Confessions of a Shopaholic

Okay, so time for a key book in the world of chick lit: Confessions of a Shopaholic (or The Secret Dream World of a Shopaholic as it was known in the UK before being repackaged for the film).

Now, much more than my initial problem with Jane Green and my subsequent problems in discovering I enjoyed some Jane Green, I found Shopaholic very confusing.

On one hand this was a very funny book. It made me laugh out loud and the character was the one I could most strongly imagine out of the (admittedly limited) chick lit novels I'd read.

On the other, the whole story line and ending sucked.

So, first, the funny bits. Becky Bloomwood is a scatty London financial journalist who dreams of working on a glossy. She shops like she works for a glossy too, spending massively beyond her means. In the aim to cut costs, she visits a museum and, of course, gets waylaid in the museum shop. In the aim to save on takeaways, she ends up buying out John Lewis restocking the kitchen. It's all really obvious stuff but Sophie Kinsella writes it well, capturing Becky's knack for self justification and twisting the truth. In fact, her voice is so distinctive, I alarmingly found myself taking on her voice in my own internal monologue too: 'Should I eat another piece of chocolate? Well, I am going to run home today. Actually my foot hurts, maybe I should go to the gym instead and better eat some more chocolate to cure it. Oh I'm too full of chocolate to go to the gym.' etc, etc. Now, I say that is funny but typing it out just makes me sound like I'm having one of those overly neurotic conversations you sometimes hear on the tube between girls who list, in painful detail, how they've cut all diary and meat out of their diet and are running six miles every morning before yoga. That's because Becky Bloomwood is that kind of girl, Kinsella is just a lot better at making that sound funny than me.

And then the annoying bit. Becky is obviously quite dim and rubbish at her job. Yet somehow, the boss of a major financial PR company falls in love with her and she gets a job advising on finances on the telly. Meaning her debts are magically repaid. Yep, she gets the dream job and the dream guy. I really resent this Bridget Jones (though I love the book)/Legally Blonde school of thought that out of the mouths of idiots comes wisdom. Out of the mouths of these babes surely only comes quotes from Cosmopolitan or the Metro and it seems very wrong to suggest playing dumb is a way to get your fairytale ending. The over consumption she indulges in doesn't seem glamorous, it just seems sickening.  

There are four more books in this franchise (and one more to follow in September). I'm not sure how this plot can or will develop - although there are obvious clues in the titles Shopaholic Ties the Knot and Shopaholic and Baby.  Perhaps I'll revisit, time first for some Marian Keyes.

Back to Green: Life Swap

Yes, as I mentioned in my last post, I found myself devouring Jane Green's Life Swap. Why, why, why? Partly out of necessity. Confessions of a Shopaholic hadn't arrived in time and I decided to revisit her a few years on and see if she had changed at all. It's the other part of the partly that I'm struggling with. I mean, I didn't just read it, I kept reading it, eager and excited to know what happened next.

It's the story of Vicky, a journalist, who (just like Straight Talking's Tasha) has a successful career but hasn't got her man. In a crazy idea for an article she swaps lifestyles with American Amber, a glamorous housewife in a town full of the glamorous housewives of Wall Street Dealers. It's that classic grass is greener story - who is happier? Does happiness come from a husband and kids or a great job and freedom?

I do think some of it was because of the idea I touted in the last post was true - it was more contemporary, therefore its references were a bit more relevant to me. Vicky had a job I'd actually covert: features editor on a glossary magazine. There was also the exotic element - another lady, with a fabulous American lifestyle and her ridiculous acquaintances that were far enough removed from my reality for me to allow myself they could exist.

I also think Jane Green may have become softer in her old age. Maybe it's because Straight Talking was written in the height of ladette culture and she's moved away from that, as society has shifted too. The other main difference is that Life Swap is completely overpopulated with kids. Vicky no longer only wants the husband and the happy-ever-after - she wants the kids too. The kids are cute, yes, but also troublesome and demanding. It's the happy-ever-after thing that infuriates me about the idea of chick lit, so the small children who run around the novel are a nice challenge to this.

