Saturday 17 February 2007

Shopaholic and Baby by Sophie Kinsella

Shopaholic and Baby
Sophie Kinsella
Bantam Press €??

DITSY fashionista Becky is back, and she’s pregnant. And the heroine of the Shopaholic series has made a Nobel-worthy discovery for medical science: shopping is the cure for morning sickness.

So she shops till she drops, even sourcing the perfect obstetrician. But uh-oh, who is the fab ob and gyn but husband Luke’s languid old flame, flame-haired Venetia. And just when lovely Becky is all bulgy and queasy.

Naturally we can expect a roller-coaster of misunderstandings, suspicion and embarrassment.

Very funny embarrassment - I was reading this, helpless to stop, while walking through Baggot Street and let out such a snort of hilarity that it made a passing businessman jib and whinny in shock.

Becky's a disaster on legs, but the legs end in Archie Swann distressed calfskin cowboy boots (the ones with the drawstring - the ones that will seal her deal on the great new house she wants), so that's all right.

Wasn't it Freud that defined those ruled by the pleasure principle as children unable to control their lives, while those deploying the reality principle - and putting off current pleasure to earn later, more valuable rewards - are the grownups.

Herr Doktor Doktor Freud would have sniffed at Becky, whose motto should be 'to know it is to love it; to love it is to own it'.

But her wantingest want is for husband Luke, and it looks as if the old flame may want to make her marriage toast. So Becky hires a private eye - and naturally also sends the sleuth to find where her colleague gets her secret fabulous eyebrow look.

This is a book for the pleasure principle, to be gobbled in one greedy gulp, not savoured for its literary finesse. Brilliant, funny and absolutely lovable.

*****

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