Book review : Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

Sophie Kinsella is one of my favourite authors. I love her style of writing and her books are witty, light hearted and fun. They're quite modern too, e.g drinking coffee at Starbucks, shopping in Urban Outfitters and wearing lipgloss from MAC, so I find it easy to relate to them and believe in them. I think they are easy to read and I finished her latest book, Twenties Girl in a day.
 

Without giving any spoilers, Twenties Girl is about a 20-something year old, Lara, who is visited by the ghost of her dead great-aunt during her funeral. The ghost happens to be the 23 year old Sadie from 1927 (not the 105 year old Sadie from 2009 in the coffin) and she is looking for her necklace. She cannot rest until she has her necklace back. Since Lara is the only one who can see and hear Sadie, she is the only one who can help her, and so she has to stop the funeral and the cremation of great-aunt Sadie to buy her some time to find the necklace. You know the cliché here - despite their cultural differences they will end up helping each other and Lara will discover meaningful things along the way.

If you are familiar with Sophie Kinsella's books, you will know that her main characters are a little bit off-beat, witty and slightly flawed, but they all have an endearing charm that makes you like them. I found it a little difficult to like Lara at first. She seemed like a whining spoilt brat who allowed people to walk all over her, but the trademark Kinsella characteristics shone through after a few chapters. Sadie was absolutely crazy and I liked her from the off - she was a guardian angel with attitude! I absolutely loved her and her carefree rebelious outlook on life, and I enjoyed the relationship between the two unfolding as the book went on.

There were times when I thought the storyline was a little too far-fetched. The way in which Lara stopped the funeral and the fact that nobody seemed to care that she was potentially losing her marbles was a bit odd. It seemed to happen with little fuss, but I know that if I stopped a funeral claiming a 105 year old woman had died of anything other than natural causes, I'd be sectioned before you could say 'Rest in peace'! The love interest thought Lara was absurd at first, but he warmed to her a little too quickly. I mean, he was desperate to get away from her on their first two dates! That said, I found it easy to get caught up in the storyline and swept along with it, and it's only afterwards that I'm reflecting on it that I can see that there are one or two flaws with those parts of the book.

This book wasn't as light-hearted as her others. There's humour, romance, revenge and lots of emotion crammed into the story. It was a little bit predicatble in parts, but Sophie Kinsella told the story in a way that made you want to keep reading, and although you were half-expecting some of the things to happen, they were good twists. I had a lump in my throat reading the last two chapters and I haven't stopped thinking about it since I turned the last page - definitely not how I was expecting to feel when I picked it up. It's very heartwarming and I love stories that have this effect on me. If I can't stop thinking about something then I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Rating : 8/10. I've loaned it out to my friend but I can't wait to read it again when I get it back. Definitely up in my top 3 of Kinsella books :)

Have you read it? What do you think?

xoxo