Confessions of a Shopaholic

Confessions of a Shopaholic is Sophie Kinsella’s 7th book in a series about (you guessed it!) Shopaholics. She writes with omniscient insight into the addicted-to-shopping condition. Not only is there insight but there is wisdom and the babbling mind of a girl whose high on credit.

Rebecca Bloomwood can’t resist treating herself to a little something here and there. But when the bills start arriving on her doorstep, and at work, and at her mother’s house, she decides to take a little evasive action. Easing the guilt with a nice dinner out on the town and one of those pretty scarves in the window.

To top it off, her job involves writing articles for a magazine called Successful Savings. That’s right, she is a financial journalist hopping from one banking PR event to the next. She knows nothing about banking or money, she does admit and the PR events are useless because you can get all the information you need from the press release while you spend a luxurious hour sipping French Champagne.

In a job without true relevance to her life she finds meaning in clothes – DKNY, Prada, Gucci, Denny & George aaaah the list goes on. There is nothing she won’t buy. So with all this debt and the lack of any better job prospects Rebecca decides to Cut Back. And, when that doesn’t work she decides to Make More Money. Just her luck that whatever she does lands her in an even bigger mess than before. Even worse she’s sure Luke Brandon, the young hotshot at Brandon Communications can obviously see right through her pretend knowledge. But she’s got even bigger problems with the Bank Manager dogging her around town.

I couldn’t quite relate to Becky in terms of her impulses on shopping. In fact, her character really got on my nerves. I was wondering why she couldn’t stop shopping or giving herself a little treat here and there. It’s probably because I’m not a shopaholic. Not even a shopper. I know it sounds like unreal. Go ask my husband. He’s more of a shopper that I am.

And also, she’s the type that never knows how to say no… until she’s caught up with it. Then she would run away in a middle of situation. She becomes evasive.

Anyways, the thing that I can relate though is her addiction generally. Sometimes there are things we do out of impulses or addiction. We don’t think. We become a slave to it… like we are born to do that. And it’s hard to get away from it, until probably we can no longer function properly.

The moral of the story is that you should face your problems heads on… right at the slight hint of it. Don’t wait until it becomes so big you won’t have a control at it.

Anyways… I will have to see the movie. The synopsis of the movie is quite different from the book itself. So I’m interested to know.

Next book project: Shopaholic Takes Manhattan.