Author: Sophie Kinsella
Published: February 2008
Publisher: The Dial Press
389 pages (hardcover)
What if you woke up one day and discovered that you had the perfect life?
Lexi Smart (who is very reminiscent of Becky Bloomwood from Shopaholic) remembers herself having frizzy hair, crooked teeth, wonderful friends but a crappy boyfriend and being somewhere between middle-class and poor. When she wakes up, she’s in a hospital bed, but quickly discovers that she is a millionaire’s wife, looks like a model and is head of the department she used to work in!
The story sounded really interesting to me, which is why I picked it up. I mean, I’m sure we have all desperately wished at one point or another that our lives can just magically become better (please don’t tell me only I wish that, hahaha), whether it’s wishing to win the lottery or finding the perfect dream boyfriend/girlfriend. And at first, everything seems to be just perfect and wonderful and fantastic for Lexi. Her husband looks like an Armani model. She drives an open top Mercedes convertible. She’s a boss. She’s rich. She’s got a walk-in closet that’s bigger than the apartment she used to live in.
Of course, there is always a catch. Lexi’s life didn’t magically become this way. She got into a car accident and traumatized her brain pretty bad. She cannot remember anything from the past three years, so it was a mighty shock when the doctor informs her that it’s not 2004, but rather, 2007 now. She doesn’t remember how she got so beautiful, who her husband is, or how she suddenly became the boss. Worse yet, she doesn’t understand why her old friends are snubbing her and who this Jon person is who claims that she and him are lovers. It sounds really depressing, and it sort of is, but it’s also the perfect set-up for a comedy to happen. Admittedly, the flavor of humor in this book is more aimed towards the female population than male, but I think if a guy reads this book, they can appreciate some of the funny parts too! (Maybe not the parts where she’s flipping out over her Louis Vuitton bags or things like that … but I found the part where she’s hollering “There’s a SIXTH Harry Potter book now?!” pretty hilarious).
This book is loads of fun to read, it’s one of those kinds of books where once you start you can’t really stop. I mean, the plot isn’t actually that interesting on paper — she’s basically just trying to recover her memories and reconstruct the missing three years of her life — but it’s the little events that happen along the way that make this book exciting. The characters are all generally likeable, though I did not particularly feel attached to anyone. Lexi really reminds me strongly of Becky from Shopaholic, though not quite an airhead. This is only my second Kinsella book that’s not Shopaholic related, so I am not sure if Kinsella has a “typical” protagonist, but at this point, it seems like it. I’m not really that bothered though. I totally understand some people find airhead females annoying characters, but luckily I am usually okay with it, unless it goes overboard. Anyway, Lexi is really not that big of an airhead, just very reminiscent of Becky.
If you’ve read any of Kinsella’s books before, then you already know what kind of writing to expect. It’s in first person, and written in the same way someone might narrate a chick-movie. So no, it’s not amazing literature, but I found the personality in the writing fun. Actually, it felt like I wasn’t even reading at some points, but more like the novel was talking to me one-on-one, which I kind of liked.
My Rating: 4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment