Shopaholic to the Stars - Sophie Kinsella

Shopaholic to the Stars by Sophie Kinsella
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Becky Brandon (nee Bloomwood) is in Hollywood! It's as if all her life has been leading to this moment. She's hanging out with the stars … or at least she will be, when she finally gets to meet movie superstar Sage Seymour, whom husband Luke is now managing.

There's so much to see and do! And getting Minnie through the hurdles for her A-list Hollywood pre-school will require some…er…help.

Becky sets her heart on a new career - she's going to be a celebrity stylist. Red carpet, here she comes! But Becky soon finds it's tough in Tinseltown. Luckily her best friend Suze comes over to keep her company, and together they embark on the Hollywood insider trail. But somehow...things aren't quite working out as they’d hoped.

Then Becky's big chance comes, and it's an opportunity that money can't buy. But will it cost her too much?

I have been a HUGE Sophie Kinsella fan and would shout from the rooftops how good the Shopaholic series is, however after the long anticipated wait for Shopaholic to the Stars I have been left feeling flat and bitterly disappointed.

I honestly don't know what has happened to Becky and the series, the Kinsella spark that we all know and loved seems to have gone. The last book I read by Kinsella was Wedding Night and I also felt Kinsella was beginning to get a little lost in her writing.

Kinsella had a formula for writing books, one which worked, they were funny, characters were loveable and people felt they could relate to the stories. Something has happened, especially with this book and that is a shame.

Normally when I read a Kinsella book I cannot put it down, it is read in a matter of hours. This one took me a good few weeks, this should have started to set off alarm bells for me; I was clearly not enjoying this a much as I had hoped and expected, I did stick with it as I wanted to finish it. The more I read though, the more disappointing it became.

I felt the book started well and strong, Becky was still the character we all know and love. I enjoyed reading the introduction to Tarkie and Suzie, characters that we had previously learnt about and grown to love. I also enjoyed reading about Luke's mother; however as the story progressed I became annoyed with Becky, she was behaving in an irrational and in a selfish way. A character that I once love I was beginning to dislike very quickly...

I kept with with book for the main reason I could not allow myself to give up on Kinsella and I was hoping it was going to improve. Unfortunately for me it didn't. The ending felt confused, unresolved and 'lost'. It almost felt Kinsella ran out of ideas and then just needed to end the story abruptly.

When I have read all the other Shopaholic books, I have felt satisfied at the end; they are light hearted reads that we know are going to be wrapped up nicely, this one was not this. I feel very unsatisfied and actually considering not to bother with any more that are released. This is a huge shame as I have all the Shopaholic' s taking pride of place on my bookshelf. The other thing I have been thinking since I have been reading it is, have I just grown out of them? Looking back though this is definitely not what they were like, I am considering re reading the first in the series to remind myself why I love the books so much.

Kinsella was my all time favourite authors, she is quickly slipping from this ranking. Maybe I have just had really high expectations of this book, Kinsella created those expectations though and it seems like she has lost her mojo. If you are a die hard fan like I was, I am sure you are going to read this one; if you are not and are discovering Kinsella, I would urge you not to start with this. Mainly because it is in th middle of the series but also because this is not her best, start with a stand alone or Secret Dreamworld of A Shopaholic.

I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.