My G-String hurts! (Can you Keep A Secret? - Sophie Kinsella)

Member Name: wendybull

Product:	Can you Keep A Secret? - Sophie Kinsella
Date:	05/12/06 (445 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Amusing, easy to read

Disadvantages: Nothing

Needing something lighter to read in-between horror stories of flesh eating rats and serial killers, I was pleased when this novel landed on the doormat from my book-swapping site. I had been pondering over reading Sophie Kinsella for a while, as she had been reviewed positively and the story lines had captured my interest.

Emma Corrigan, is a marketing junior for Panther Cola. She has a perfect relationship with her perfect boyfriend Connor and shares a flat with her perfect best friend in the world, Lissy. Her family on the other hand is a different matter, with her cousin Kerry always managing to up-stage her in her parent’s eyes. A better career, a better present for Christmas, a better car, a better house and so on. Emma feels pushed out of her parent’s affections by her intrusive cousin who came to live with them when Emma was 14.

However her life changes forever when she starts to ramble all her most private secrets to a stranger on a plane, after severe turbulence makes her think they are going to die. Back on terra firma, however, he may not be such a stranger after all and now he knows all her innermost thoughts and secrets!

It took me only a few pages to be intrigued by this story and I knew it would be a quick and easy read, which was perfect for me and just what I was looking for. The characters are great and I loved the two main ones the best, Emma and Jack. Emma was just brilliant and her secrets were so normal to what a lot of girls probably have that it really made me smile when I was reading through the chapter, where she listed them out to the man on the plane.

“My G-String is hurting me!”

“I don’t know what NATO stands for or even what they do”

These are just two of the secrets she blurts out on the plane and they made me smile straight away as I can relate to them, and instead of being huge secrets that would have been unbelievable and too much for the character, they were typical secrets of a lot of girls nowadays. It carries on in this vain through the whole story and everything that Emma feels, thinks and does is so normal and explained in such a regular way, it seems hilarious. You can see yourself in so many different everyday situations that when looking at them from the outside in, seem particularly funny.

I got pleasure from the fairy-tale of what happens to Emma and found it quite easy to get carried away and swept along with the story, without feeling it was getting too unbelievable even though what happens won’t be a common occurrence for most of us.

Sophie Kinsella seems to have a way of writing that really makes you feel as though you are there, in the story with the characters and the way she has written the narrative, speaking as Emma all the time, from her perspective, is engrossing.

I enjoyed the way every aspect of the story was brought together in the end. There wasn’t one thread of plot or even sub-plot that wasn’t sewn up as the novel went on. Quite often I have been left thinking, but what about…., and that didn’t happen with this, which was refreshing and enjoyable for me.

There is not much more to say about this story ad I won’t waste your time padding out a review unnecessarily, this is what it is, an easy read that will amuse and entertain you for a few days without having to engage your brain and thinking cells too much.

For an interesting and funny book to read as an in betweener, or if you like this genre all the time, it is definitely worth a read. Being a stand alone book and not part of a series, like her popular shopaholic set, means this can be picked up at any time and enjoyed. I certainly liked it a lot more than I thought I would and it has encouraged me to read more of Sophie Kinsella in between my Herbert and King fixes!

Can You Keep a Secret can be brought on Amazon for £5.59 or a penny on the marketplace plus postage, but I would advise you to borrow it from the library or get it on Bookhopper or similar, unless you are a mad Kinsella fan.

Summary: RECOMMENDED :)