Of course the book does have a happy ending, though it's not necessarily the happy ending you'd expect. Amber has to leave behind her immense wealth (though settles for something equally picturesque) while Vicky lines herself up a few (naturally extremely attractive) dates and learns to celebrate the advantages of her single life.

Maybe the appeal of the book is that both characters end up content without gaining money or magically finding Mr Right. Instead the book's main 'message' is the different paths to personal happiness. Compared to her last book, that's much closer to my own preoccupations and I'd guess it would apply to most of my friends too.

Am I converted? Not yet, I think. But I was definitely diverted.

Public transport traumas and a confession

(via The Daily Telegraph - an unlikely source but check out the article this photo originally accompanied, that's what my journey was like this morning)


I found myself pressed up against a rather attractive youngish, scruffyish, muso-type on the tube this morning. Exactly the kind of boy I tend to go for. Now though I'm happily in a relationship at the moment, the first thing I did was to try and cover it up. Not easy when it's got a shiny metallic cover. If I hadn't been enjoying it so much I might have put it away but I was quite addicted and I tried to put my arms around it to cover the text (which at that point was unmistakeably fluffy) like you did at school when doing tests - well, being a school swot, that's what I did anyway. That wasn't easy either as it was a jammed-packed train with no space even to perspire. 


Why did I care so much? What did it matter if a boy I was never going to see again, didn't speak to, not sure if he even looked at me, saw what I was reading? Would he care? I know I'm guilty of checking out what people read on the tube and using that to make assumptions about that. Because I was in my glasses and reading a chick lit, I assumed what he would think i.e. I was some saddo lacking in social skills and desperate for a boyfriend (this probably says more about my own levels of self-esteem than anything about him or the chick lit genre).  In reality, do boys go into this level of analysis when looking at girls on the tube? I really don't think so but I can't be sure and, when it comes to chick lit, my natural instinct still says 'hide it, hide it!'. 


Oh, and that confession? Shopaholic didn't turn up in time so, based on my previous musings, I decided to try out a later Jane Green. I won't go into too much much detail here but ... the book I was devouring on the tube, that was it: Jane Green's Life Swap. The trauma indeed... 

Aspirations and the aftermath of Jane Green

I'd promised I'd revisit Jane Green. Well, I've actually spent a lot of time trying to forget about her. As I was warned, her characters are horrible. To save you the job of wading through the book, Tash gets together with Adam: nice, reliable Adam. This should be her happy-ever-after. It isn't. She's so worried about their relationship lacking in 'passion' (though obviously they still get to have lots of fantastic sex), she gets caught in a clinch with one of Adam's 'friends' and has to narrowly escape having sex with him before she can realise Adam is her happy-ever-after. Yawn. Adam is obviously a complete sap to take her back and how we are meant to rejoice in their reunion, I don't know.

There's obviously meant to be something very aspirational about Tash's lifestyle - I don't get that either. Her job as a producer on a daytime Richard and Judy show, for starters, sounds rubbish. She organizes crappy phone-ins and gets either shouted at or propositioned or both. Brill.

It's also all the cultural references to the food they eat, the clothes they wear and even to where they live. The book is now over ten years old and the references simply don't cut it any more. There's a very strange passage about what Tash decides to bring along to a barbecue for example, like some crusty bread is a character attribute. And there's endless descriptions about fashion: joyless, souless, late 90s fashion.

(image via Fatshionista)

I don't think Jane Green would approve of this photo as it uses a plus size model. For her thin = happy, apparently. Or at least thin = shaggable. But ignore the (very attractive) model. It's the clothes I need you to look at. This is a Tash late 90s wonder of an outfit, black bra showing under a black, possibly Lycra, suit. There's bound to be some La Perla underwear going on under there too. 

