 First edition | |
| Author | Sophie Kinsella |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Comedy, Chick lit |
| Publisher | Black Swan |
| Followed by | Shopaholic Abroad |
The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic (2000) (released in the United States and India as Confessions of a Shopaholic) is a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella, the first in the Shopaholic series. It focuses on Becky Bloomwood, a financial journalist who is in serious debt due to her shopping addiction.
Becky Bloomwood lives in a flat in Fulham, London, owned by her best friend Suze's wealthy, aristocratic parents. She works as a financial journalist for Successful Savings magazine, which she dislikes. Becky admits to knowing little about personal finance, and is thousands of pounds in debt due to reckless spending on designer homeware, clothes and beauty products, which she rationalizes as 'investments' or 'absolute necessities'. The novel is punctuated by reminder letters from her various banks (and in particular the Endwich Bank, run by a certain Derek Smeath). Despite this, she still receives letters offering her credit and department store cards.
On her way to a press conference at Brandon Communications, she notices a scarf she has long craved on sale for 50% at Denny & George, but realizes she has left her credit card at the office. The shop assistant agrees to hold it until the end of the day. At the press conference, Becky is greeted by a staff member of Brandon Communications, who questions her about some breaking financial news, which Becky has to feign knowledge of. After the conversation, Luke Brandon, head of Brandon Communications, informs her that one financial group recently bought another, and it is rumored that Flagstaff Life is going the same way. But she has a much bigger concern: during the conference Becky realizes that she will not have time to return to the office for her credit card, but only needs 20 pounds more to buy the scarf. Luke overhears her asking a friend to lend her the money in vain, and interrupts the press conference to lend it to her, after she makes up a story about buying a gift for her hospitalized aunt.
Visiting her parents in Surrey, to whom she would never confess her money problems, they advise her to buy an apartment. As she replies she is not rich enough, their common-sense answer is that she has to choose between saving or making more money.
But Becky is totally incorrigible. Her first efforts to save money will be to .. buy a financial self-help book, along with a pen and a notebook to track expenditures.
Later that week, Becky's flat mate Suze invites her out to dinner with her and her cousins, including Tarquin, long-time lover... but very unattractive. In the same restaurant, Luke is having dinner there with his parents. Luke's stepmother, Annabel, compliments Becky's scarf. Becky claims her aunt died in the hospital in order to avoid arousing Luke’s suspicions that she purchased the scarf for herself. Luke asks Becky to come shopping with him at Harrods. She initially enjoys shopping with him for luggage, but is upset to learn that it is actually for his girlfriend, Sacha. She tells Luke off for humiliating her.
Suze and Becky find a magazine feature about eligible millionaires, including Tarquin and Luke. Tarquin asks Becky out on a date and compliments her on her scarf. Out of honesty, she declines a generous cheque for a charity (which she had come up with to keep the conversation going). But while Tarquin goes to the bathroom, Becky looks at his checkbook, and is disappointed : he spends almost nothing ! Horrible moment of embarrassment when Tarquin returns and Becky feels he saw her looking at the checkbook. Becky loses interest in Tarquin, despite his wealth and admitted he's just not her type.
Throughout the story, Derek Smeath, Becky’s bank manager, is trying to contact her to discuss her overdraft. Becky offers various implausible excuses for not meeting him, until chance brings them together at a conference. Smeath makes an appointment with her and threatens her with trouble if she doesn't show up ... Out of excuses, Becky goes to hide at her parents' house, telling them she has a stalker. Becky learns that her neighbors made a financial decision based on advice she gave them absentmindedly and they stand to lose thousands of pounds. Mortified, she attempts to make amends by writing an article exposing the bank's duplicity on the Daily World. The article is successful, and leads Becky to appear on a daytime television show, The Morning Coffee.
However, Becky did not realize the bank was a client of Luke's PR firm. He is angry with her, believing she wrote the article in retaliation for him disrespecting her. Becky mentions tried to call Luke several times to get his side of the story, but Alicia selfishly hung up on her believing her to be nothing more than a fanatic. They square off on television and Becky drives her point home about Flagstaff Life's duplicity. Luke concedes that she was right about them defrauding their customers and announces that Brandon Communications will no longer represent the bank. Becky becomes a regular on the Morning Coffee and a caller asks her how she can make her bad financial situation disappear because of poor decisions she's made. Hearing the story hit home to her, she advises the caller to take responsibility for finances because running away from the problems will make things worse. Afterwards, Becky takes her own advice, talks to Smeath, apologizes for her behavior, and agrees to meet him to discuss her debts.
Luke invites Becky for a "business dinner" at The Ritz. They end up sleeping with each other at the end of the night, and Becky misses another meeting with Smeath. However, Smeath writes to say that the meeting can be postponed, as her finances have improved thanks to her television work, though he will continue to monitor her account.
The earlier novels in the series received a generally positive reception from critics.
One review considered it to be clever that Kinsella begins each chapter with an ominous letter to Becky from her bank. [1]
Readers were said to like Becky, and care about what was happening to her as if for a friend. [2] While she has faults, she is 'irresistibly daft.' [2] Many reviewers agreed that Kinsella had managed to combine two essential ingredients that make a novel popular with readers: abundant flashes of reality and witty humour. Women identified with the character and her situation. Reviews encouraged readers to 'stick to' these earlier books in the series, considering them better than the later books which appeared to have been written excessively quickly, although they would still satisfy those already faithful to the series. [3]
A film adaptation of the novels starring Isla Fisher as Becky Bloomwood, Hugh Dancy as Luke Brandon, and Krysten Ritter as Suze was released on 13 February 2009. [4] The film focused on some of the book's plots, while eliminating others to make room for the plot of the second novel, Shopaholic Abroad .
