Can you Keep a Secret? Sophie Kinsella
A little chick-lit interlude here! As part of my roommate’s recent gift of several volumes of chick-lit, I recently finished this pink book. Loved it. Kinsella is perhaps even lighter than the other chick-lit titles I discussed earlier in my blog. On the one hand, her plot and her characters are not as complex as the other books in this category. But, on the other hand, there is a brilliance to Kinsella’s pacing and humor that makes this book stand out. I am noticing that there seems to be a tradition, a la Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones, of British chick-lit in which an imperfect, accident-prone heroine finds her doddering way in the world–capturing, at the end of the day, the man, the job, and the heart of the reader. From page one, our first person narrator’s point of view flows seamlessly along a series of blunders and hilarious misadventures as she experiences the travails of inadvertently sharing secrets with her friends, co-workers and love interests. It’s her reactions to these moments that make her a lovable character. And, it’s the timing of the anecdotes and banter between characters that keeps the reader zipping along, turning page after page. Deep reading? No! But a study in excellent delivery and spot-on humorous observations about human foibles? Decidedly Yes. I can only hope that in reading this book I have absorbed a small morsel of Kinsella’s decidedly British comic delivery. If you’re looking for that perfect book to make you forget about the cares of the day–to make you feel like you’re lying on a beach somewhere even if you happen to just be on a park bench in your local park, then pick up this book.
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