Secrets R Us (Can you Keep A Secret? - Sophie Kinsella)

Member Name: kirstymack80

Product:	Can you Keep A Secret? - Sophie Kinsella
Date:	24/10/04 (161 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: quick, funny, easy read

Disadvantages: only 364 pages!

This book’s a goodie. I was more than chuffed when my friend from work lent this to me. I’d planned on buying it anyway as I’m a big fan of Sophie Kinsella’s but even better was a freebie read!

Sophie has written four other books, The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, Shopaholic Abroad, Shopaholic Ties the Knot and Shopaholic and Sister which all follow on from each other. I’ve read all of those books and really enjoyed them so I was pretty sure this wouldn’t disappoint me. And it didn’t.

This book has a pretty lilac coloured cover with the title in big pink writing. It was bought in WHSmith as a 3 for 2 offer a while back and the RRP is £6.99. On the front cover is a snow dome, with a girl inside with her back to us with her left hand behind her back and her fingers crossed. Instead of snow there are silver stars in the globe.

So, what’s the story? Well our heroine is Emma Corrigan, she’s 25 and is going out with Connor, a blonde hunk. Her life’s going great, she works for the Panther Corporation and she's off to Scotland for a meeting. Emma doesn’t take her job too seriously. She’s a marketing assistant who spends her time typing and getting the sandwiches for her colleagues. Deep down she wants a promotion and this is her big chance to show her company what she's made of.

The meeting goes disastrously and on the plane back home she sits next to an American man after being upgraded to Business Class. The flight doesn’t go smoothly and the other passengers start to get anxious as the plane bumps about. Emma, who’s had 3 vodkas after her awful day, is feeling worse for wear and starts to panic. She starts gabbling out all her secrets to the complete stranger beside her!

To the reader these secrets are nothing major – she told her boyfriend she’s a size 8 when she’s really a 12, her g-string hurts her, she thinks Connor looks like Ken (as in Barbie’s number one guy) and so it goes on. But because she thinks she’s going to die in an airplane crash, she reveals a lot about her life with Connor and her job (how she feeds one of her colleague’s plants orange juice because she doesn’t like her). The only thing is, the plane lands without a hitch. It was only an unexpected amount of turbulence!

So what happens then? Well of course the past comes back to haunt her - big time. Who turns up as the new boss at Panther but Mr America – Jack Harper! Emma’s now in a blind panic that he’ll remember all that she blurted out to him - which of course he does, because that’s where the fun starts!

What makes this book so good is its humour. It’s told from Emma’s point of view. She is a girl who loves expensive clothes, but buys them in charity shops and lies to her colleagues about where she gets them. She’s always getting in a pickle and tries to make out she knows what’s going on at work in important meetings when really she doesn’t understand half of it! But deep down we can identify with her because she does worry about her friends and upsetting the people she’s close to.

Emma’s thorn in her side is Kerry, her cousin who was brought up with her when her parents died. Emma feels that she always has something to live up to with her cousin, who has her own travel agency. Around Kerry, Emma is made to feel inferior by her parents. One example of this is when it’s Emma’s mum’s birthday. Emma buys what she thinks is a brilliant present, only to be upstaged by Kerry, who’s spent more money. Emma then feels her own present is useless when her mother gushes over Kerry’s gift. Thus you feel that Emma spends all her time trying to get things right at work, so that her parents will be proud of her.

Jack Harper becomes a central character as he gets to know Emma and we realise that he, too, has a big secret. But will he tell Emma what it is? And will he reveal what Emma said to him on the plane?

Through the book we see her break up with Connor, start a new relationship and see how her friends rally round to help her when times are tough. Lissy and Jemima, Emma’s flat mates, are great friends to her. Lissy is a lawyer and Jemima, the designer clothes junkie who has to tape up her bedroom door to stop her wayward roomies borrowing her clothes is always ready with advice, which is not always wanted!

I do recommend this book, it’s silly but has some delightfully funny comedy moments that will make you laugh out loud. If you like a frothy, quick read, this one’s for you. I really enjoyed it! Can’t wait for Sophie Kinsella’s next one!

This book is published by Black Swan. However, as it's been around for a while now check the charity shops and Ebay for cheaper versions.

Thanks for reading.

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