Theresa Sopko, A Review

by Sandy Day, Posted on March 6, 2018

Recently I came across a charming book of poetry by a young writer named Theresa Sopko. Small Talk is her second collection of poetry.

The book is quirky, and compelling – titles are often included at the foot of poems, striking ironic tones, sometimes hitting like punch lines. Because of the inclusion of script typography, I felt almost like I was reading the poet’s sketchbook.

The subject matter may be “small talk” but the poet takes these mundane subjects, familiar experiences, and magnifies their significance. This is my favourite poem in the collection:

Like a sweater
I get snagged on some jagged
Edge and begin to unravel and that
Loose thread is
Tug
Tug
Tugged
By some unknown weight, by the elements
And

What I want to do
What I try to do
Is to sit with it
Be alone with it, brood over it
Because I know there’s something
Just under the surface
Between my threadbare skin and
The scratchy particles of wool that is trying
Crying
To be addressed and I want
To confront it, rock it to peace
Though

What I end up doing is
Playing dumb
Ignoring
Taking that loose thread and
Tucking
Tying
Trying
To stop the unravel in its tracks
But

The next time I put that sweater on
My body will stretch it
The elements will reach with prickly fingers
And that thread will get caught
Again
Because I never stitched the hole I only
Patched it

The tone of Theresa’s poems is conversational but the language is refreshing and original. She expresses the agitated ennui of the mid-twenties so well that I wish I could tell her that it all gets better and that she is “tough enough” for the writing that is to come.

Many of the poems address an invisible “you”. Throughout the book, the poet plays with the notion of dating/loving herself and I sense that the nuggets of advice and philosophical musings are messages and reminders for herself. She wrestles with living in twenty-first century America (the small talk) while her poetic soul longs to soar to higher realms. The poet is anchored in the world of school, and boyfriends, sisters, parents, coffee shops, and tattoos but writing, an overwhelming urge, is an undercurrent in many of the poems. A poem about tattoo ink could be a metaphor for the exposure the writer feels when writing and publishing confessional type work, such as poetry.

Everyone asks if I’m concerned about regretting the ink
in the years to come
I’m not
I’ve made myself a walking story
A living picture book
And even if the illustrations are not relevant to
60 year old me
They were to 23 year old me

They are a part of my story
And, even wrinkly, that is beautiful

The poet is very young, only twenty-three years old. She writes:

I find that I can’t write about the relationships most
important to me
The ones that are embedded into my bones, a part of my
every breath

I have yet to find the words to encompass their enormity

As a writer, I am familiar with that experience. It takes a lifetime to express a worldview created within a family. The poet is aware that something is germinating inside of her. That is exciting and lets me know that much more will come from this talented young writer.