Product Description

Meet Rebecca Bloomwood. She's a journalist. She spends her working life telling others how to manage their money. She spends her leisure time...shopping. Retail therapy is the answer to all her problems. She knows she should stop, but she can't. She tries Cutting Back, she tries Making More Money. But neither seems to work. The stories she concocts become more and more fantastic as she tries to untangle her increasingly dire financial difficulties. Her only comfort is to buy herself something - just a little something...Can Becky ever escape from this dream world, find true love, and regain the use of her Switch card? "The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic..." is the perfect pick me up for when it's all hanging in the (bank) balance.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #585131 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-14
• Released on: 2000-09-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 319 pages

Amazon.com Review
If you've ever paid off one credit card with another, thrown out a bill before opening it, or convinced yourself that buying at a two-for-one sale is like making money, then this silly, appealing novel is for you. In the opening pages of Confessions of a Shopaholic, recent college graduate Rebecca Bloomwood is offered a hefty line of credit by a London bank. Within a few months, Sophie Kinsella's heroine has exceeded the limits of this generous offer, and begins furtively to scan her credit-card bills at work, certain that she couldn't have spent the reported sums.

In theory anyway, the world of finance shouldn't be a mystery to Rebecca, since she writes for a magazine called Successful Saving. Struggling with her spendthrift impulses, she tries to heed the advice of an expert and appreciate life's cheaper pleasures: parks, museums, and so forth. Yet her first Saturday at the Victoria and Albert Museum strikes her as a waste. Why? There's not a price tag in sight.

It kind of takes the fun out of it, doesn't it? You wander round, just looking at things, and it all gets a bit boring after a while. Whereas if they put price tags on, you'd be far more interested. In fact, I think all museums should put prices on their exhibits. You'd look at a silver chalice or a marble statue or the Mona Lisa or whatever, and admire it for its beauty and historical importance and everything--and then you'd reach for the price tag and gasp, "Hey, look how much this one is!" It would really liven things up.

Eventually, Rebecca's uncontrollable shopping and her "imaginative" solutions to her debt attract the attention not only of her bank manager but of handsome Luke Brandon--a multimillionaire PR representative for a finance group frequently covered in Successful Saving. Unlike her opposite number in Bridget Jones's Diary, however, Rebecca actually seems too scattered and spacey to reel in such a successful man. Maybe it's her Denny and George scarf. In any case, Kinsella's debut makes excellent fantasy reading for the long stretches between white sales and appliance specials. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly
Add this aptly titled piffle to the ranks of pink-covered girl-centric fiction that has come sailing out of England over the last two years. At age 25, Rebecca Bloomwood has everything she wants. Or does she? Can her career as a financial journalist, a fab flat and a closet full of designer clothes lessen the blow of the dunning letters from credit card companies and banks that have been arriving too quickly to be contained by the drawer in which Rebecca hides them? Although her romantic entanglements tend toward the superficial, there is that wonderful Luke Brandon of Brandon Communications: handsome, intelligent, the 31st-richest bachelor according to Harper's and actually possessed of a personality that is more substance than style. Too bad that Rebecca blows it whenever their paths cross. Will Rebecca learn to stop shopping before she loses everything worthwhile? When faced with the opportunity to do good for others and impress Luke, will she finally measure up? Rebecca is so unremittingly shallow and Luke is so wonderful that readers may find themselves rooting for the heroine not to get the manAalthough, since Shakespeare's time, there's rarely been any doubt concerning how romantic comedies will end. There's a certain degree of madcap fun with some of Rebecca's creative untruths; when she persuades her parents that a bank manager is a stalker, some very amusing situations ensue. Still, this is familiar stuff, and Rebecca is the kind of unrepentant spender who will make readers, save those who share her disorder in the worst way, pity the poor bill collector. (Feb. 13) Forecast: This is a well-designed book, with a catchy magenta spine, and a colorful and kinetic double coverAwhich will attract many browsers. Major ad/promo, including national NPR sponsorships, will enhance sales, despite the novel's flaws.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
London's chic boutiques and glamorous socialites star in this comic novel about binge shopping for clothes and makeup. Kinsella wickedly sets up shopping addict and financial writer Becky Bloomwood at Successful Savings , a second-rate trade magazine. Becky, for whom saving is a concept for other people, relieves the tedium of meaningless work with giddy sprees she can ill afford. As her debt grows ever more unmanageable, Becky's self-justifying obbligatos become ever more shrill, and her white lies turn steadily darker. In one self-delusional attempt to find a better paying job, she bolsters her resume with fluency in Finnish, only to come face to face with the CEO of the Bank of Helsinki. But when Becky gets her teeth into a real news story, she discovers her limits are far greater than she had imagined. Kinsella's novel, though antic, would be more compelling if Becky were even slightly more self-aware. Does Kinsella sustain an entire novel with a 25-year-old writer addicted to clothes and makeup? Perhaps, if readers love clothes and makeup just as much. Suzanne Young
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Customer Reviews

