Rebecca Bloomwood is not the average human kind. She is utterly and completely obsessed with shopping. With twelve credit cards in her custody, she pampers herself with Chanel, Dior, Prada and Gucci. Maybe even with some foot massages here and there, Swiss chocolate, and also wine. But with credit card bills coming everywhere and new sales, she is tempted to make excuses. From glandular fever to her fake Aunt Ermintrude dying, she eases the guilt with some new make-up and some fancy dinner. The ironic part of all this is that she is a financial journalist advising people on debt.
Rebecca has rules in life where underwear is a basic human right, wine is essential, petrol and stationery and staples should not be printed on credit card bills and turning debt collectors into stalkers is legal. Bill after bill, she hides them, leaves them on the floor and tries to forget about them or hoping that they will disappear on their own.
Rebecca lives in a her best friend's flat, Suze and knows that she would never be able to have a flat like her. The good thing for Rebecca of having a flatmate like Suze is that even though Suze is as worse as Rebecca when it comes to shopping, Suze is helping her to get rid of her debt.
Working for a financial magazine is not easy for Rebecca, considering she doesn't know anything about finance and just copies everything from press packs she gets at conferences. The only reason that Rebecca has this job is because when she went to her favorite fashion magazine to interview, all she got back was go away. So she got stuck here.
One afternoon, Phillip, Rebecca's editor, asks her if she can attend a press conference. Rebecca loves going to these because usually Barclay is giving champagne and you know how Rebecca is about her champagne! But to her dismay, the conference is being hosted by Brandon Communications with their head honcho being Luke Brandon.
So far Rebecca is going through these problems: Luke Brandon can practically see through her pretend smartness, Derek Smeath, the debt collector, is out to get her and her money and she has no idea why Suze's cousin, Tarkin is interested in her.
Luke Brandon is the head of Brandon Communications. He started from nothing and now it is the largest PR company in London. He has a pretty scary reputation, in Rebecca's opinion, and has the largest IQ ever. This is all too much for Rebecca Bloomwood.
Derek Smeath is Rebecca's debt collector. Rebecca is so afraid of him that she will make any excuse in order for him to extend the date due for the payment of the bill. First its suffering from clinical depression, glandular fever, Aunt Ermintrude dying of a sky diving accident or malaria, having a call back for duty in Finland, or breaking your leg! As far as bills are concerned, she will hide them in her dressing table drawer or even throw them in a skip! Long story short; she doesn't like anything to do with debt or Luke Brandon!
Tarkin is another part of Rebecca's interesting life. As Suze's cousin, Rebecca just has to be nice to him because Suze lets her stay in her house and all. What Rebecca just found out is that Tarkin has a huge crush on her and Rebecca just thinks that the old chap is just disgusting. She is stuck in the most horrible situation of her life.
In the end Rebecca figures out herself and her life. She pays off all of her bills which she figures out by herself and not by stealing or anything. She also ends up falling in love with the man she was scared of, Luke Brandon. She came to understand that he is a very charming man and that she was wrong.
This book was very peculiar when I read it and sort of confusing because some things mentioned in the book are very unclear for example how does she pay her bills? Although, over all, Sophie Kinsella did a marvelous job portraying the acts of shopaholic and how it can affect you so much. On a scale from 1 to 10, I give this book a 8!
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