Second Quarter ORB

Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella, Delta Books, 2001 Genre: Fiction

Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella is a humorous book with a lot of detail and action although it may not be real. It takes place in London, Europe where Rebecca Bloomwood works as a financial journalist at Successful Savings and goes about her every day life. Rebecca goes through many tough times trying to keep her job, paying bills, trying to make more money, and figuring out her complicated love life.

“ Kinsella’s Bloomwood is plucky and funny… You won’t have to shop around to find a more winning protagonist.” – People
“ If a crème brulee could be transmogrified into a book, it would be Confessions of a Shopaholic.” – The Star-Ledger

Confessions of a Shopaholic shows Rebecca in her energetic, fast pace life style. Being a novel the book gives much detail on the challenges Rebecca faces and the tasks she must face each day. Can You Keep a Secret also by Sophie Kinsella is very similar in the sense that there are two girls in there mid twenties trying to keep their jobs as they try to get promoted. Also in both stories each one of the girls ends up in a relationship with a c.e.o of a major company.

Sophie’s writing style is very similar and the books and it talks about some of the same problems like business meetings, relationships, and work but they both have different conflicts. They are difference between the books is that Confessions of a Shopaholic is about money and being in debt but Can You Keep a Secret is about keeping people from embarrassing you and securing your social status. In both books you get a lot of detail and imagery and get a glimpse of Rebecca and Emma lives.

“ As I sit on the tube on my way home, I stare at my reflection- outwardly calm and relaxed. But inside, my mind’s scurrying around like a spider trying to find a way out. Round and round, legs flailing, no escape…” (Page 181)

I enjoy reading books by Sophie and I would like to read more. This book affects me in a major way because I learned a lot from it. I learned that you should not run away from your problems you will only get in more trouble and find yourself in terrible situations, instead you should deal with them head on and they will get better before you know it. I enjoyed that the book was funny and once I got into I just wanted to keep reading and find out what was going to happen next. That is one thing about Sophie Kinsella’s work, I always wanted to keep reading and never put the book down.