Review : Twenties Girl

Posted by kay on August 18, 2009 4:31 am in 4.5 stars reads | 15 comments

Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
Pages : 435
Genre : Chick lit
My Rating : 

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–a feisty, demanding girl with firm ideas about fashion, love, and the right way to dance–mysteriously appears, she has one last request: Lara must find a missing necklace that had been in Sadie’s possession for more than seventy-five years, and Sadie cannot rest without it. Lara, on the other hand, has a number of ongoing distractions. Her best friend and business partner has run off to Goa, her start-up company is floundering, and she’s just been dumped by the “perfect” man. Sadie, however, could care less.

Lara and Sadie make a hilarious sparring duo, and at first it seems as though 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 each other along the way.

It’s no secret to those around me that I am a long time fan of Sophie Kinsella (mostly because Shopaholic was the first full book I read in English!) I have read all of her books written under this pen name, and there are very few that I didn’t like. Remember Me, for instance, is a book I would rather forget; Twenties Girl, on the opposite site of the book spectrum, is now one of my favorites Kinsella (if not THE favorite).

The great thing about Sadie’s ghost, is that it becomes some sort of “rational” explanation for the heroine’s erratic behavior. Lara isn’t as clumsy or irresponsible as, let’s say, Shopaholic’s Becky Bloomwood. She felt a little more grounded, but still a typical Kinsella character in spirit. While at first she seems to lack some organisation skills (unpaid bills and such), you can see that she’s just a great girl who wants to do things right. The true star of this book though, is her aunt Sadie’s ghost, who follows her around to the point that Lara’s friends and family start to think that something isn’t exactly right with her!

Sadie was such an entertainging character; fun, touching, curious, capricious, she was the kind of character that annoys you, then makes you laugh, until you just don’t want to let her go. And it’s exactly what happened : when I closed the book, I didn’t want it to be over. You would think that 435 of ghosty action was enough, but I would have read another chunk like this right that moment.

Lara recognizes herself in her aunt’s life, and she learns to know the person Sadie was when she was alive, and young and full of hopes and dreams. At the same time, Sadie’s reactions on the present time are extremely funny. She also has that fun trick to force people to obey her will, but I’m not going to say more about that. 😉

I also thought that this novel had a little more depth than Kinsella’s previous works. Maybe it was because my grand-mother was having her 100th birthday on the same week I was reading it, but 105 years old Sadie’s lonely life in a home really made me sad (fortunately, my grand-mother is lucky to have visit almost every day of the week!) It makes you think on life and family, and how important those bonds are.  I thought that Kinsella did a great job of writing on the subject without making it heavy and sad, but without ignoring it either.

I would think that fans of Kinsella will like this one, if not love. For those of you who have been tempted to try one of Kinsella’s work, Twenties Girl could be a good one. This is one ghost story that won’t scare you and will surely put a smile on your face! 🙂