Shopaholic To The Rescue

The Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella has long been a guilty pleasure of mine. The books tell the fun, yet often cringeworthy adventures of Becky Bloomwood, The Girl With Impulse Control Issues.
Becky loves to shop and hates to face up to the financial messes her addiction to consumption causes. Repeatedly. Becky is often irresponsible, sometimes delusional and yet, somehow, always irresistable.

The first three books in the series, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan and Shopaholic Ties the Knot, are fun, quick, fluffy reads that I find myself going back to over and over again when I feel stressed and want something to take my mind off things. After the third book though, things started to go downhill in the series.

Kinsella (a pseudonym for the always entertaining Madeleine Wickham) decided sometime in the last decade or so that even though Becky's life was pretty well wrapped up in a nice, neat bow by the end of Shopaholic Ties the Knot, people would want to keep reading about her adventures. The problem with this decision is that, well, you can only read about a person growing up for so long before you want to throw the book across the room and yell, "Enough already!"

In each book Becky has some sort of epiphany about her behavior, her shallowness, her relentless need to consume  and you cheer for her. Finally! She's grown a clue! And then! A new book comes out and it turns out that, no, Becky hasn't learned a damned thing. She's just found a new mental loophole to justify why this time whatever bad decisions she's made are ok. Until it comes time to grow up yet again.

By the time Shopaholic To The Stars came out, I was beyond ready to call it quits on this series. I couldn't imagine how it was possible to drag yet another book out of this girl's life. And yet, because I am just that masochistic, I read it. Note: I didn't purchase it - I stopped purchasing these books somewhere along volume 5. But I tend to be one of those people who has to see a thing through to the end. So, much as I might dislike that these books are still, endlessly being published, I have to read them.

Shopaholic To The Stars was a massive disappointment. The book was full of book 1 Becky at her worst. And then it ended with a cliffhanger! Dammit! So of course I knew I was going to have to read Shopaholic To The Rescue as soon as I could. And I knew I was going to HATE it.

Imagine my surprise when I didn't. Hate it, that is.

Shopaholic To The Rescue was adorable. Becky at her best. And I might just be getting suckered here, who knows, maybe there'll be 8 more books and I'll be right back here in a couple of years... I don't think so though. I think this was it. I hope so because if it is, it will have almost redeemed the series for me.

I hesitate to give any substantive details of the story in case anyone hasn't read the previous 7 novels in the series. If you haven't, I highly recommend that you read books 1-3, skip book 4 (ugh - such a mistake that one was), then read book 5, skip 6 and then skim 7 and finish off with Shopaholic To The Rescue. Trust me, it will be better that way.