SRP Book Review #1

The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella

371 pages

This book was literary popcorn. Lighter than air, not very substantial, but I couldn't put it down until it was all gone.

Others have told me that they didn't like Kinsella's Shopaholic series because the heroine is simply too stupid to be believable. (I like them, but I suppose I am just more willing to believe in others' stupidity.) I think that Samantha, the protagonist of this book, is a bit more savvy, which makes the legal intrigue plotline fairly exciting. I figured it out before she did, but if it had been real life and that had happened to me, I would have been fooled, too.

However, there is little danger of a book featuring a Birken bag stuffed with cooking and cleaning implements on its cover being mistaken for a legal thriller. The hook is to see Samantha, competent career woman, flounder hilariously in domestic situations (she's posing as a housekeeper) and hook up with a hot guy she never would have considered in her fast-paced city life. The hilarity is definitely delivered, especially in the form of Samantha's nouveau-riche employers, and her attempt to make hummus by melting dried garbanzo beans in the oven. The guy, eh, is all right, but I thought he could have been a bit less of a cliche, and the plot device that keeps Samantha from telling him the truth about herself is the least believable thing about the whole book.

The ending? As predictably satisfying as can be expected from any book in this genre, and straight out of a Hanks/Ryan romantic comedy.