At A Glance

Genre: Chick Lit
Love Triangle/Insta Love?: Nope.
Cliff Hanger: not really.
Rating: 4.5 Stars

Score Sheet
All out of ten

Cover: 8
Plot: 8
Characters: 9
World Building: 7
Flow: 9
Series Congruity: n/a
Writing: 8
Ending: 8

Total: 8

In Depth

Best Part: Shopping!
Worst Part: n/a :D
Overall Feels Felt: Love this!!!; Oh snap.; Yummy man :D

Conclusion

Continuing the Series: yes!
Recommending: yes!
Misc.: Trigger Warning; Main character has obsessive need to shop.

Short Review: I just love this series so much. For reals, i usually hate chick lit, but love this. It's such a fluffy read but at the same time, there is a sense of expense in there from her avoiding her bill collectors. I wish i could live her life, shopping every day :D i do hope her romance grows greatly and he doesn't find out about her debt, or if he does, he accepts and not get crazy mad. I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

Review In GIF Form

I can see how this would hit if you were reading it in like 2005, but in 2022 it's just so clear that the leading lady needs urgent psychiatric attention. Sadder than its supposed to be I think

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ five stars -

Five solid stars for one of my favorite novels by a favorite author, Sophie Kinsella. I read this around the time of original publication; sometime in 2000, and that started my auto-buy of the subsequent books that continue this series.

As a fan of Kinsella, I just adore her writing style, her sense of humor, and her stellar skill for chick lit. Her humor reaches through the pages, and you just feel the fun.

Becky is a heroine I personally related to. She’s a young woman addicted to shopping, and one who’s struggling to make her way in the world, all while attempting to pull herself out from under a mountain of debt. Her antics in this first series installment are still fun, cute, and tolerable. Albeit, while it is highly ott, it still comes off as highly entertaining.

Becky, to me, is a spunky heroine, and I just ate up these first few series installments (later on in the series, her antics became too intolerable for me - around book IV or V). However, books I, II, and III here are hugely entertaining, fun to read, and I highly recommend.

I will probably reread this one again at some point, as I’d love to revisit Becky in her early days. Watching her get tangled up in shopping hijinks makes me giggle, and feeling her fall in love gets my little heart pitter pattering. I just adore this fun story with a feel-good heartfelt romance.

Five bright and shiny stars for a favorite story, from a favorite author.

I just realized a slightly crazy thing:
The movie was way better than the book.
So much better.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna watch the movie for the 6172 time.

It is really rare that I don't finish a book. I usually force myself to finish them but this book just isn't for me. I hate to shop! Seriously it's not my thing. So combined that with the repeated use of the Lords name in vain coupled with her dumping her boyfriend because he didn't believe in premarital sex and I decided there are too many other books I would rather read instead of this one.

OK, this book did not sound like it would be any good, but I was surprised by how much I liked "Undomestic Goddess" by the same author. This book must be popular because I have been tripping over it in the book store for the past couple of years so I gave in. I just did not like the main character and wanted to throw the book across the room but I kept reading to see if it improved. It didn't.

2021 read: Financial reporter Becky Bloomwood has three serious problems, she loves shopping, she can't stop shopping and she shops to destress; if this was an animated encyclopaedia her face would come under the entry for shopaholic. I picked up a three-book box set of this series for a £1, so thought sod it, let's give this almost modern-classic 'chic-lit' series a go. Well this book is a masterclass in light-comedy tongue-firmly-in-cheek modern woman storytelling, I kid you not! With a delightful almost quirky protagonist in Becky and the innovative backdrop of the world of financial media(!), this book thoroughly deserves its top billing best selling status.

Warning, only about 5% of this book is romance, and at least 50% is about shopping... which I found fabulous! For all those detractors of these kind of reads, I stand by what I've always said, there's good and bad in all genres, and this is very very good! Big fans of romantic-comedies may not like this, as this is very much more a shopping-comedy! 8 out of 12 for this delightful and surprisingly compelling bit of fun.