If I'd been reading this in the late 90s, would this aspirational stuff have worked? Surely you should be able to pick up on glamour whenever you read something, whether it's an Anya Seaton historical number or a Nancy Mitford 40s belle or an old copy of Vogue. I'm clearly going to have to track down some contemporary chick lit and find out what people seem to aspire to now. I may even return to Jane Green (my sister owns a lot of her books) to see if her taste in men, food or clothes has changed over the last decade. For now I need to concentrate on heroin addicted teenage runaways in Bristol for my book club but I do hope Shopaholic arrives tomorrow...

Charity chick lit

Well, I've finished the Jane Green. I'll try and write some thoughts about it later in the week. I'm also going to have to have a brief pause while I read the novel for my book club next week (Junk by Melvin Burgess). Before then I decided to go to my local charity shop and pick up a few more titles on the cheap. I have to say pickings weren't good - they seemed to focus more on the 'yummy mummy' side of the genre, rather than the twenty-something world I want to explore. However, I did invest the princely sum of £1.95 in each of these books, selected on their covers and blurbs alone:

Behaving Like Adults by Anna Maxted: 'Will Holly discover what she really wants and needs?'

The True and Outstanding Adventure of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson: 'Fired by her boss, dumped by her boyfriend, getting old by the minute, what's there to live for?'

I also came back and invested in a second hand copy of the following because, in the words of my academic friend, 'I feel it's important':

Junk first, then I think it's time to shop...

Becca's bookshelf: Straight Talking by Jane Green

I've now spent a little bit of time gathering suggestions for 'good' chick lit. However, this wasn't my first port of call. That was ransacking my sister's shelves which are overflowing with books of every description and grabbing a collection of the most chick lit alike books I could find. Yesterday morning, before I voted, I rifled through the pile to find something to read on my way to work. Lots of Marion Keyes, lots of Jane Green. Even I know that Marion Keyes is rated in the chick lit world, so perversely I decided to go for Green. I also decided to start at the very beginning, so I pulled out the one published first, Straight Talking.

It opens with the lines 'I was never supposed to be single at thirty years old. I was supposed to be like my mother, wasn't I? Married, a couple of kids, a nice home with Colefax and Fowler wallpaper and a husband with a sports car and a mistress or two.'

Perfect, I thought. This book is exactly what I expected it would be.

I read on. It's voiced by, I'm guessing, 'straight talking' Anatasia who from the outset is really annoying. She's apparently a very successful TV person, though all her internal monologue is filled with thoughts of marriage and men and where it all went wrong. She also describes herself as 'stunning', more than once. Hum...

Then p.19 Oh my. There's a cock (and that's what she calls it). I wasn't expecting that so soon on. I quickly shield the page from my fellow commuters and probably blushed a bit, like you did when having to read the romantic bits out in English lessons age 14. I'm used to my willies popping up a bit more discreetly, probably shrouded in a bit of overblown metaphor, or at least with some deeper existential meaning attached to it. Not just appearing because the main character was thinking about a nice shag. I arrive at work a bit flustered and feeling slightly guilty.

A bit later on the day, once I'd vaguely recovered, I started to try and collect suggestions for future books. One piece of advice (from a source I won't reveal) was not to read Jane Green - the tipster described the characters as 'HORRIBLE HUMAN BEINGS' and her books as 'hateful novels!' Clearly I wasn't alone in not taking to the stunning Anatasia. Another colleague mentioned how homophobic she'd found Green's Bookends - its only gay character seemingly has to die from Aids. Puts a whole new spin on the title 'Straight Talking'.

As I mentioned before, this isn't the only Jane Green book on my sister's shelf - she's got a whole load of the things. My sister, Becca is a very nice, gentle mannered girl too. What on earth is it that makes her like Jane Green's books so much? Becca's not alone either, Jane Green is a best seller. If I soldier on with the book  will I discover the key to Green's success? And, of course, I need to find out if Anatasia finally finds the happiness she deserves desires.