The Shopaholic series as of July, 2020 consists of nine novels and one short story, in order:
Vanity Fair is a novel by the English author William Makepeace Thackeray, which follows the lives of Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley amid their friends and families during and after the Napoleonic Wars. It was first published as a 19-volume monthly serial from 1847 to 1848, carrying the subtitle Pen and Pencil Sketches of English Society, which reflects both its satirisation of early 19th-century British society and the many illustrations drawn by Thackeray to accompany the text. It was published as a single volume in 1848 with the subtitle A Novel without a Hero, reflecting Thackeray's interest in deconstructing his era's conventions regarding literary heroism. It is sometimes considered the "principal founder" of the Victorian domestic novel.
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Susan Lynn "Suze" Orman is an American financial advisor, author, and podcast host. In 1987, she founded the Suze Orman Financial Group. Her work as a financial advisor gained notability with The Suze Orman Show, which ran on CNBC from 2002 to 2015.
Madeleine Sophie Wickham, known by her pen name Sophie Kinsella, is an English author. The first two novels in her best-selling Shopaholic series, The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic and Shopaholic Abroad, were adapted into the film Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009). Her books have sold over 40 million copies in more than 60 countries, and been translated into over 40 languages.
Shopaholic is a series of novels written by the UK author Sophie Kinsella, who also writes under her real name Madeleine Wickham. The books follow protagonist Rebecca Bloomwood, an idealistic, but intelligent and hard-working financial journalist through her adventures in shopping and life. Each book typically centers around a large shift in Becky's personal or work life and details the trouble that ensues as a result of her quirky personality and unrealistic goals. As of October 2019, the series has ten books. The novel series has been optioned by a Hollywood studio, with the first Shopaholic film being released 13 February 2009.
The Custom of the Country is a 1913 tragicomedy of manners novel by the American author Edith Wharton. It tells the story of Undine Spragg, a Midwestern girl who attempts to ascend in New York City society.
The Corinthian is a regency novel by Georgette Heyer.
Rebecca "Becky" Sharp, later describing herself as Rebecca, Lady Crawley, is the main protagonist of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1847–48 novel Vanity Fair. She is presented as a cynical social climber who uses her charms to fascinate and seduce upper-class men. This is in contrast with the clinging, dependent Amelia Sedley, her friend from school. Becky then uses Amelia as a stepping stone to gain social position. Sharp functions as a picara—a picaresque heroine—by being a social outsider who is able to expose the manners of the gentry to ridicule.
Confessions of a Shopaholic is a 2009 American romantic comedy film based on the first two entries in the Shopaholic series of novels by Sophie Kinsella. Directed by P. J. Hogan, the film stars Isla Fisher as the shopaholic journalist and Hugh Dancy as her boss.
Rebecca Jane "Becky" Brandon is a fictional character and the main protagonist from the Shopaholic series of novels by British author Sophie Kinsella. She has been described by Bustle as "fiction's most famous fashionista".
City of Bones is the first urban fantasy book in author Cassandra Clare's New York Times bestselling series The Mortal Instruments. The novel, first published in 2007, is set in modern-day New York City and has been released in several languages, including Bulgarian, Hebrew, Polish and Japanese. It is the first book in the first trilogy of The Mortal Instruments which includes the books City of Ashes and City of Glass.
Shopaholic Abroad (2001) is the second in the Shopaholic series. It is an adventure novel by Sophie Kinsella, a pseudonym of Madeleine Wickham. It follows the story of Becky Bloomwood and her adventures when she's offered the chance to work in New York City. Along with the first novel in the series, it provided the basis for the film Confessions of a Shopaholic.
Shopaholic Ties the Knot (2002) is the third in the popular Shopaholic series. It is a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella, a pseudonym of Madeline Wickham. It follows the story of Becky Bloomwood and her boyfriend Luke Brandon as they become engaged and plan their wedding.
Shopaholic and Sister (2004) is a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella, a pseudonym of Madeline Wickham. It is the fourth book in the Shopaholic series. It follows the story of Becky Brandon and her husband Luke as they return from their ten-month long honeymoon.
Shopaholic and Baby (2007) is the fifth novel in the popular 'Shopaholic' series. It is a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella, a pseudonym of Madeline Wickham. It follows the story of Becky Brandon and her husband Luke as they navigate Becky's first pregnancy.
A Shabby Genteel Story is an early and unfinished novel by William Makepeace Thackeray. It was first printed among other stories and sketches in his collection Miscellanies. A note in Miscellanies by Thackeray, dated 10 April 1857, describes it as "only the first part" of a longer story which was "interrupted at a sad period of the writer's own life" and never subsequently completed. He also describes it as being written "seventeen years ago", therefore c. 1840. This was the period when Thackeray's wife became mentally unstable, throwing his personal life into confusion.
Mini Shopaholic (2010) is the sixth book of the Shopaholic series. It is a chick-lit novel by Sophie Kinsella, a pen-name of Madeline Wickham. It focuses on the main character Rebecca (Becky) Bloomwood, her husband Luke Brandon and their daughter Minnie.