Something Borrowed & Something Blue -Emily Giffin

Book(s): Something Borrowed, Something Blue by Emily Giffin
ISBN13(s): 9780312321185 and 9780312323868
Average Rating(s): 3.80 and 3.91 
My Rating (for both): 3 out of 5 sweatpants books. I'll explain in a moment. 

       Hello! I decided to combine these two books into a single post because 1. By the time I got around to writing a post for 'Something Borrowed' I had already finished 'Something Blue' 2. My emotions toward each book were very similar. I bought these two books at a used book sale for a dollar, and the covers caught my eye so I figured... why not? A little bit of chick-lit every once in a while never hurt anybody. In my opinion, many genres of books can be compared to a pair of pants. I say this because I had a bit of a hard week (long boring story) I say this because I realized that the feeling I get from chick lit books is roughly the same emotion I get putting on a pair of sweat pants. YA is skinny jeans, adult fiction is more like standard jeans, classics are formal, school uniform pants (I would know), etc. Anyway! Tangent over.

    These books are about two best friends -or former best friends- Darcy and Rachel. In Something Borrowed, Rachel ends up hooking up with Darcy's fiance. Of course, in girl world this is the biggest mortal sin one could ever commit. So it is assumed Rachel is our antagonist. Right? Wrong. Our main character in Something Borrowed is Rachel, the 'good girl' who has always followed the rules. She's the underdog who has always been in Darcy's shadow. But for some reason, the gorgeous Dex happens to realize one day that he's in love with Rachel (after 7 years! of being with Darcy) This situation suffers a minor to moderate case of what I call, 'The Twilight Effect'.

      The Twilight Effect comes from everyone's favorite vampire novel -I say favorite with my voice oozing sarcasm-. It basically means that a stunning, insanely gorgeous man falls for a plain girl who is described as having no interesting or mentionable attributes. I'm not saying that you need a reason for falling in love with someone but it just kind of bugs me that two characters are somewhat forced together "just because". I mean this in Rachel's case, but Dary was completley assenine and vapid. Ethan, her love interest even admitted that he didn't like her. However all of a sudden in Something Blue, Darcy makes a few minor changes and all of a sudden she's the patron saint of pregnant women. But she absolutley had to find love becuase all chick lit books have to end with a happy ending.

       These books weren't exactly contenders in the nobel prize for literature. But of course that wasn't the intention, Emily Giffin's books are more playful and fun. So I can't really be too hard on these books. They were a good set of books to spend a quiet weekend with, like sleeping in and watching romantic comedies on netflix. Those movies are great. But not oscar winners. I consider this to be the same thing. Thanks for Reading!
                                                             -R
                                 

The Color Purple - Alice Walker

Book: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
ISBN 13: 9780671727796
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.14 stars
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stuffed tigers 

     Well hello there! I was planning on spending my whole summer reading, writing, and laying in a grassy field drinking fancy lemonade-like beverages. But as fate would have it, that was not the case. Instead I ended up taking classes at a community college, which I know in the long run is a good thing and that's less classes I have to take during the school year and whatever. But in the short term it wasn't the most fun thing ever. Plus volunteer work and I had a whole bunch of summer homework for the AP and honors classes i'm taking next year. Long story short, I finished all of those things aand school starts in 2 weeks. I've read almost nothing. 

      But I did have a little time here and there and I managed to read something that's been on my list for a while. The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Now, when you hear teachers talking about a book it's usually pretty appropriate for school, politically correct, and has little potential for complaints from uptight parents. But this book blew those things out of the water. I hadn't seen the movie or anything so I was unprepared for all of the things that came at me. This book featured graphic language, sexuality, and abuse among other things. With that said, I think Walker did a good job with combining moments of ugliness with beauty. This was a book of sharp contrasts, there was a lot of hate and anger especially in the first chapters but as the story went on there was also love . 

    Celie was the ultimate model for oppression. She's a poor, black, gay (I'll come back to that one), woman living in a time where just one of those meant almost no freedom. Celie was all of the above, and ended up being raped and beaten for most of her life because she didn't have the power or confidence to stand up for herself. I was of course, deeply disturbed by the scenes of abuse in the first chapters. Celie at 15, was pregnant with her second baby after being raped by a man she thinks is her father. She also believes that he killed her first child and sells the second one. Walker takes her readers on a journey through many years and we get to see Celie develop into someone who is no longer submissive. She works up the courage to leave her husband which, in rural Georgia early 1900's isn't the most accepted thing in society. 

      One of the things that made this book stand out to me was the complex relationship between Shug and Celie. Shug is Celie's husband's lover. At first Shug seems to be jealous of Celie for being married to Mr_, the first thing she tells Celie is that she's ugly. But as time goes on Celie ends up loving her just as much as her husband does. Once Shug discovers that Celie is being abused by Mr_ she falls out of love with him and stays around because she wants to be with Celie, not him. Eventually Shug is married to a man named Grady and even later than that she falls in love with a 19 year old boy. However she claims to still be in love with Celie.

      We also saw a distinct shift in the book when were given Nettie's side of the story. Celie's little sister ended up becoming a missionary in Africa. It reminded be of The Poisonwood Bible a little, it was nice to get back into that setting. Nettie's story was an interesting contrast because in Africa the biggest divide seems to be with men and women instead of black and white like it was in America, even today we are starting to have this conversation about gay and straight. It really did show that some people in a society will end up separating others into smaller sects. This is one of  many ugly truths -that we don't always want to talk about- explored in this novel. 
     
        All in all, this was an incredible novel about overcoming adversity and that family is not always about blood. Celie forms unlikely friendships with her ex husband, his former lover, and even reconnecting with her sister. I liked this book a lot. Anyway! As always, thanks for reading! 
      
                                                                                                                                 -R