Book Review #2 'Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella'

"Lara Lington has always had an overactive imagination, but suddenly that imagination seems to be in overdrive. Normal professional twenty-something young women don't get visited by ghosts. Or do they? When the spirit of Lara's great-aunt Sadie mysteriously appears, she has one request: Lara must find a missing necklace that had been in Sadie's possession for more than seventy-five years, because Sadie cannot rest without it. Lara and Sadie make a hilarious sparring duo, and at first it seems like they have nothing in common. But as the mission to find Sadie's necklace leads to intrigue and a new romance for Lara, these very different "twenties" girls learn some surprising truths from and about each other." - synopsis by Lexi's Little Whims

After the challenge of reading Lost I decided to go for an easy read in the form of chick lit, specifically chick lit from one of my favourite authors, Sophie Kinsella. I only recently discovered Sophie Kinsella but having completed Twenties Girl I have read all books under her own name (she previously wrote under the alias Madeline Wickham). I adore Sophie Kinsella's style of writing for chick lit, as soon as I start her books I'm hooked and have to keep reading, I remember reading the whole of Shopaholic and Sister in less than a day. Her prose is easy and interesting and I find myself quickly submersed into the world of her characters. Twenties Girl was no different, infact it was one of her bests in my opinion.

The protagonist, Lara Lington, is entertaining and believable in my opinion. The way she handles the crisis' in her life definitely reflect the way I and many of my friends have behaved in the past and that is one of the reasons I love Kinsella's novels. Her leading ladies always have character traits that can be picked out of women you know in real life, maybe even yourself. In the beginning Lara's life is in pieces, her business is failing, she was just dumped but slowly throughout the novel she puts it back together with the help of her dead aunt's ghost and her friends. Of course we can't all have a friendly ghost to help us out but none the less the novel brings hope to women who like Lara are clinging onto a fantasy, trust me, I've been there myself.

Not only was the protagonist an interesting point of view to read from, but the supporting characters in her life were fun. Her great aunt Sadie's twentythree year old spirit was the epitome of a twenties girl, I adored her and how her story played out. I have a huge soft spot for the twenties as a decade and if I could live in any point in the twentieth century, the twenties would of been it and I would of been a party girl much like Sadie. The beau in Lara's life, Ed, reminded me much of Mr Big in Sex and the City, he appeared all business but of course he turned out to be an interesting many levels man. Lara's family were entertaining, although her situation wasn't something I could identify with, her uncle and cousin and even her parents to an extent were the types of characters I could imagine which I always feel is an important aspect of a good book!

The plot itself was fun and tied up nicely at the end, I even shed a few tears. Unlike with some of Kinsella's other novels I didn't feel that I was missing out on something, Twenties Girl sits nicely in a single novel which I was glad of (her other novels have me desperate for sequels!) I laughed out loud at some points too as some of the arguements that Lara would have out loud, in public with Sadie were so vivid I could even imagine them! The description in the book was definitely Kinsella at her best.

Would Recommend For: Chick Lit/Rom Com lovers, Sophie Kinsella fans.
If You Like This Try: Shopaholic Series, Remember Me? The Undomestic Goddess, Can You Keep a Secret? (all by Sophie Kinsella), A Vintage Affair by Isabel Wolff, Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro
Rating: 9/10

Book Review #1 'Lost by Gregory Maguire'

"Winifred Rudge, a bemused writer struggling to get beyond the runaway success of her mass-market astrology book, travels to London to jump-start her new novel about a woman who is being haunted by the ghost of Jack the Ripper. Upon her arrival, she finds that her stepcousin and old friend John Comestor has disappeared, and a ghostly presence seems to have taken over his apartment in the nineteenth-century rowhouse once owned by Winnie's great-great-grandfather. Is it the spirit of this ancestor, who, family legend claims, was Charles Dickens's childhood inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge? Could it be the ghostly remains of Jack the Ripper? Or a phantasm derived from a more arcane and insidious origin?

Winnie begins to investigate, but John's erstwhile girlfriend, Allegra, is aggressively unhelpful, and his downstairs neighbor, the cat-obsessed Mrs. Maddingly, is growing stranger by the day. Gripped by inspiration and desperation alike, Winnie finds herself the unwilling audience for a drama of specters and shades, some from her family's peculiar history and some from her own unvanquished past." synopsis by Powell's Books

I'm going to start off saying that I have read four of Gregory Maguire's novels and I am a fan. I enjoy his prose style but I do need to be in the right frame of mind to read one as they take a long time to get through with his mixture of literary techniques and great levels of description. I am by nature a fast reader but when it comes to Maguire's novels I can only read so much at once before my head explodes. Some people call that a mark of a good writer but I've heard some people call it tedious. None the less, Lost like all Maguire's novels in my opinion was still in it's own way, good. However of the other four Maguire books I have read, Lost was my least favourite.

The protagonist, Winnie Rudge did not appeal to me at all, in fact she grated on me. It was incredibly lucky that the supporting characters were far more diverse and interesting along with the twists and turns of the good and sometimes confusing (in a way that makes you want to make it to the end) way of the plot. Back to Winnie however, I found her dull at times and very hard to empathize with her (when I empathize or sympathize for the character I enjoy a book much more). The book was also slow in places. The plot itself was a good one, I love mysteries and ghost stories and one of my favourite things about Gregory Maguire is that he takes a well known story and turns it on it's head. With Lost, unlike in his other novels, the story of Scrooge's likeness to Winnie's descendant peters out and is replaced with something far more interesting. I love Maguire's ability to make ghosts and possession work in the 21st Century to a point where while you're reading it you could actually believe it could happen but at the same time his characters are so well developed you could see it just being a figment of Winnie's imagination due to what has happened in her own life.

Although, Lost is a good novel and I would recommend it to people who were looking for an intricate mystery plot that does involve doses of ghosts and possession, I will not read it again. It took me a while to make it to the end and although the ending was good enough for the novel, I did feel robbed as I didn't really find out what happened to Winnie really, or the rest of the characters. I have to admit to being a fan of a books that do tie up endings, perhaps he is leaving it open for a sequel? Personally I can't see it.

Would Recommend For: Ghost story lovers, those who like challenging reads.
If You Like This Try: Other Maguire novels Wicked Trilogy, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Rating: 5/10