Confessions of a Shopaholic
by Sophie Kinsella
I don’t know any American woman who hasn’t seen the hilarious film Confessions of a Shopaholic. I loved the movie, not only for the laugh-a-minute scenes, but for the drama as well, and how it shows the tragic secrets people keep when they’re suffering from an addiction. In print, the main messages the movie communicates don’t really translate. At the end of the day, it was entertaining, but Hollywood greatly improved the story.
The biggest difference is the setting. Rebecca Bloomwood lives in England, not New York City. Since the two leads in the film were British, why didn’t they keep the original location? In any case, the story follows a first-person account of a woman who’s addicted to shopping. While there are some very good passages that show her thought process of how the urge to shop and spend permeates every facet of her life, most of the book focuses on the woman’s relationship with her friends and love interest, who’s already involved with another woman. It sometimes feels like a string of vignettes, since the subplots are so many and so scattered. But if you’re looking for something harmless to read on an airplane, and you don’t think you’ll be devastated that it’s not nearly as good as the movie, you can give it a try.
The biggest difference is the setting. Rebecca Bloomwood lives in England, not New York City. Since the two leads in the film were British, why didn’t they keep the original location? In any case, the story follows a first-person account of a woman who’s addicted to shopping. While there are some very good passages that show her thought process of how the urge to shop and spend permeates every facet of her life, most of the book focuses on the woman’s relationship with her friends and love interest, who’s already involved with another woman. It sometimes feels like a string of vignettes, since the subplots are so many and so scattered. But if you’re looking for something harmless to read on an airplane, and you don’t think you’ll be devastated that it’s not nearly as good as the movie, you can give it a try.