Bookish Buys: Darcy Dates by Jena Kingsley
Bookish Buys
Inspired by Darcy Dates by Jena Kingsley
Wearing a little black dress with hot pink accessories—oversized hoop earrings, sky-high pumps, a floral evening bag, and coordinating hot pink lipstick—isn’t just a look. It’s a moment. A moment of reclaiming, of redefining, and of walking back into the world with your head held high and your heels even higher. It’s full Darcy Dates energy, and it just might be the ticket to feeling like the main character in your own life.
Darcy isn’t just navigating first dates—she’s navigating firsts all over again: first solo dinners, first awkward silences, first hopeful butterflies. And through it all, she’s showing up—raw, hilarious, heartbreakingly honest, and dressed like the kind of woman who might have had her heart broken, but refuses to be broken herself.
That little black dress? Classic armor. Timeless, flattering, and always ready for a night that could go anywhere. The hot pink accessories? Her boldness. Her “I’m still here” energy. The lipstick? The punctuation mark on her self-worth. And the floral bag? A little softness, a wink to the romantic inside her that—even after all the disastrous dates, the ghosting, the over-sharing, and the just plain weird—hasn’t fully given up.
So whether you're walking into a bar, heading out to brunch with friends, or just taking yourself out for a glass of wine and a moment to breathe, channel Darcy. Because you don’t need the perfect date to feel like the heroine—you just need the courage to keep showing up, heels on, heart open, and humor intact.
You’re not just looking for love. You’re learning how to love yourself again. And that, darling, deserves a killer outfit.
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Bookish Buys: Darcy Dates by Jena Kingsley
About Darcy Dates by Jena Kingsley:
Darcy Dates is a hilarious and unfiltered dating diary based on the popular 2010 blog of the same name. Written at a time when people clung to their BlackBerrys, Instagram didn't exist, and there was no debate over whether or not skinny jeans were cool. They just were. Seven years of marriage, one child and one divorce later, Darcy found herself back in the dating pool of New York City. Only things were different. She was a single mom living on the Upper East Side, navigating dating as an adult, where people carried more baggage than any bellhop at the Pierre could handle. One night, alone in her room, she began to document her dates in the form of a blog. The blog became her diary. This book is her diary. Darcy Dates is the perfect balance of comedic, cringey and touching. You will belly laugh, you may tear up, you may want to look away at times. Most importantly the reader will be cheering Darcy on in her quest for love. But over time she starts to wonder... maybe it's not love she was looking for all along. Maybe she was just looking for herself. Names and locations have been changed to protect the innocent.
