14. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin

And on the other end of the literary spectrum, we have this piece of "chick lit" that turned into a bad movie with Kate Hudson, Ginnifer Goodwin and John Krasinski (Disclaimer: I haven't seen it, but it has a 15% on Rotten Tomatoes. We'll just leave it at that).

Anyway, so in this book the main character Rachel is super type-A and never takes chances or does bad things. This is emphasized repeatedly. On her 30th birthday, she sleeps with her best friend Darcy's fiance Dex, who she, Rachel, had met in law school. It turns into an affair, etc. etc.

There are quite a few things about this book that make it a bit implausible. First, Darcy is literally the worst human ever. Her best qualities include being pretty and telling stories that revolve around herself but amuse others. Rachel is only best friends with her because they've known each other since they were little, which is understandable, but it's never clear why Dex dates her, let alone thinks he ought to marry her. It makes the moral decision of the main characters too easy. If Darcy had even a single redeeming bone in her body, what they were doing would be more ambiguous and more interesting, but she's the worst. Griffin tries to make it seem like a tough decision, but it's really not.

The other highly implausible character is Rachel. She's supposed to be this super-smart, rich lawyer and a big law firm, but she never stands up for herself. I mean, I guess that's the point -- at the story's climax she tells Dex she has to pick and leaves him. But even then, it just seems unrealistic that someone so smart can be so dumb.

Anyway, I liked this book. I needed to know what happened, so I read it in a day (#nerdalert). Rachel talks a lot about her fear of being alone, a subject that hasn't been exactly ignored by popular media, but it was done in a refreshing way. Maybe that's why the book was so popular when it came out. Or maybe that's because it's kind of the ultimate awkward girl fantasy -- steal the hot guy who loves you for your brains, have a hot relationship, he leaves his hot fiance for you.

Or maybe we just like getting wrapped up in a world where dramatic, "true" (whatever that means) love happens somewhere between a law school library and your thirtieth birthday.

EDIT: I wanted to mention that Dex went to Georgetown. :)