I finished Where We Belong, Emily Giffin’s latest book, over
the weekend. Like I said in my earlier post, I was nervous about reading this
book because I don’t read much women’s fiction. I’m all about being able to
relate to the characters, and I’ve always had it in my head that I can’t relate
to characters in their thirties for some reason. So not surprisingly, the
reason I picked up this book was an eighteen-year-old girl character named
Kirby.
Kirby is adopted and searching for a reason why her
personality is so different from her adoptive family. She decides her birth
mother holds the answers, so she sets out to find her. Marian is now a
thirty-eight year old successful TV producer/writer living in NYC who can’t get
her boyfriend to take their relationship to the next step. When Kirby shows up
at her door, Marian is forced to confront the past she has avoided for so long,
including some unresolved feelings for Kirby’s biological father.
I flew through this book in two days. I’d been having a
tough time getting through the books I’d read so far this summer, not reading
as fast as I would’ve liked, so Where We Belong was a nice change of pace. The
chapters alternated between Marian and Kirby, some from the point of view of
eighteen-year-old Marian. I think it made the book go faster than if it had
been told from one character’s POV. Kirby was easily my favorite character, and
I loved her tone and acting-like-a-slacker-but-actually-very-intelligent
personality. I liked Marian more than I expected to, especially after Emily
Giffin talked at the signing about how unlikable Marian could be. I didn’t find
her unpleasant, actually. Plenty naive (as a teenager, and even a little bit
as an adult), sure, but not unlikable.
Where We Belong is the perfect summer read. Easy to fly
through, some witty lines, poignant moments, and a memorable cast of
characters. The story follows a pretty standard adoption path, but there were
some twists I didn’t expect. If you’re a YA fan starting to age out of beach
reads and super cliché high school romance stories, this book might be good to
ease you into “grown up books.”
Have you read Where We Belong? Are you an Emily Giffin fan? What other books of her's are good (this was my first Giffin book)? Thoughts on the transition from reading YA to adult novels?
You know, even though Kirby was my favorite character, I actually really like Marian, too (and Conrad!). I cringed when her first instinct was to take Kirby shopping, but like you said, that was more naiveté than snobbishness. I loved how Marian evolved, too - such a nice parallel between how Kirby affected her and how she affected Kirby.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you ended up enjoying the book! As for Emily's other ones - none have a YA-aged character, but they really are so good still. WWB is my new favorite, and my order after that is Baby Proof, Something Blue, Something Borrowed (though it would make sense to read that one before SoBlue), Heart of the Matter, and Love the One You're With. I flew through all her other ones in two days, sometimes even one!