Confessions of A Shopaholic- Sophie Kinsella

Confessions of a shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella is a hilarious novel.If you have seen and loved the movie, then this book is for you, because it is completely different from the book. In fact, I had not read this book for years believing it might be the same as the movie. But, it is completely different, except the characters you won't find anything similar in the books and the movie. the storyline is different and so are the adventures. You will smile, giggle or may even roar with laughter at some places. It makes you happy to read the adventures and misadventures of Rebecca "Becky" Bloomwood. Becky is a financial journalist for a low budget journal , Successful Savings. And as the title says it all, Rebecca is a shopaholic and she knows so very well. But, she cannot control herself. She finds happiness in clothes, malls are her mecca and Vogue is her bible. Though she loves to shop from the top brands, she doesn't have the money to do so. and due to that Rebecca is in debt. She has stretched her Visa to the limit and not a day goes by when she doesn't receive a mail from the banks.

      Rebecca makes up stories and excuses to not pay these bills. Her best friend Suze is a rich girl and has no shortage of money. In fact her cousin Tarquin is the 15th richest man in Britain and has the hots for our own Becky. Then there is the main lead Luke Brandon. The Luke Brandon. The hot Luke Brandon. He is hot, he is intelligent and he is a multi-millionaire, no faults there, eh. Luke seems to look through Becky's lies and excuses and that does not go down well with her and that is why she doesn't like her and also because he was Suze's ex boss and he had sacked her, but that doesn't count. He likes Becky but has a girlfriend , about whom when he tells to Becky, she gets upset and stops talking to him.
       Meanwhile the load of loan on Becky starts to increase and she is not able to pay them off. She keeps on inventing new excuses each time the bank calls her and keeps running from her responsibilities. Her father gives her to options CB or MMM, that is , Cut Back or Make More Money. Becky then buys a book on Cutting Back her expenses and what follows are Becky's hilarious interpretation of what the book is trying to say and what she understands out of it. For example the book asks the reader to take home made coffee in a flask instead of buying expensive ones, and what Becky makes out from this advice is that she needs to buy an expensive flask from some expensive shop to take coffee, classic Becky. And we just love her for it. The way she has explanations for every little thing, the way she day dreams about every situation she lands in and how she will come through it with flying colours, is what makes you fall in love with her at once. And so here she stops to Cut Back when she finds out that she had ended up spending more while "Cutting Back" than before.
       Next step is Making More Money. To do so, she joins a cooperation for making frames from home and also decides to change her job and join some high end bank following advice from Suze. And as usual, she lands herself up in trouble, and as usual we end up smiling at the mishaps that keep following her.
        Fed up from her life and constant debt collecting letters, she runs to her parent's house and tells then that she is being stalked by Derek Smeath, a bank employee, who in reality is a nice man ,who ust wanted her to pay off her debts. She feels terrible about her lies and excuses but is too self- respecting so as to let down her parents. Here she finds that her neighbors had been mis-adviced by an investment agency. She writes an emotional, a bit exaggerated article describing the tragedy that had taken place( though the tragedy was not a tragedy, to be true). And this article is published in the national newspaper. She is called by the telly people to feature on their show and carry on a heated financial debate with a representative of the financial firm. Rebecca is on the seventh moon when she hears this news. Any guesses who the representative turns out to be? Yes, you are absolutely right, LUKE BRANDON. He opposes Rebecca but then ends up taking her side and leaving his clients on national television.
         After her stint on the television, Rebecca is offered a regular slot on the show and so her money problems just get sorted out and yes, she goes on a date with Luke as well. Nothing is sad at the end of this novel. Becky is happy, and so is Luke and quite frankly so are we.