The Gatecrasher

Fleur Daxney is a professional gold-digger: she crashes funerals to meet vulnerable, wealthy widowers. Beautiful and charming, she seduces them into handing her large sums, after which she disappears. The men, realizing that they've been had, are then too ashamed of having been so foolish and gullible to run after her.

I appreciate Sophie Kinsella's courage to write (as Madeleine Wickham) a novel different from her Shopaholic series, especially after its success in terms of sales. However, the main character's major dilemma, her relationships, nor the underlying sense behind her behavior and motivations just does not fly. I felt that I was being forced to accept the psychology behind, and, consequently, the credibility of Fleur's actions.

In the story, Fleur is epitomized as a cunning, experienced con artist, but it takes her so much longer than her previous conquests to seduce widower Richard Favour. Favour's 33-year marriage was dispassionate and, at best, "dry and sensible". I couldn't reconcile this description of his married life with his egregious grief at his wife's death. There is not enough proof in the entire novel to warrant such sentimentality that, had he not suppressed his emotions, "hot, sentimental tears would now have been coursing uncontrollably down his cheeks... and he would have been swept away by a desperate, immoderate grief". Even Favour's relationship with his 2 children is detached and impersonal--- whereas they almost instantly warmed up to Fleur, a fact that should have worked to her advantage and to the expediency of her schemes--- making the author's portrayal of Fleur as a smooth and skilled con artist all the more unconvincing.

Fleur, despite Wickham's efforts to blame her flaws on her unpleasant childhood, still comes across as utterly selfish and incapable of any genuine affection. Aside from paying her school fees, Fleur seems uninterested and not even remotely curious about her daughter's life. Her occasional display of tenderness especially towards her daughter seems false and unnatural.

(Major spoiler here. Go on only if you don't mind knowing how the story ends before you read it.)

The novel, for me, is a disappointment--- it opted for a happy ending that feels weak. Whether Fleur's decision to return to Favour was driven by her growing love for him (which Wickham fails to paint as anything beyond mild fondness, perhaps for his gentle manner), or by her desire to give her daughter a life with a semblance of normalcy (which seems abrupt and uncharacteristically indulgent)--- the ending lacks conviction; with the events leading up to it but forced and futile attempts at effecting more substance and coherence to the novel.

Something Blue

Something Blue is Emily Giffin's sequel to Something Borrowed. In the first book, Rachel and Darcy's 25-year friendship goes awry, told from the point of view of Rachel--- the good girl, the smart student, the dutiful daughter, the supportive friend. Darcy lives the life that Rachel can only dream about--- she gets everything she sets her sights on seemingly just by being gorgeous. When Rachel has an affair with her friend's perfect fiance, no one was more surprised than Darcy.

In Something Blue, Darcy narrates what happens after she discovers that Rachel has stolen her fiance. She finds out that she's pregnant with her ex-fiance's best man, her parents are outraged that she dumped her fiance for a godawful boy and she feels that her life is spiraling out of control. In a last ditch effort to recover her charmed life, she packs her bags, flies to London and makes her childhood friend, Ethan, put her up during her vacation, confident that she will find a gorgeous, wealthy, refined English gentleman who will fall madly in love with her and save her from all her worries. Miles away from home, jobless, pregnant, with no friends and a very uncertain future, Darcy picks up the pieces and rebuilds her life, discovering what true friendship and true love are all about.

The novel is poignant as well as funny, and the reader can't help but fall in love with Darcy--- despite her flaws and maybe because of them. She's the girl that the estrogen-driven population loves to hate, but her character is so genuine, her emotions so authentic, that to empathize is the only recourse. I'm now a Darcy fan more than Rachel's. Maybe because the story of a good-girl-gone-bad does not appeal to me as much as that of a bad-girl-turning-over-a-new-leaf. Also, I think it's the theory that every person is inherently good, and bearing witness to Darcy's triumphs no matter how trivial, that inspire and invite us to put our faith in people even when they don't seem worthy. Maybe it's sappy, but I prefer to call it hopeful and inspiring. Giffin makes us see that the perfect life of Darcy is not as charmed as we are inclined to believe, and that Darcy, like any person in real life, can change. Something Blue is a surprisingly insightful, fun read.

Goin' Giffin: Something Borrowed

I had begun Emily Giffin's Something Borrowed fresh from Kinsella's 4-book Shopaholic series, expecting the novel to follow more or less the linear path of Kinsella's books, in terms of characterization, story appeal, plot development and overall credibility--- even if it is fiction.

Something Borrowed is the story of Rachel, the quintessential do-gooder, rule-follower and parent-pleaser. She works as an attorney in a law firm in Manhattan, where despite the city's huge population, she is still single and very much alone. On the other hand, Darcy, her best friend of 25 years seems to be living a charmed life--- she is beautiful, still fits into the jeans she wore in high school, has a glamorous job in PR and is engaged to be married to Dex, who is everything any girl could ever dream of. Their lives take an unexpected turn when, on Rachel's thirtieth birthday, she sleeps with Darcy's fiance.

It may be chick lit with the usual love triangle conflict, but more than that, it's a funny yet analytical peek into female friendships, into the lives of women--- whether single, engaged, married or divorced--- who are adults but are still years too young for midlife.

The characters are people we can identify with, genuine and imperfect, with virtues and idiosyncrasies similar to those of someone we know in real life. The events unfold in a chronology where the reader can feel the protagonist's struggles as they happen: loneliness, apprehension, guilt, confusion, trust, surrender, fear and joy. It digs deep into the psychology of self-image and its huge role in influencing a woman's interpersonal relations with other women as well as with members of the opposite sex, in her decision-making and in shaping her future and determining which path her life will take.

Something Borrowed is a delightful read, with familiar conversations injected with sharp wit and humor. It's a quick-paced 336-page novel that takes the chick-lit platform and rises above it, making it deeper, more insightful and more poignant.