"Confessions of a Shopaholic"

Chick lit isn't supposed to stress you out, is it?

With a title like Confessions of a Shopaholic, this book should be the very definition of "chick lit," but never before has a book effused with so much fluffy, feminine subject matter made me want to run faster to something more deeply profound, like perhaps, Elmo Goes to the Doctor.

Basically, the plot goes something like this: the main character, Rebecca Bloomwood, likes to shop. Duh. She sees something she likes, buys it, regrets buying it later, and then spends more money on half-baked schemes designed to make enough cash to cover her debts, buy a fabulous home, and then buy more stuff.

Throughout the course of the book she convinces herself she will win the lottery, beat the house at a casino, marry a millionaire, and become fabulously successful in a home-based business venture.  All the while she buys more and more things that she convinces herself she must have because they are "investments" or she "deserves them."  The book is punctuated with demand letters and final notices from her bank and other creditors that she throws away, rips up, or stuffs into her dresser drawer, convincing herself they never existed in the first place.  She lies repeatedly to her best friend, potential love interests, her boss, her parents, and her creditors.

Eventually, the author sees fit to punish our long-suffering "heroine" by allowing her to write an article that is magically published overnight in a national publication, which lands her not only a regularly-recurring spot on a daily morning show with a fabulous salary as a "Financial Expert," but also hot sex and a marriage to the second millionaire in the story that falls for her.  Seriously?  

I kept reading this riveting saga only because I was praying she would eventually see the error of her ways, make amends with everyone she had lied to and/or cheated, and grow-the-heck-up.  In the end, I was sufficiently (albeit temporarily) satisfied that she was going to make some changes in her lifestyle and become at least somewhat financially mature, but then I read an excerpt from one of the sequels to this masterpiece, Mini Shopaholic, which blew that theory to shreds.  She, in fact, doesn't change her ways at all; her selfishness is only exacerbated by the fact she now has a daughter for which to buy and a super-rich husband's charge card with which to do it.  *Sigh*

And seriously, there is not enough Prozac in the world that would enable me to open this chick's mail even one time.  (Those of you who know my mail issues, understand what I mean).  In short, cute idea for a book, but oh, how it missed the mark on the fun beach-read it could have been.

(My apologies to all the women who love this novel, including my best friend who recommended it to me in the first place.  In addition to my mail phobia, I am just too tightly-wound and financially-anal to thoroughly enjoy it).