Emily Giffin's first novel, SOMETHING BORROWED, focused on Rachel,
a sweet but average-looking single lawyer who, on her thirtieth
birthday, finds herself falling in love with Dex, the fiancé
of her best friend, Darcy. As Rachel and Dex carried on their
affair under Darcy's nose, Giffin managed to gain readers' sympathy
for her protagonist by showing Rachel and Dex's genuine love for
each other and by painting Darcy as a first-class pain in the rear.
Self-centered, shallow and shortsighted, Darcy is thoroughly
unlikable, especially when readers discover that Darcy has been
carrying on an affair of her own with one of Dex's groomsmen.

Because Darcy is such an unsympathetic character in SOMETHING
BORROWED, Giffin's approach to the novel's sequel, SOMETHING BLUE,
is pretty gutsy; instead of focusing on appealing underdog Rachel,
Giffin's sophomore effort centers on Darcy, who is as selfish and
unlovable as ever. The very first words of Darcy's narration --- "I
was born beautiful" --- should give you a good sense of Darcy's
narrative style and opinion of herself.

At the novel's opening, Darcy, pregnant following her pre-nuptial
fling, must cope with calling off her picture-perfect wedding and
breaking the news of her broken engagement and her
less-than-perfect pregnancy to all her family and friends. Along
the way she manages to annoy and alienate almost everyone, until
she finds herself almost totally alone. Finally, she turns to her
childhood friend Ethan, now living in London. Darcy has always
dismissed Ethan before --- after he dared to turn her down back in
fifth grade, she concluded he must be gay --- but now, he is the
closest thing to a friend she has left.

Newly settled in London, Darcy continues her narcissistic,
materialistic lifestyle without regard to her pregnancy, until she
suffers a rude awakening and sets out a self-improvement plan that
may not only benefit her unborn child but also finally enable Darcy
to think about someone other than herself. Can Darcy get her act
together and --- just maybe --- discover true love along the
way?

It is a credit to Emily Giffin's writing skills that, with
SOMETHING BLUE, she manages to fashion a novel whose central
character is thoroughly unappealing (at least for the first 200
pages) but whose charming plot and witty writing style still make
readers want to find out what happens next. Chances are, too, that
by the time Darcy realizes the error of her ways, readers --- in
spite of themselves --- also will be rooting for things to turn out
well for the anti-heroine.