Reviewed by Chun Yin Wah
Always amusing and sometimes hilarious, Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella (2001, Dell Publishing, a division of Random House Inc, New York, 350 pages) is the first and best novel in the author’s five-book Shopaholic series.
Later, Kinsella penned Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, Shopaholic Ties the Knot, Shopaholic and Sister and Shopaholic and Baby.
Full of funny dialogue, Confessions of a Shopaholic rings true. Female readers prone to bouts of shopping craziness easily relate to the details.
Set in London, the book follows Rebecca Bloomwood, a financial journalist whose articles for Successful Saving magazine morph from assorted press releases. Clueless about finance, she focuses on shopping. Beset by creditors, she hides away the bills – “out of sight, out of mind”. Relying on credit cards, she spends into a deeper dilemma.
The plot thickens when neighbors of Rebecca’s parents seek financal advice and lose heavily due to her perceived words of wisdom. Plagued by guilt, the hapless heroine investigates the mutual-fund company involved and uncovers a scam. Can she redeem herself?
Here’s Rebecca at her best, or is that her worst?
“There’s just one essential purchase I have to make on the way to the press conference – and that’s the Financial Times. The FT is by far the best accessory a girl can have. Its major advantages are:
1. It’s a nice color
2. It only costs 85 pence
3. If you walk into a room with it tucked under your arm, people take you seriously…. You can talk about the most frivolous things in the word, and instead of thinking you’re an airhead, people think you’re a heavyweight intellectual who has broader interests too.”
Kinsella stirs memories of Helen Fielding’s bestseller, Bridget Jones’s Diary, but counting coins, not calories. The humor extends to sending excuse-letters to creditors, begging a colleague for money to buy a scarf because it’s on sale, dreaming of lottery wins and planning budgets that fail because shopping’s in Rebecca’s blood.
Unfortunately, the book lacks a meaningful message. It may even be harmful by hinting that big spenders can persist despite stern warnings from credit-card companies or banks, and that things will work out perfectly.
Approval rating: 85 per cent.
For more information: www.readsophiekinsella.com or www.bantamdell.com
(September 12, 2007)
ARCHIVES
|
