The secret dreamworld of a shopaholic door Sophie Kinsella

The Plot

Rebecca’s job is quite boring, but ‘when the going gets tough – the tough go shopping’.

Rebecca’s her life is quite boring, the only pleasure she gets is when she buys her self something, just a little something.
But that little something gets out of proportions. But ok, she’s a financial journalist, she can handle.
She tries Cutting Back, that would cure all worries but never did she realise that retail therapy was the cause of most of her money problems as she ran into credit card debts.
How about the three M’s? Make More Money, yes that would solve everything. There was the photo frame project which turned out to be disastrous. Then the part-time job at a boutique which only lasted for a few hours as she tried to hide a pair of jeans she fancied a lot from a customer. Then, her impressive resume which stated that she could speak fluent Finnish, she thought it would look impressive, earned her an interview with a Finnish bank but she just ran away the moment the interviewer started rattling off in Finnish which sounded more like Greek to her.
As her whole world seemed to be tumbling down on her, she decided to return to her parents' home to escape from it all.
By chance, she learnt that her earlier mindless investment advice to her old neighbours had caused them to miss a windfall of 20K pounds. In the midst of her self-blaming, she suddenly discovered that there was some disintegrity on the financial company's part. From then on, life took a complete turn for her. From a materialistic financial journalist with lots of financial problems, she transformed into a cause-fighting investigative journalist who regularly appeared on TV morning show to answer callers' questions on financial matters.

The Main Character

Meet Rebecca Bloomwood, she’s a financial journalist. She spends her working life telling others how to manage their money. She spends her leisure time… shopping.
She loves shopping, that’s a statement in itself, but she doesn’t know her limits. So as soon she’s done her job she goes out to get the hottest shoes or e.g. Her wallet shrinks and shrinks, while her debts grow and grow.

Character Development

We are certainly dealing with character development. She started of as this financial journalist, retyping articles from another financial paper, not enjoying her work, with piles of unpaid bills. But during the book, she tries to pay off the bills in several ways, At the end she got this amazing job, which paid much more so she could finally pay her bills.

Flat Character

Suze, her flat mate is very important for the main character. She sees through Rebecca, she knows when she’s hiding something and helps her to get it out, and sorted out. She’s a flat character, because she’s this person who’s always got it sorted out. It’s important for her to be steady because Rebecca totally isn’t, Suze helps Rebecca to get back on her feet again.

My Opinion

I almost fell in love with Rebecca Bloomwood, she’s just so funny and naive. It was refreshing and incredibly funny, it’s a light-hearted book so you can just jump in at any time. In my opinion the main character is just phenomenal, the way she can twist round things, just makes you feel superior, I mean, everyone makes mistakes, but so many as she does?