When starting this project, I also wanted to chart if the novels had any effect on my mental well-being. I sent Mr S (otherwise known as my boyfriend) a text yesterday morning when he was out canvassing and received no reply. My phone has been playing up and I've not received a few text messages sent from other people but I'm sure the cruel men in Straight Talking started rattling away on my insecurities and I started to question the exact reason why he hadn't texted me. Eventually, after much mind-wrangling, I decided to ring him. He had sent me a text of course. My phone was just playing up. Bad Jane Green.

My definition of a boombastic chick style

Oh I love a definition. I assumed I knew what chick lit was until I emailed my literature studying friend and had an interchange that went something this:

ME:  'Know any good chick lit?'
HER: 'How about Bridget Jones?'
ME: 'But I like that, how can it be chick lit?'
HER: 'I think it's probably the book that kick started the genre'

Phd, schmeehdee, I thought and promptly looked it up at Wikipedia. Of course it cites Bridget Jones as a forerunner. Not only that but it makes the inevitable link back from Bridget to Jane Austen. And it bungs in the Clueless film for good measure too, again mentioning the Austen link. I love Austen and I simply adore Clueless. It was the formative film for my teenage year. Here I was naively thinking I'd never indulged in the world of chick literature and it appears I was already a keen participant in the genre. As Cher would say, 'whatever'!

'Chick lit: women's fiction which addresses issues of modern women often humorously and lightheartedly'. Okay, I can apply that to Jane, Bridget and Cher. Read on though and it gets a bit scarier: 'According to professor Suzanne Ferriss, chick lit often features female protagonists, usually in their twenties and thirties. The women featured in these novels may be obsessed with appearance or have a passion for shopping.' Although the entry goes onto refute this, that sentence just about sums up what I associate and fear with chick lit. There's none of those sly digs at society, the world in the detail that you get from Austen. I certainly don't expect to come across anything as funny as those three.

And what about the romance? I do turn a blind eye to the neat endings to Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice. Of course Bridget was going to end up with Darcy. That's the bit in those books that I think is closest to what I imagine chick lit to be. Back to Wikipedia: 'Although sometimes it includes romantic elements, women's fiction (including chick lit) is generally not considered a direct subcategory of the romance novel, because in chick lit the heroine's relationship with her family or friends may be just as important as her romantic relationships.'

Clearly I have a lot to learn. But if my explorations means I get to re-watch Clueless, get lost in my Austen and spend a couple of hilarious hours in Bridget's company, I'll be one happy girl...sorry, one happy chick.

In the beginning

I've been accused many times in the past of being a book snob, which I guess I am. Instincts - or is that training - teaches me to always skip over certain sections in the bookshop. One of my blind spots is chick lit: everything about them, from the pastel covers, to the illustration of shoes and swirly writing on the cover, makes me shudder and move on. I'm guilty of prejudging women who I see reading chick lit, assuming that all they naively care about is having a boyfriend or being rich.

But this is all based on preconceptions. I've never really looked beyond the pink cover of one. An illuminating session at The School of Life called How to Read coincided with me finishing my latest reading book. I'm also rapidly approaching 30 and feel I surely should have by now at least dipped my toes in the tepid waters of chick lit. So I've decided to bite the bullet. I'm going to submerge myself solely in the world of chick literature for the next three months and read nothing else*. I've decided to find out what is it that makes women love these books so much and actually what it is that makes a good chick lit book. I'm hoping it won't have too many hazardous effects on my mental well-being.

At the outset of this adventure, I'm a reasonably average 29 year old. I was born in Grimsby but now live in London in a flat with my sister. I'm a non-fiction book editor 4.5 days a week and on my half day and in my spare time, I write for a couple of blogs. I love clothes, design and art, music and my books (you can see some of my favourites you can see at the top of this post). I also have a lovely boyfriend who I've been going out with for just under a year.

Will chick lit change the way I feel about any of this? And so chapter/month one begins. 

*I'll allow myself the reading for my book club.