Shopaholic Abroad (Sophie Kinsella)****

I don’t know how Becky gets away with it, I really don’t. She’s a financial advisor with her own slot on a TV show, and she has less idea of money management than a goldfish. No, it’s worse than that. She has less idea of money management than me. Becky as a financial advisor is the equivalent of me getting a job with Trinny and Susannah.

But Sophie Kinsella can make anything work. She’s such a wonderful writer. She has created some great characters in the Shopaholic books, which looks like a series that could go on for years. She’s also great at character. Becky is the most adorable person in the world, and it’s probably very difficult not to love her – whether you’re a book lover, or Becky’s bank manager.

Becky’s delightful originality of mind can lead to the most horrific of situations – and Kinsella never fails to make them seem completely natural. I have been told I’m more than a little bit odd, but you wouldn’t catch me going to a convent in nothing but a T-shirt and a hairband. Becky could easily make you want to cringe for her, but she doesn’t. She makes you want to adopt her.

However, underneath Sophie Kinsella’s wonderful humour, Becky does have a problem or two. Compulsive shopper; compulsive liar. And Becky’s problems land not only her but also her gorgeous boyfriend Luke (I want him) into serious difficulties. Kinsella can turn a situation from comic to tragic in an instant – very much as it can happen in real life.

Kinsella isn’t saying it’s okay to spend too much money and then lie about it. But she is saying that it doesn’t make you a totally despicable person who should be reviled for all eternity. She’s saying that even nice, funny, endearing people can get into terrible situations. She’s also saying it’s possible to get out of them.

Shopaholic Abroad isn’t the kind of book that goes around winning awards. If Kinsella had wanted to win awards, she’d probably have thrown Becky out on the streets and made her into a prostitute. And she’d probably have to lose the wonderful humour too. That’s the sort of thing judges seem to like nowadays: a bit of ‘realism’.

But Shopaholic Abroad is deceptively clever – and quite possibly a lot more so than all those award-winners. Underneath Kinsella’s brilliant comedy is the feeling that, if it happened to Becky, it really could happen to everyone. Becky is luckier than most: she has support from all over the place, and she didn’t fall far enough to hit any kind of clichéd rock bottom. But, with a character as easy to identify with as Becky, that just means it’s harder to say ‘that would never happen to me.’ Because it could.