Book Review-Where We Belong

Emily Giffin is one of my favorite authors. Her books are fun and hard to put down. They are usually cute and romantic, but do have some sort of tough issue for the main character to work out. Bartek calls her the "Taylor Swift" of books. I guess he's kind of right.

image from Macmillan

Emily Giffin certainly knows her audience. Just like in her past books, her main character is embroiled in a love life dilemma. In Where We Belong, Marian's romantic relationship with her boss is caught in limbo. She wants to get married but he's still enjoying single life after his divorce from his first wife. Little does he know that she keeps a huge secret from him...one that appears on her doorstep late at night. Kirby is Marian's daughter she gave up for adoption when she was just days old. Now eighteen-years-old, Kirby is looking to find herself and thinks the key is to find her birth parents.

Thrown for a loop, Kirby's appearance brings Marian back to the good ole' days when she was a teenager and in love with Conrad Knight, the carefree musician she had a summer fling with before college. When Marian found out she was pregnant, she broke it off with Conrad without telling him her secret. She skipped out on the first year of college to have the baby, without any friends or family, with the exception of her mother, knowing the truth. 

Kirby's reemergence in Marian's life forces her to come to terms with her past. She confronts Conrad, whose still a hot musician, with the news. He eventually accepts Kirby with open arms, but struggles to forgive Marian for her lies. Meanwhile, Marian's relationship with her boss is in the dumps and they break it off. Finally brought together again for Kirby's graduation, Mariam and Conrad act civil towards each other, which signals that maybe there's more reconciling in the future for them. 

The ending leaves you wanting more, hoping that there's a sequel in the works that picks up where Marian and Conrad left off. Will they get back together? Will Kirby now be a part of their lives? 

The book is written in alternating narratives for each chapter. Marian and Kirby are two distinctive voices. Switching between the two, at times, can be confusing given the different points in their lives and their life experiences. Their personalities are incredibly different. Marian does everything by the book, but lives in a world of "what-if's". The reader is constantly wanting Marian to get off her high horse and loosen up a little bit. Kirby, on the other hand, has a hard time understanding who she is. She doesn't care for clothes, sports, gossip or any girly stuff. She has a hard time fitting in with anyone. With the differences in these two characters, the reader is left wishing it was just one point-of-view to focus on. 

Overall, I think this was a great, quick, romantic beach read. It's fun for the summer, when you can allow yourself to get enveloped by a cute, fun read for a day or two.