Now I want to go shopping!
33. Sophie Kinsella, Confessions of a Shopaholic
Becky Bloomwood is in serious trouble. A savvy consumer with a flair for fashion, she can’t seem to stop buying the fabulous clothes she sees in the shops. It’s not just clothes, either: she’ll also hand over her dough for shoes, makeup, groceries, books, cooking utensils, and just about anything else, especially if it’s on sale. In short, Becky is a shopaholic. Ironically, she’s also a reporter at a financial magazine called “Successful Savings,” where the utter boredom of her going-nowhere career is only alleviated by her shopping sprees. Her credit card bills are piling up, and she’s even starting to get ominous, hostile letters from her creditors and the bank. But the only way Becky can deal with her rising panic is to hit the stores once again. Will she ever be able to jump-start her career, change her behavior, and face reality?
Having read a few other books by Kinsella, I knew she wrote good chick lit, but Confessions of a Shopaholic is definitely at the top of her game. Becky’s breezy voice was both hilarious and endearing - I especially liked the elaborate fantasies she’d concoct in her head about how to make her debt magically disappear. Initially I was annoyed by her as well, though, because she didn’t realize how utterly frivolous and deluded she was. Fortunately, she grows and matures throughout the novel - and in the meantime, it’s just fun to laugh with (and at) her. I also liked the fact that the love story was actually secondary to Becky’s own character development. With most chick lit novels, the romance is the focus, and it often becomes overly dramatic or saccharine. Here, I think it was extremely well done: there were just enough details to let me know that something was brewing, but it’s also quite restrained (which just adds to the tension and excitement, in my opinion). Anyway, for chick lit fans, I would definitely recommend this - it’s more substantial than many other offerings in the genre.
For anyone who's seen the movie, what did you think? How does it compare, and is it worth watching?