This is a fast-paced novel about a financial journalist who can’t control her own spending and the things she dreams of buying. Sweet and often laugh-out-loud funny, the story follows Becky as she meanders her way through canceled credit cards, overdrawn bank accounts and tempting but overpriced clothes to find a sense of herself and a millionaire boyfriend.

Drivel. Last 100 pages are slightly more bearable than the rest of the book. In the first 3/4 of the story, the shopping addiction and subsequent financial irresponsibility of Rebecca Bloomwood is apalling. Control yourself! Anyway, a quick read and not totally without merit, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

The story was pretty much a failure. The heroine reminded me of Bridget Jones, but only in the way that a wax statue reminds you of a real celebrity.

What I did like about the book is that there is some reality to the psychology of the character’s thoughts. Anyone who has ever experienced an addiction to something will identify with the spiraling behavior of the heroine. However, her turning point is lame and late, coming AFTER a major success rather than at her lowest point; her revelation is weak and uninspired and false. Instead of punishment for her ever increasing lies and the way she abuses everyone around her, she is unjustly rewarded without repentance or even once realizing all of the harm that she’s done to other people because of her obsession with shopping, money, and appearance. Her realization is a purely pragmatic one regarding her own habits regarding bills. Call me nitpicky, but I’d like a little bit more character growth than that!

I tried to feel good about myself in comparison to Rebecca’s vices and flaws (which isn’t a hard thing with this character! too many characters are too GOOD, you know?), but even that is a hollow victory: someone who is SO out of it, SO self-absorbed, SO superficial, SO bumbling, SO incompetent, and SO cruel to other people still gets the predictable fame, fortune, and rich-good-looking-guy in the end, while the rest of us are cheated out of a fraction of her happy ending.

I have to wonder why an addiction like this is so wildly celebrated.

I’m appalled by the rampant consumerism in this novel…why is it considered harmless? The heroine spends money she doesn’t have on things she doesn’t use or even LIKE, and she lies about it, both to others and to herself. And in the end she gets the man of her dreams, a guy who can foot the bill for all those things she is compelled to buy.

This is a good, light hearted read. The character is a bit annoying and self-obsessed at times and sometimes gets too lost in her fantasies with seemingly no grasp on reality; but nevertheless I enjoyed reading this to take my mind of my life and my problems and I read it quickly.

I like fluff books.

But this one was just taken too far. There is no real plot. Rebecca Bloomwood is a self absorbed weak excuse for a woman. She can’t think of ANYTHING except shopping. Honest to goodness, she can’t go more than 10 minutes without thinking of herself. As a result, she doesn’t have any friends (unless you can count her flatmate Suzy – someone she couldn’t care less about) not that she cares – friends would distract her from shopping.

The novel didn’t even reach a turning point until around page 220, which is more than two-thirds of the way through the book. The previous pages were merely spent going on and on about how much Rebecca loved shopping.

Dear Lord – there are people who actually like THIS fluff? At least fluffy romance novels have ROMANCE in them and GOOD THINGS happening in them. For this novel, we have to spend its entirety feeling horrible for poor Becky Bloomwood, save for the last 50 pages where things just FALL IN HER LAP.

This novel disgusted me. I’m going to have to choose deeper fluff from now on if I want to give my mind something fun to read.