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What if your best friend, whom you've always counted on to flounder in life and love (making your own modest accomplishments look not so bad), suddenly starts to surpass you in every way?
Wendy's best friend, Daphne, has always been dependably prone to catastrophe. And Wendy has always been there to help. If Daphne veers from suicidal to madly in love, Wendy offers encouragement. But when Daphne is suddenly engaged, pregnant, and decorating a fabulous town house in no time at all, Wendy is...not so happy for her. Caught between wanting to be the best friend she prides herself on being and crippling jealousy of flighty Daphne, Wendy takes things to the extreme, waging a full-scale attack on her best friend-all the while wearing her best, I'm-so-happy-for-you smile-and ends up in way over her head.
Rosenfeld has a knack for exposing the not-always-pretty side of being best friends—in writing that is glittering and diamond-sharp. I'M SO HAPPY FOR YOU is a smart, darkly humorous, and uncannily dead-on novel about female friendship.
Rosenfeld (What She Saw) delves into the thornier side of female friendship in this hip take on modern womanhood. Wendy and Daphne have been best friends forever, but their relationship, sketched out in e-mails that cascade from their group of girlfriends, comes to a breaking point when Daphne suddenly pulls herself together, stops fooling around with a married man and finds a new love interest who happens to be handsome, rich and obnoxious. In quick succession, Daphne ties the knot, moves into a brownstone and gets pregnant. Meanwhile, Wendy, a low-paid editorial drone who's been trying and failing to conceive with her slacker husband, feels that her own life is thrown into miserable relief. She begins to lash out at Daphne, first passively, and then rather aggressively. In the course of a few twists, misunderstandings and revealed secrets, Wendy questions whether the source of her inferiority complex is Daphne or herself. The two friends are by turns frustrating and sympathetic, while Rosenfeld takes a dark, hilarious and painfully accurate view of the less-than-pure reasons why women stay friends. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Rheanyc
Posted December 4, 2009
I loved this account of a friendship gone awry. It illuminated the fact that many female friendships are more enemy-ships. Is someone still a friend if you talk behind their back and whine to others about all the things you deem to be flaws. If you stick with a friend out of obligation and habit rather than cherishment, intimacy and being a soft place to land, then hasn't a friend just become family, in all the wrong ways. A great ride of a novel, that made me stop and examine by friendships.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Wendy and Daphne have been friends since college. At first glance, it appears they are best friends. After spending a few minutes with them, one begins to wonder if they secretly despise each other.
Wendy functions better when Daphne is needy, helpless and a complete mess. She comes across as the caring "I would do anything to help you" kind of friend, when deep down she's thrilled that Daphne is miserable. From the beginning, I didn't like Wendy. AT. ALL. I couldn't decide if she's insecure, jealous, bitter and angry, passive-aggressive or all the above. She is so unhappy with her own life, that she can't express real joy for her friends.
Daphne feels she has to tip-toe around Wendy and continue being the "fragile" one as her life falls into place. As a result, Wendy becomes more sensitive about their friendship and feels Daphne is leaving her behind as she starts this new life. When the two friends finally have it out at Daphne's baby shower, the reader feels it is long overdue.
I'm not sure about this book. It was very hard for me to get in to as I really didn't care for any of the characters. The second half of the book was much better for me, as I managed to zip right through it. What I would have wanted to see was more of the book told from Daphne's perspective. The reader learns about Daphne through Wendy's eyes and I just wondered how tainted her description was. Alternating chapters where Daphne and Wendy both told the story would have made this more enjoyable for me.
Would I recommend I'm So Happy for You? Probably so, but with some hesitation.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Saw this book and read it on a whim. Enjoyed the quirkiness of it. Goes to show that friendship and jealousy unfortunately sometimes go hand in hand. A good read.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.You spend every day of your life in and out of complicated relationships. Between boyfriends, husbands, kids and of course your mother life is never dull. But the relationship with your best friend and by default the countless number of people that spill over in and out of your lives makes your relationship with your best friend one you have trouble living without and figuring a way to survive it.
For Wendy Murman her life with best friend Daphne Uberuff is one of high drama and constant chaos. Wendy has always been the stabilizing factor in their life through all the ups, downs and crying phone calls in the middle of the night from Daphne. Wendy had the regular job, a husband that loved her and time to work on making a baby. Daphne had men in and out of her life and countless times where life seemed to make no sense.
But then everything changes in the blink of an eye. Daphne meets the perfect man, with a great job and she is ready to become a wife and mother. What does Wendy do now that she is not the one running the relationship, how does she exist if not to make things right for Daphne, what is going to happen to their relationship if Wendy doesn't even like the man Daphne intends to marry?
But that appears to be the least of Wendy's problems as her marriage falls on hard times, she is unable to get pregnant, gets kicked out of her apartment and her job appears to be at a standstill. With all the drama now in her court Wendy finds herself unable to figure out what the next step should be.
What do you do when your best friend turns out to not be the friend you thought she was? Is the problem you or your friend? Can you work through the issues or is this an unsolvable problem and perhaps one you don't want to solve. We have all been at this crossroads and those friends that are worth saving you fight for with everything you have but not every relationship can be saved and we all have to figure out what is best in the long run.
This is an eye-opening book because you really do question what Wendy and Daphne are doing with each other and what are they doing to one another. Are they really friends or enablers that once the problems start arising they realize that beneath the surface there is not much to be proud of. This is a good book and worth the time to read it because it makes you examine yourself as much as who your friends are.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This is a fast paced, easy book to read. This is the story about two best friends and what happens when your best friend starts getting everything you desire. I would recommend this book.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 13, 2012
This book was such a waste of time to read. The main character Wendy is so selfish and complains constantly, it makes me sick. It was a little like Something Borrowed, but with a more self deprecating main character. She is obsessed with trying to get pregnant all the while making snarky comments on her "friends" lives. The end had a small twist and then the very last chapter summed up years in a way that tried to make the wasted pages before it add up. If you want to read a book try Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin instead, similar but with a better main character.
0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.sapphire_917
Posted January 24, 2010
I found this book to be charming. It shows the main character's struggle with the boundaries of one of her dearest friendships. The type of friend who has nothing to worry about except for men. There are a lot of mock emails in this book which at times are humorous.
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Posted July 18, 2010
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Overview
What if your best friend, whom you've always counted on to flounder in life and love (making your own modest accomplishments look not so bad), suddenly starts to surpass you in every way?
Wendy's best friend, Daphne, has always been dependably prone to catastrophe. And Wendy has always been there to help. If Daphne veers from suicidal to madly in love, Wendy offers encouragement. But when Daphne is suddenly engaged, pregnant, and decorating a fabulous town house in no time at all, Wendy is...not so happy for her. Caught between wanting to be the best friend she prides herself on being and crippling jealousy of flighty Daphne, Wendy takes things to the ...