This book turned me into a Sophieholic
This book is fun..I mean great fun and not just the girlish giggle type of fun but the LAUGH OUT LOUD fun. Its THAT good! It got me hooked on Sophie Kinsella.I have now all her books in my shelf and can't wait for her to write more!

This book, first of all, is the same book known as "COnfessions of a Shopaholic ".(just a different title) I dont know why it has two different titles but anyway...

I have started reading humourous chick-lit after I read the two Bridget Jones Diaries. To be honest I was sure I wouldnt find a funnier book than those two but, happily, i found i was wrong :)

Kinsella has the touch. I've read "Can You keep a Secret?" and the first two of the Shopaholic books and I'm still craving for more. (thankfully i still got "Shopaholic ties the knot" and "shopaholic & sister" to keep me going)

This is a book for those people who want to have a good, healthy laugh, who want to forget for a while the worries and troubles of everyday life. Yes Rebecca Bloomwood has no sense as regards to her personal finance . Yes she becomes totally and irrevocably irresponsible as soon as enters into a shopping mall. But heck, this is what makes the book such fun. We can actually feel good about ourselves because we can never be as bad as her....(some of us at least ;)

Her replies to the letters she recieves from her exasperated Bank are hilarious and equally so her reasonings that actually when she is spending she is in fact investing. Her attempts to control her spending are so funny I couldn't stop laughing. The Curry recipe part is really incredibly funny....

I think that most females will find themselves in Rebecca. I bet most of us have thought once or twice on the same lines as Rebecca does when she tries to excuse one of her mad urges for an expensive but not so practical item.

All i can say more is go on an read it a perfect light book with humour and also a dash of romance which will warm your heart like whiskey ;)

What a delightful, hilarious read!!
I started it last night and stayed up till 3 a.m. to finish this book! I really enjoyed this book ~~ it was funny, lighthearted and cute! I laughed out loud in some places and found myself shaking my head in other places.

Rebecca is a girl who overdraws her bank account and maxes out her Visa card. I am not a big shopper (unless you call shopping for books a shopping spree ~~ then I am!) of clothes but it was funny just to hear her describe her clothes like she is posing for Vogue or Cosmo or even 17. Her justification for buying things are hilarious and the scene where she was trying to make curry made me laugh so hard! (I'm a cook and that scene just cracks me up because I've done the same thing she did!) Sophie took a character riddled with anxieties and insecurities and made her so likeable ~~ you can't help but laugh at some of her excuses. She has a vivid imagination which really carries the book through.

I can see why some of the critics didn't care for this book ~~ it does sound like something from a fashion magazine, but Sophie is a good, clean writer. I really enjoyed this book and would like to read more of hers. Her sense of humor is a lot like mine and it is a refreshing read! I recommend it for a light, easy reading and if you're looking for humor, this book has it all.

Grab A Copy Of This Book and Say "Charge It!"
That's what our heroine, Rebecca Bloomwood, does fifty times a day. Clothes, make-up, scarves, boots, anything that has a price tag is fodder for Rebecca's shopaholic paradise. Unfortunately, Becky has maxed out her Visa, is getting threatening letters from her bank, and has borrowed from her roommate. Even more unfortunately, she can't curb her addiction to shopping. Sophie Kinsella gives us the funniest, most messed-up, and yet most endearingly vulnerable heroine of the year. If you've ever aspired to be trendy and glamourous but didn't quite have the budget to accomplish this, you'll laugh and cry along with Becky as she attempts the two biggest ways to achieve financial security---Cutting Back and Making More Money. Her attempts are disastrous, her failures hysterical. So, what does she do? She gives herself a little consolation prize...just a tiny little purchase, and another, and another....cause Becky was born to shop and couldn't stop if her life depended on it. As an added joy, she is also a financial journalist who writes articles advising others how to manage their money. Light, clever, and totally disarming, this is a quick, fun read sure to please anyone who gets an adrenaline rush walking into a mall.

I can't wait to read the upcoming sequel "Shopaholic Takes Manhattan" for more side-splitting fun shopping with Becky!