Confessions Of A Shopaholic - Sophie Kinsella

Meet Rebecca Bloomwood. She’s a journalist. She spends her working life telling others how to manage their money. She spends her leisure time …shopping. Retail therapy is the answer to all her problems. She knows she should stop, but she can’t. She tries Cutting Back, she tries Making More Money. But neither seems to work. The stories she concocts become more and more fantastic as she tries to untangle her increasingly dire financial difficulties. Her only comfort is to buy herself something - just a little something…Can Becky ever escape from this dream world, find true love, and regain the use of her Switch card? “The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic” …is the perfect pick me up for when it’s all hanging in the (bank) balance.

After watching the film adaptation of this book I knew I had to read the book series, and the debut did not disappoint me. Kinsella allows the reader to enter the world of Becky Bloomwood, a serial spender and follow her as she attempts to regain control of her finances. I feel this book has more substance than the film going into detail about Becky’s love life or lack of it - i.e Tarquin. The different things Becky does for money vary from the film and I find the book version a lot funnier than the movie, although I do find the New York setting of the film more suitable than London. Her attempts to save money only lead to her spending more and losing even more control of her finances. The fact that she is a financial journalist is a bit of an oxymoron considering that she is in some serious financial difficulty. Kinsella prints various letters that Becky has received from banks, stores and credit card companies which allows you to empathise with Becky as well as cringe at the ridiculous excuses she has used to Derek Smeath. The fact that Becky carries on the Aunt Ermintrude lie throughout the story and to several different characters gave me the impression that Becky believes her own lies. 

Extremely impressed with the start of the series and I will most definitely read the rest to find out what Becky is going to do next. This was a book in which I couldn’t wait to read what was going to happen next and it’s full of surprises…especially at the end.