The Secret Dreamworld Of A Shopaholic: (Shopaholic Book 1) (Shopaholic Series)

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This book made me physically ill. I felt like I was in more peril reading this book than anyone on a toxic waste clean-up crew. I’d wager that this book is the hands-down favorite in every nail parlor in America. Whenever I hear women talking about Prada et al, I imagine that they are studying up to go on The Price is Right. She talks as if shopping for luggage is somehow a satisfying and rewarding way for two adults who aren't brain-dead to spend an afternoon. It's creepy. In 2014 she published a Young Adult novel Finding Audrey about a teenage girl with social anxiety and her madcap family, and in January 2018, Sophie published her first illustrated book for young readers about the charming adventures of a mother-daughter fairy duo, Mummy Fairy and Me (also published as Fairy Mom and Me).

In the novel, Suze helps make artistic frames, that leads to her having a successful frame business. The film completely omits this. Take me, for example. When I am confronted by a cute pair of shoes or some colorful household item, I get kind of...well...impulsive, spendy, and irresponsible. Sometimes, my willpower can overrule that temptation, though passing through the Times Square and the Fifth Ave area multiple times during the week for work really weakens my resolve. When I discovered that there was no Aha! moment for her, and no growth or anything in her character, and that somewhere down the line she marries The Guy, I decided to stop reading for good. The Guy seems intelligent and rational, so why he would hitch himself to a financial disaster in Prada heels is beyond me. No. This isn't Angela's Ashes, people. Anyone who believes that a maxed out credit-card is the definition of strife deserves this book. These are the superfluous qualms of the privileged. If I ever read another review of a book like this on how "sad it was beneath the surface" all I have to say is how sad you are beneath the surface.

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I reach gaily into the envelope, but my fingers don’t quite pull out the bill. They remain clutched around it while my mind is seized – as it is every month – by my secret dream.

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. Until her neighbors get in a bit of a financial mess by Rebecca's advice, and she turns out to have a little brain.

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I must confess that I was expecting more similarities, the book took a different direction, many situations changed. The thing is, for me, the story went about for too long before I managed to see anything other than the bling-bling obsessed Rebecca. In fact, it took so long to drive this to an interesting point, I nearly lost interest (which, considering how short this book is, says a lot). Rebecca is a shopaholic, finds stratagems to evade creditors, doesn't pay attention to anything, honestly I don't know how she manages to get away with work. The modern day fairy tale ending for could happen. Debt paid off, get the job you want, they guy, the clothes, the romance, the money, the fame..... It grasps on the the romantic notion of what life should be, and could be. It seem to encourage that there is nothing wrong with lying to yourself and others.

The saddest part about this is just how many people have read this pile of offal. It always amazes me who we allow to speak in this culture, and by “allow” I mean by our tacit acquiescence to whatever crap the corporate powers force-feed us. I have written about this elsewhere in more detail, but the only aspect of our popular culture that runs strictly on merit is sports. Everywhere else fame and fortune is handed out mostly through cronyism, nepotism, or the decision is made in a boardroom somewhere. This is where it all begins. Meet Rebecca Bloomwood. She’s a financial journalist who spends all day writing articles on how to manage money wisely. Her own method of managing money is to hide her Visa bills under the bed and hope they’ll disappear.It has to be said and there’s no nice way to say it: Rebecca, the protagonist of this book, is shallow and a fluff-head (as her head is always full of recently bought clothes, it couldn’t be otherwise). This is my third Kinsella book, and so far the women are always complete idiotic dip-shits that only barely manage to bumble through their careers while managing to make an ass of themselves at every turn. I find it's quite painful to read and not at all amusing. And if that's not unbearable enough, in this one Rebecca Bloomwood personifies materialism---AND THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS THAT IT'S OKAY! There will always be a sexy, successful, intelligent, no-bullshit kind of guy who will find your stupidity and poor impulse control endearing. You can rely on the fate and good-fortune of womanly endowments to make all the trivial problems in your little, frivolous bubble of world disappear. I think that if Rebecca had grown into a miraculously responsible woman, totally transformed, changing her expending ways into frugality, I would have been bored. Instead, as she growths just enough to save her skin for the collectors and find herself a handsome guy, I was entertained. Sophie’s latest novel, Surprise Me, published in February 2018, presents a humorous yet moving portrait of a marriage—its intricacies, comforts, and complications. Surprise Me reveals that hidden layers in a close relationship are often yet to be discovered. 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.