内容简介
Millions of readers have come to adore New York Times best-selling author Sophie Kinsella's irrepressible heroine. Meet Becky Bloomwood, America's favorite shopaholic – a young woman with a big heart, big dreams…and just one little weakness.
Becky has a fabulous flat in London's trendiest neighborhood, a troupe of glamorous socialite friends, and a closet brimming with the season's must-haves. The only trouble is that she can't actually afford it–not any of it.
Her job writing at Successful Savings not only bores her to tears, it doesn't pay much at all. And lately Becky's been chased by dismal letters from the bank –letters with large red sums she can't bear to read–and they're getting ever harder to ignore.
She tries cutting back. But none of her efforts succeeds. Becky's only consolation is to buy herself something... just a little something...
Finally a story arises that Becky actually cares about, and her front-page article catalyzes a chain of events that will transform her life–and the lives of those around her–forever.
Sophie Kinsella has brilliantly tapped into our collective consumer conscience to deliver a novel of our times–and a heroine who grows stronger every time she weakens. Becky's hilarious schemes to pay back her debts are as endearing as they are desperate. Her "confessions" are the perfect pick-me-up when life is hanging in the (bank) balance.
作者简介
Sophie Kinsella is the author of the bestselling Shopaholic series, as well as The Undomestic Goddess and Can You Keep a Secret? She lives in England.
精彩书评
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
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.
——Publishers Weekly
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
精彩书摘
Chapter One
Ok. don't panic. Don't panic. It's only a VISA bill. It's a piece of paper; a few numbers. I mean, just how scary can a few numbers be?
I stare out of the office window at a bus driving down Oxford Street, willing myself to open the white envelope sitting on my cluttered desk. It's only a piece of paper, I tell myself for the thousandth time. And I'm not stupid, am I? I know exactly how much this VISA bill will be.
Sort of. Roughly.
It'll be about... £200. Three hundred, maybe. Yes, maybe £300. Three-fifty, max.
I casually close my eyes and start to tot up. There was that suit in Jigsaw. And there was dinner with Suze at Quaglinos. And there was that gorgeous red and yellow rug. The rug was £200, come to think of it. But it was definitely worth every penny — everyone's admired it. Or, at least, Suze has.
And the Jigsaw suit was on sale — 30 percent off. So that was actually saving money.
I open my eyes and reach for the bill. As my fingers hit the paper I remember new contact lenses. Ninety-five pounds. Quite a lot. But, I mean, I had to get those, didn't I? What am I supposed to do, walk around in a blur?
And I had to buy some new solutions and a cute case and some hypoallergenic eyeliner. So that takes it up to... £400?
At the desk next to mine, Clare Edwards looks up from her post. She's sorting all her letters into neat piles, just like she does every morning. She puts rubber bands round them and puts labels on them saying things like "Answer immediately" and "Not urgent but respond." I loathe Clare Edwards.
"OK, Becky?" she says.
"Fine," I say lightly. "Just reading a letter."
I reach gaily into the envelope, but my fingers don't quite pull out the bill. They remain clutched around it while my mind is seized — as it is every month — by my secret dream.
Do you want to know about my secret dream? It's based on a story I once read in The Daily World about a mix-up at a bank. I loved this story so much, I cut it out and stuck it onto my wardrobe door. Two credit card bills were sent to the wrong people, and — get this — each person paid the wrong bill without realizing. They paid off each other's bills without even checking them.
And ever
Confessions of a Shopaholic 购物狂的自白 [平装] 电子书 下载 mobi epub pdf txt