Every Monday morning, I tell myself that next weekend, I will definitely sleep early and not diddle daddle till the middle of the night doing nothing, and end up feeling extremely tired and unproductive all week. I was on track to sleeping early last Friday night after a rather pleasant evening of wining and dining, when at 1am I thought, “it’s still a little early, maybe I’ll just do a little bit of reading before I sleep.” So I went through my Kindle and found Mini Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella and started reading. I didn’t sleep until 6am that night (or is it day?).

I was a huge fan of the series when it first came out. I even got myself a mock green pleated scarf when the movie came out, so I could be the girl with the green scarf too. But after a certain point, the formulaic nature of the series and parts of the plot just got a bit ludicrous. Everything starts off jolly, she goes on shopping sprees, she tells little fibs based on some illogical but good hearted rational, which somehow leads her into debt/mess, but then in the end it all works out because of a suddenly brilliant idea. The plot for Mini Shopaholic is very much the same. Yet, I still could not stop turning the pages. At 3am, I told myself, just one more chapter. At 4am, I told myself, I’ll read just until I find out whether Minnie gets dragged to a spoilt brat’s camp and what “brilliant” idea Becky comes up with to pull the party together. I collapsed at 6am.

There’s just something about the way Kinsella writes that keeps me going, even though logically I know the plot is ridiculous and I am really better off getting some beauty sleep. The writing is fast pace, witty and entertaining. Objectively, I don’t even like Becky’s character much, but Kinsella manages to make her rather endearing. It’s like “The Twenty’s Girl,” which I read a few months ago. After reading the plot at the bookstore (about an ancestral ghost from the twenty’s following a girl around London looking for a pearl necklace), I hadn’t even bothered picking it up. But it somehow ended up in my Kindle again, and I must say, it was actually a rather good read. What can I say? There is something about Kinsella that flicks pages!