Shopaholic abroad (by Sophie Kinsella)

(Amazon UK link)

I reread Sophie Kinsella’s classic ‘Secret dreamworld of a shopaholic’ last month, and was slightly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I came late to ‘chick-lit’, and generally don’t like this kind of book. But the writing is excellent, there’s some humour, there’s nothing explicit, and the heroine is oddly likeable.

So in the last couple of days I have re-read the second in the series, ‘Shopaholic abroad’, which I first read at the end of 2010. I remembered that Becky would be travelling to the United States with her boyfriend Luke, but nothing else about it. I knew it would be light reading, but didn’t expect to finish it quite so quickly. It’s compulsive somehow, despite the fact that I did find Becky increasingly frustrating as the book progressed.

At the start of the previous book, Becky paid her debts and determined a budget, and promised her friend Suze that she would not go shopping without discussing her potential purchases. But Becky really does seem to be addicted to shopping, with little idea of how her purchases are adding up. It’s ironic that she has worked for financial advice magazines, and is currently employed by a TV station, answering finance-related questions. She likes the personal touch most, and getting behind the questions to find out what the questioner really wants… but she’s also good at trotting out really very good advice, even though she doesn’t take it herself.

And her debts, once again, start spiralling out of control. She manages to negotiate increasingly large overdrafts, until the person she deals with resigns, and someone stricter takes over. Then Luke finally tells her that he’s going to be part of a huge business deal in New York, and would really like her to go too.  They go for an initial two-week trial, where he gets tied up with meetings and Becky goes out to explore. 

Unfortunately she has a new credit card with a huge limit… and she also doesn’t really understand how dollars work. I could empathise there; having lived in the US myself, and then moving to Europe, I totally understood how ‘foreign’ money felt, at first, like monopoly money. Becky’s also taken in by the glamour, and the sales offers, and the vastness of the shops… 

There are other subplots going on, including Luke’s negotiations and his workaholism, making him neglect Becky for the sake of yet more business meetings. Something’s not quite right in his business, too; but he won’t talk about it. And there’s a section about how Becky’s parents’ neighbours don’t even believe Luke exists.

I liked the interactions, and several of the characters who feel quite three-dimensional, albeit a tad caricatured. I’ve never met anyone quite like Becky, and am not convinced that someone so aware of financial issues could really be so irresponsible. But her heart is in the right place, and she has a good instinct for how people are feeling and what they need. She’s also remarkably tolerant of Luke and his inability to keep his commitments to her… at least, until they end up with a major row. 

It’s all a bit silly, I know; and I’m about as far from a shopaholic as it’s possible to be. I don’t really like shops in general, and would never spend a fraction of what Becky spends, even if I did have a huge credit card. So I don’t really understand why this series appeals to me so much. I didn’t like this book quite as much as the previous one - there really is a LOT of shopping, and mention of expensive brands I had never heard of - but it’s still, in my view, a very readable book.

I suppose part of the appeal is wanting to know how Becky would sort out her problems. They become a lot more serious in this book than they were in the first. And I was rooting for her at the same time as wanting to grab her arm and persuade her not to spend even more. I also liked her relationship with Luke, and with her roommate Suze. And I really liked Becky’s parents (or, at least, her mother; her father doesn’t have much of a role to play). I liked Luke’s assistant Mel, too.

So while I know a lot of people would find this trite and caricatured, I did enjoy it and am already looking forward to reading the rest of the books in the series over the next few months. Apparently they're all still in print, and available in Kindle form as well as printed.

Review copyright 2026 Sue's Book Reviews