This was so much fun! :)

I picked up this book because I felt like I needed to know if I like "chick lit" in the slightest. I thought "Good in Bed" was pretty stupid, but I liked the whole "Something borrowed, Something blue" series... so I was on the fence.

So I asked my friends for their favorite Kinsella book. This is my note to them:
WHO ARE YOU AND WHY DO YOU HATE ME??
and in slightly less anger:
Really girls? Did you just like this book at a time when you too were coming out of college and could slightly relate? Because thats the only thing I can think of. The main character is compulsive, irresponsible and above all a compulsive liar.

So what was I supposed to enjoy exactly?

This book was a waste of my time. And I spent far too much time on this book that I really didn't like.

The first 200 pages or so are spent with the main character, Rebecca, avoiding all her collection calls and all the letters in the mail from her creditors. She stuffs things into trucks, she keeps the letters in a drawer she never opens, anything to avoid the fact that she's got bills to pay. And then she has an embarrassing run-in with a sales clerk who tells her all her cards are declined. She doesn't even try to face her debts then. Oh no. She runs away to her parents' home, and goes into hiding, telling her parents that she's being stalked by the banker that's been calling her.

It's only then, in the last 50 pages, she gets a handle on herself, and then everything basically falls into her lap. I'm sorry, I just can't believe all that. It doesn't help that the woman is surrounded by people who think the least of her. But suddenly, she writes something wonderful, gets to go on TV, and hooks up with a guy, and all is well. No. I don't think so. And she doesn't even truly change at the end. She spends 140 pounds on three pairs of designer sunglasses she doesn't need. GREAT way to get yourself out of debt. GREAT way.

Don't bother with this book. It's not as fun as it seemed like it would be. It's depressing and annoying. Just don't bother.

Opening line: "Ok. Don't panic. It's only a Visa bill. It's a piece of paper, a few numbers. I mean, just how scary can a few numbers be?"

It's been ages since I’ve read any chick-lit but when I found this book amidst a bunch of “free stuff” left at the mail boxes (ironic hey, its about overspending and I find it for free) Anyways I grabbed it, along with some other useless crap and immediately started chuckling.

Reminding me very much of Bridget Jones's Diary, this was an equally fun read, that had me LOL more than once at the antics, irrational decisions and downward spiral of a shopaholic who, oh yeah also just happens to be a financial journalist. Here Becky Bloomwood counts $$ like Bridget counts calories; binging with shopping sprees, going on cost cutting diets, avoiding the shops, scheming about how to make more money (because she can‘t possibly spend less and just HAS to have that new white coat)

Becky is an irresistible heroine but she generally makes a mess of things and it was super fun watching her make bad decisions as she fumbles through her job at Successful Savings, shopping away her lunch hours while trying to avoid her bank managers calls.

Speaking of which her over stimulated Visa card almost becomes a character of its own here, and her bank manager eventually does with the inclusion of hilarious letters from Endwich Bank and the ever inventive ways Becky finds to not pay her Visa bill or in most cases ever even receive it.

Ah yes, there’s also romance, intrigue, adventures in Indian cooking, unsuccessful part time jobs, a stalker(?) best friends, copious amounts of champagne drinking and a fantastic ending that will leave you smiling. This is an all around feel good book that reminded me why every once in a while some chick lit is a fabulous thing and best of all this was free…

And let’s face it we’ve all been there with the credit card bills which we tend to ignore as soon as that excited feeling hits us upon first entering a store.
268jb5

ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICENT!
I was CRYING MYSELF LAUGHING during the entirety of this book - and I don't mean a soft giggle here and there, I mean I was laughing OUT LOUD.
Only Sophie Kinsella could come up with a character so absolutely void of the notion of what she's doing to herself - I mean, - a shopaholic working in a finance magazine? Who replies to her bank's letter saying she can't pay back her debts because her aunt got sick; or got in a car accident; or she's too busy converting to religion; or her dog feels ill.
Kinsella's books are dead ridiculous but a ton of fun, I'd recommend :)
Also, amongst my other favourite books by her are The Undomestic Goddess and Can You Keep a Secret!