Budget? Not with Becky Bloomwood (Shopaholic and Sister - Sophie Kinsella)

Member Name: kellylouj

Product:	Shopaholic and Sister - Sophie Kinsella
Date:	05/10/08 (149 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Entertaining read, easy to read, part of an enjoyable collection

Disadvantages: None

Shopaholic and Sister is the fourth book in the series of shopaholic and if you have been good and read them all in order then you will know that Rebecca Brandon nee Bloomwood is a shopaholic.

In her last book she married her long term boyfriend Luke Brandon and this book begins where the last took off with them on honeymoon, well in actual fact they have been on honeymoon for the last ten months and life is great, apart from the fact that Becky is still a shopaholic and for every country she has visited she has had to buy something to take home but poor old Luke does not have a clue!

When Becky gets some of her post she begins to feel somewhat home sick when she received a Christening Invitation from her best friend Suze and it is decided by Brandon and Becky that they will return home and suprise their friends and family but it turns out that it is Becky that has the suprise.

When they return to London, Becky thinks that everything will still be as she left it but when she arrives home her parents are acting really strange and Suze has a new best friend called Lulu who seems to understand Suze a lot better than Becky.

Becky is devastated that her best friend prefers to spend her time with Lulu rather than her and their friendship begins to get so stressed, but as Becky is coming to terms with this her parents drop the bombshell that she has a half sister who is 2 years older than her and Becky imagines how great this is going to be and Suze is quickly forgotton about.

Luke on the otherhand is busy trying to win over a new contract for his firm Brandon Communications and as Becky is unemployed she focuses her attention on helping Luke and finding new contracts for him but little does she know that this is not her forte and Luke finds himself with some rather undesirable clients that Becky thinks he would be more than happy to take on.

As Becky tries to bond with her sister it becomes apparant they have no similarities and no matter how hard Becky tries she just cannot find anything that her sister likes.

As with all of the shopaholic books they are extremely funny and there have been some incidences where I have been in work reading on my lunch break and have laughed out loud at something Becky has said or done.

Sophie Kinsella writes her character so well and she is so easy to relate to as I think Becky has a bit of everyone in her character and anyone can relate to her.
Becky is a compulsive buyer and despite Luke's budgeting Becky still suprises us with her crazy ideas and her secret credit cards that Luke has no idea about.

The funniest part of this book was when Becky was in Milan and she had to have an "Angel" bag as it was on all the magazines and she knew if she had one everyone would be envious of her, she knew she could not tell Luke about the £2000 this bag would cost and it was when she was offered the opportunity to purchase the bag due to a change meeting we find her smashing her cosmetic compact to reveal a hidden credit card for "emergencies".
I really giggled with this book and really empathised with Becky's character as she desperately tried to bond with her long lost sister.

This book once again will not disappoint you and will have you entertained throughout, but ensure that you read them all in order to get the most from the book series.

Summary: A great fictional read.