Confessions of a Shopaholic - Sophie Kinsella

==Confessions of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella==

This book was originally titled ‘The Secret Dream World of a Shopaholic’, so you may have heard of either title.

After finishing ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s best friend’ (which I reviewed on here yesterday) in just two days, I was in a reading mood and craving something else to read. I was on holiday with the family, which can be like a holiday to hell at times!! ...
...needed something else to read or I could see I was going to get in a mood and probably end with being annoyed or angry with my two younger and very annoying little sisters!!

Whilst we were shopping in a town not far away from where we were staying, mum decided to take us all into a charity shops. At home, I must admit I never shop at charity shops, and really I think people should go to them more, because it means giving to charity ... more

Confessions of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella

This book was originally titled ‘The Secret Dream World of a Shopaholic’, so you may have heard of either title.

After finishing ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s best friend’ (which I reviewed on here yesterday) in just two days, I was in a reading mood and craving something else to read. I was on holiday with the family, which can be like a holiday to hell at times!! (no offence to my lovely family of course!) So, I needed something else to read or I could see I was going to get in a mood and probably end with being annoyed or angry with my two younger and very annoying little sisters!!

Whilst we were shopping in a town not far away from where we were staying, mum decided to take us all into a charity shops. At home, I must admit I never shop at charity shops, and really I think people should go to them more, because it means giving to charity and getting something out of it at the same time.
So, we all went into British Heart Foundation. I could see there wasn’t going to be anything for me in the clothes section or toys, so I went straight over to where the books, CDs and DVDs were.

My mum, who was also looking at the books, offered to buy me something else to read (I don’t have any money at all at the moment, thanks to some gatecrashers wrecking me and my friends party and now we had to pay for the damage) and so I had a browse to see if there was anything that looked appealing to me.

Sitting there at the top of the shelf was this book. I pulled it down and read the back.

Of course I had seen the film advertised on TV, and some friends of mine had been to see it and told me it was really good. So, I thought since the film was apparently so good, I’d read the book and see what that was like.

About the Author
~I know this review is supposed to be about the book itself, but some people might want to know about the person who wrote it in order to make their buying decision. So that’s why I’ve just done a little section about the author~

I’ll be honest (as I always am!) that I had never before heard of this author, either (I should probably get reading more)! Her name is Sophie Kinsella.
I have researched online a bit about her, here is what I have found:
She has got three sons, called Freddy, Hugo and Oscar. She lives with her family in England, and she used to be a financial journalist (which is also the occupation of Rebecca, the main character in the book).

You can find out more about her at http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/kinsella/.Other books you may have read or heard about by this author are:

• Can you keep a secret?
• The Undomestic Goddess
• Remember Me?

Characters in the book ~ Plot of the Story
The main character of this book is a woman called Rebecca Bloomwood. As the title of the book suggests, she is a huge shopaholic!

All the characters in this book are very easy to relate to, and they are all very likeable. Rebecca is a fun, warm person who seems like she would be very easy to get along with if you knew her in real life. She is a really kind, friendly person who is also really intelligent, she just doesn’t realise it.

Rebecca is a financial journalist working in London, but her dream job is to be on TV. She can’t afford her own flat; I think this is probably because of her spending habits!, so she shares with another girl called Suze, who happens to have lots of money. It seems that everyone around Rebecca has plenty of money.

The ironic thing is that Rebecca is a financial journalist whose jobs is advising others how to deal with their money, when she is really bad at dealing with her own!

Other main characters in the book are:

* Rebecca’s flatmate - who I mentioned before, she comes from a rich background. Her name is Suze and she is a really good friend to Rebecca and is really helpful to her. There are times in the book when you think thank God she is there to get Rebecca out of this mess! Such as the time when Rebecca desperately needs money so signs up to do some piece work, and gets sent some frames which she has to put together. She will get £300 for putting all the frames up, and she needs to pay off some debts. Unfortunately she is no good at making the frames, she finds them really difficult to make one and within about three hours has only made a couple really bad ones, basically making a mess so she realises she is never going to get all the frames make before her deadline and she just doesn’t have enough time before then.
One day when she comes home Suze has made up all of the frames for Rebecca so she can send them off and get the money to pay off her debts. Rebecca expects Suze wants the money, but kindly Suze says that she has only done these to help Rebecca by giving her a head start with them.

* Tarquin, Suze’s annoying cousin. He tells Rebecca that he has fallen in love with her and invites her to dinner. She says yes, hoping not to hurt his feelings and planning to later cancel and giving an excuse later on. However between this time she sees his face in a magazine under ‘Richest Bachelors’ and discovers he has over £25 million! She changes her mind and decides she will go after all! This is one of the times in the book where the story can be quite funny and can make you laugh out loud. I think this book is definitely comedy genre!
In the end Tarquin gets the message that Rebecca does not like him, this is led up to by a series of events causing the reader to both cringe and laugh aloud!

