Something old, something new...

I just finished reading Baby Proof by Emily Giffin. I had read her first two books, Something Borrowed and Something Blue, and had a mixed reaction--I liked the first, but not so much the second. Borrowed is about a woman who winds up having an affair with her best friend's fiance (boyfriend?), and Blue is from the best friend's point of view. The thing is, the best friend, Darcy, is horrible. You don't really sympathize with her in Borrowed; you know that she isn't faithful to her fiance/boyfriend, and she treats her friend horribly--always has. In Blue, she continues to act as an innocent player, even as she realizes that she was a bad person. At one point, she's basically like, "I'm going to be a good person!" and then is. My problem is that I didn't find the transformation at all believable. Her thoughts didn't really reflect any change, and I just never liked her.

So after really liking one main character and really not liking another, I was intrigued to read Baby Proof. I was kind of baffled reading reviews on Amazon, with people saying that they loved Giffin's first two books, but Claudia, the main character in Baby Proof, was just too selfish and unlikeable. Wha?

It may be a reflection of the topic of the book. Claudia and Ben have a great marriage. From the first date, both agreed that they definitely did not want children. However, Ben realizes he wants kids, and Claudia still doesn't. How do you move on from there? I'm not sure how not wanting children makes a person "selfish."

I didn't find Claudia selfish. I was actually surprisingly neutral on her, which is probably why my reaction to the book was basically, "It was OK, I guess." (Even with some misgivings about the end of the book.) Of course, that's much better than my reaction to Something Blue. And now I'm like, "Maybe I should check out her next book, and see how I like that main character!" I probably will. These books don't take terribly long to get through.

Except there's the very real prospect that Darcy might pop up in it, as she did in Baby Proof. Claudia described her as "unaffected," which is exactly opposite of how Darcy appeared to me--her whole change was incredibly affected. So maybe I should avoid the next book.