This is just a light easy read. Becky, the main character is hopeless in an almost charming way. I say "almost." I did find myself wanting to strangle her several times. The book also ends somewhat abruptly. I felt like Becky never really learns her lesson and continues to be naive, irresponsible about her fiances and a compulsive liar. But through all of that...I did enjoy it well enough. I'm not sure if I actually want to spend any more time with Becky but I might give her sequel book a chance.

Cute, entertaining read.
Haven't read on in the series, based on this book. Highly predictable. But not a bad way to spend a lunch break. ;)

What I think is most fascinating about this one is its ability to reflect on societal ideals and standards for women in the 1990s and 2000s.

Is the main character relentlessly materialistic? Yes. But she feels she HAS to be to keep up with what the world demands of her. Does she lie to make her schemes work? Yes. But again, she does so because she feels that she HAS to so that she can make enough money to have a roof over her head and food and live a stable, relatively independent life.

This says more about her context than anything. She acts out of desperation and cultural confusion; she makes purchases because she fears what will happen if she doesn't. She buys because she imagines the theoretical gains from her purchases and deems them worthy. That's fascinating. She thinks so MUCH about shopping; she imagines it as crucial to her livelihood. And, honestly, with the amount that others comment on her choices, she might be right. We know the pretty bias is real, and here is a character is doing everything she can to take proper advantage of that.

Her addiction is primarily borne of anxiety and fear and the assumption that she has to be a certain way for everything to work out. Yet the focus of so many reviews is on how "insufferable" she is as a narrator. Yes, it's true, but her insufferability says so MUCH about her. Hats off to Kinsella for crafting a character who is generally not particularly likable but who is capable of conveying so much through her general unlikability.

Also: her role in as a Woman in Finance adds SO much to her character and the central conflict. SOLID CHOICE, KINSELLA. I might add more to this section later, but I think my reading notes might have this bit covered tbh.

4 stars for the way this book made me consider what it means to have an addiction to shopping and how it may present in a person's psychology. An additional .2 for the absurd situations that seemingly came out of nowhere For the Plot and that were quite delightful for their absurdity.

could not get thru it even though I was interested in the slightly predictable love plot line
her magical thinking about money made me so uncomfortable

I read this whole series like 10 or more years ago and wanted to revisit. Silly mindless read. I like the characters even through Becky is so silly. Not an amazing book but it is cute.

cute/easy read

I’ve had this book since the movie came out, so probably around 9-10 years and only got around to reading it now. It started off good - a very addictive and light chick-flick that had me laughing at times. But as the book went on, I got more and more annoyed with it.

The writing was easy to understand and not dense which was refreshing. Although I really enjoyed the start to halfway point of the novel, I didn’t enjoy very much after that sadly. I did find Rebecca funny at times and she was definitely a lot smarter than she gave herself credit for. But everything seemed to wrap up rosy at the end - with her friendships, relationship with Luke and the whole debt thing with Derek Smeath, even though he had been sending her warning letters the whole book and she had blown his meetings off time and time again? And then when you think she’s changed and matured at the end, she goes and blows off the next meeting with a silly excuse and he doesn’t get too annoyed at her for it? It really irked me how she kept throwing the letters away and ignoring them, then worried afterwards about her cards being cancelled and people chasing after her, but she still went on to continue blowing off meetings and not paying her bills or getting her finances in check?

Also, she told her parents and friends that Derek was a stalker and never explained the situation properly to anyone. If she had of thought about her actions and explained herself rather than twisting and lying and getting herself into bad situations, things wouldn’t have been so bad. I felt she treated Tarquin, Luke and Suze really horribly as well, twisting things and telling lies about her aunt for sympathy and money? Everything wrapped up so nicely and things started to go her way and she would get carried away with every situation and think she doesn’t know anything about finance but still she managed to be successful with the article and television show.

I don’t know, I could go on for ages about this book but I’ll summarise it now - I didn’t enjoy it after the halfway point, Rebecca was immature, annoying and didn’t think about her actions or their consequences. I felt she treated everyone horribly and then felt bad when things went wrong, everything always went her way in the end and it was one thing after another. I was expecting her to change her ways throughout the book but the last 50 pages or so were the ones where we saw some redemption. But then by the last few pages, there she was again making up excuses about her meeting with Derek. Maybe we would see more character development over the series, but I’m not interested in reading any more books in this series and I will be unhauling this one.

I did enjoy the writing style and would be interested in reading other novels from this author. In this case, I did not enjoy the book and much preferred the movie where we saw some character growth and redemption from Rebecca. These are just my thoughts on the novel - 100% my own opinion!

though the book was ridiculous but the ending was ok! Could barely get through it!