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2007-09-18 08:16
From: E@lentil
(China)
a review of Shopaholic Ties the Knot
 
As an academism, I didn't read this book for the shopping, wedding or baby stuff, but for the comedy. I like comic writing and there is little enough of it about in any genre.
The book is an enjoyable light read and it is very clever too, coz not many writers are as sharp with the jokes and one-liners as Sophie Kinsella, a.k.a Madeleine Wickham. The English scenes in this book reminded me of Alan Ayckbourn, but most of all Becky Bloomwood reminds me of P.G.Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster in her dim-witted, self-deluding indecisiveness. I laughed a lot reading this book, particularly the letters from banks, lawyers and the like,and I had a tear in my eye too at the throwing-the-bouquet moment.
The narrative style is a tour de force: the book is written in the difficult-to-pull-off present tense and is as light as a meringue throughout - no mean achievement. And the plot is very smart. (I didn't read the blurb - I never do - and good job too because it gives away the main plot device which doesn't start to kick in for about a hundred pages. It took my breath away when I realised where things were leading.)
My only criticism would be that at times Kinsella overpays scenes and goes round the houses with the dialogue - probably the result of not having enough time to revise properly, what with having to bring a Wickham and a Kinsella book out a year. Someone might criticise the book for being materialistic and showing how only one half lives, but that doesn't bother me, even though I'm not well off myself. I recommend the book wholeheartedly.
This review is helpful to 1 person.
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By Sophie Kinsella
Dial Press Trade Paperback
ISBN: 0385336179
Release Date: 2003-03-04
Paperback
List Price: USD 11.95
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