* Derek Smeath, from Endwich Bank. Before each chapter in the book there are a few pages which are letters from places such as banks, telling Rebecca things like “‘buying clothes and make up’ is not an acceptable reason for getting a loan” or there are letters asking for payment for some of the many items Rebecca has bought. These letters are all really funny and make you laugh as you read them. I really enjoyed reading the letters as they are a funny and interesting part of the book.
Many of these letters are from Derek Smeath. Throughout the whole book he is trying to get hold of Rebecca to help her sort through her debts. You can see that he is actually trying to help her, but she keeps running away and either cancelling their meetings or just not turning up. At the end of the book it seems as though Rebecca will actually go to the meeting, but it turns out she cancels this one aswell.

* Luke Brandon, Luke is a top businessman working for a bank, I think this bank is one of the ones in London, and that Rebecca reviews and writes about in her magazine everyday. In the book, you can tell that they are falling for each other. However they do have a ‘rocky ride’ as they say meaning they have some fall outs such as when they are in a store and Luke has invited Rebecca to help him choose a suitcase, she thinks he is coming on to her. Then he invites her to dinner revealing that the suitcase is for his girlfriend. Rebecca gets extremely upset, has a go at him and walks out.
Another event where they have a ‘disagreement’ (as one could call it) is when they are both appearing on a breakfast show on TV and they are supposed to be arguing against each other about a crisis that has happened involving Luke’s bank. The whole idea of the debate is for a financial expert (Rebecca) to be going against someone from the bank involved (Luke). At first Rebecca is extremely nervous when she finds out that it is Luke who is going to be fighting against her, but it turns out she need not have worried as she wins the debate, shows him up on TV, making him look like a fool, and it ends up with Luke admitting to the world watching that he thinks his bank is a really bad one and did a terrible thing and he will be handing in his resignation after that interview.
After the interview Luke invites Rebecca to dinner the next night, for ‘strictly business’ purposes. Rebecca agrees - it is obvious she can’t resist, although she keeps telling herself that she is only going for business reasons, like he said.
The next morning, the two wake up next to each other in a posh hotel room, as I could tell they were going to all the way through the book, although at times you aren’t sure if it will end this way after all. As soon as she wakes up, another laugh out loud event happens, which is Rebecca watching TV in bed and the shopping channels are on… she sees an expensive but irresistible offer on designer sunglasses and orders some right away! Despite the fact she has a meeting with Derek Smeath, from Endwich Bank that morning! They two of them are supposed to be sorting out Rebecca’s debts and she has promised she will go, however, as always she gives into temptation and decides she will cancel the meeting and stay where she is with Luke instead.

My Opinion on the book
I loved reading this book as I found it funny, entertaining and I couldn’t put it down. For me it is one of those books that from the minute you start reading you are hooked. The storyline is exciting, and there are times in the book when you are generally worried about what will happen to the main character, Rebecca, who you grow to love and care about as the book goes on.

I would recommend the book to most girls and women who love books that make you laugh and have fun characters in them. It is good for girly girls and people who love a little bit of romance, as well.

I think the book is suitable for everyone over the age of twelve. I don’t really think it is suitable for children. The book is written really well and is very easy to understand from the way it is written, but there are some scenes in the book which I think younger children wouldn’t understand, as there is quite a lot of finance related stuff in it and they may not understand what it is about.
Also there are a few swearwords in the book and references to sex etc, so I don’t think parents would particularly want there children reading this.

Prices ~ Availability
I got this book for a very good price- only £2.00 which I didn’t even have to pay myself as my mum bought it for me! - from a charity shop which I would recommend to anyone who wants to read this to get it from a charity shop and help someone from it at the same time.

The price on the back of the book is £7.99, so this is probably how much it costs in Waterstones etc, which I think is very expensive for a book. With most items, you could probably find it cheaper on sites such as Amazon or eBay. I’m also sure you could get the book in a library. I think the book should be available in all good book shops in this country as it is British and not American as a lot of books are.The good thing about this book is once you have finished it, and you want to read more if you enjoy it that much, there are more books after it in the same series:

• Shopaholic Abroad
• Shopaholic ties the knot
• Shopaholic and sister
• Shopaholic and baby

(this is the order they are in inside the book, no idea if thats the order you're meant to read them in though)I think I will have to try and get hold of some of these books myself as I really enjoyed this one!

I haven't yet seen the film, but I might rent it from Lovefilm or borrow it from someone if I find out anyone I know has got it!

Any questions just leave a comment and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!

Thanks for reading!
Hope my review has been helpful to you - I will know if it has by the ratings!!
Bye! Xxxxxxxx

 

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