Twenties Girl: A Novel

There are a few authors I would follow pretty much anywhere. Drastic changes in writing style or genera don't matter with these writers because I know that no matter what they're doing differently I'll still enjoy what they wrote.Sophie Kinsella is one of these authors. This is how I ended up reading a ghost story.Laura Lington is going through kind of a rough patch. The brand new head hunting business she started with an old school friend is not going well because the old friend ran off to live abroad with a guy she just met. And Laura's boyfriend Josh dumped her by email-with no apparent reason. Therefore it's not at all surprising that Laura is massively stressed out.But stress can't explain what happens next.While attending the extremely small and pathetic funeral for her great aunt Sadie (who was 105 before she died) Laura starts to hear a voice. A voice that gets louder. A voice that gets demanding. A voice that is screaming, "Where is my necklace?"A voice only Laura can hear.The voice is soon followed by a body of a young woman in twenties style clothing.Whose name happens to be Sadie.Laura's not sure if she's going crazy or not, but one thing is obvious. The only way to get Sadie to shut up is by doing what she wants-and what she wants is the funeral stopped until she has her treasured dragonfly necklace back. Laura goes along with it because having a ghost screaming in your ear can be pretty annoying and anyway, nobody else can help. Besides-how hard can this possibly be? And it's not like Sadie can do anything to make Laura's life more difficult-can she? And so starts Laura's crazy adventure to track down the only thing that will let her great aunt rest properly-and uncover some crazy family secrets at the same time.Like all of Kinsella's books this is a novel filled with funny little observations about life, dating, parents, men and making your way when you're just starting out in life. All of the cute little details that just scream Sophie Kinsella are present as well. But in spite of its possibility for a slightly heavier emotional context, "Twenties Girl" ends up being more cute than anything else. And yes, Cuteness is usually the main attraction to chick lit and Sophie Kinsella does write chick lit but after last years "Remember Me?" I guess I expected her next book would have a little more emotional intelligence to it.Not that this isn't emotionally intelligent. It's just...well, the romance is barely laid out at all. Huge revelations end up being treated as a little silly. And though there is a lot of very sad stuff about how Sadie was treated by her family as she aged, the message about age devaluing people is never really punched home the way it could have been.But when all is said and done the witty dialog, real messages about friendship and all the great twenties clothes are what will stick with you. I also loved that the major message in the book wasn't to cherish to your old people before they die, but to always remember that once upon a time we were all young.Four point five stars.

Lara's life is teetering on the brink of disaster. She is grappling with unpaid bills, a business partner who is missing in action in Goa, and a relationship that ended too abruptly for Lara to process. (She isn't really stalking her ex -- she was just texting him three or four times a day to understand exactly what went wrong...) The icing on the cake? She has to spend a wonderfully sunny day at the funeral of her 105-year old great aunt, Sadie, a woman she never met. "Life really sucks," she muses, as she treks off to the crematorium with her parents.But life is about to get suddenly more exciting and a heck of a lot more bizarre for Lara. As the vicar struggles through a perfunctory eulogy at the funeral (attended only by Lara, her parents, snide sister Tonya -- think Dr. Zhivago, here -- and her ultra-successful smarmy Uncle Bill and his family), she suddenly hears a voice. "Where's my necklace?" it demands of Lara. No one else can here it -- and suddenly a young woman in flapper garb materializes. "I'm having a hallucination," Lara realizes. "A full-on, walking, talking hallucination. And it's coming toward me." She tells herself not to talk to the hallucination. ("It'll only encourage it.") When the hallucination -- the ghost of the departed Aunt Sadie -- realizes she's about to be sent into the crematorium furnaces, she shrieks at Lara to stop the funeral. And Lara, driven nearly insane by the ghost's shrieking, complies -- and begins a quest to find Sadie's necklace and let her go in peace.Kinsella employs many of the usual conventions of the ghost story (think Blithe Spirit). She makes the most of the comedic potential of a young woman who is having a genuine encounter with the spirit of her late great-aunt in her prime as a 'twenties girl' (the reference is both to her age and her aunt's age as a ghost, as well as to the flapper era of Sadie's youth), a young woman whose friends and family already felt she was on the verge of losing her grip on reality. Kinsella, for the most part, deftly walks the line between humor and over-the-top farce, and there are some genuinely poignant moments as well, moments which in some of her previous novels (particularly the Shopaholic series) never quite rang true.But it's Sadie who steals the show -- and the reader's attention from the often hapless Lara. She devises ways to use her ghostly powers to help her out of her professional and romantic fixes, even as she's being a very demanding presence indeed. While no one in their right minds would ever pick up a novel by Sophie Kinsella looking for peerless prose or philosophical insight, this is definitely a cut above the Shopaholic novels, retaining the light and humorous touch that makes those readable, while steering the plot away from what becomes tedious brand-name/consumerist obsession on the part of Becky, the heroine of that series. Sadie, with her zest for the (after)life, is a joy, and under her tutelage, both Lara and the story blossom. In another fun twist on the chick lit genre, in this book, the plot revolves as much around the relationship between the two 'twenties girls' as it does the more conventional 'boy and girl' plot.The ideal summer beach read, undemanding and laugh-out-loud fun. Highly recommended for fans of the author's work (it's easily my favorite of her books to date, followed by  Can You Keep a Secret? ) and for afficionados of the lighter form of chick lit. If you like her books, don't forget to check out titles published under her literary alter-ego of Madeleine Wickham. Slightly less breathless in tone, but still with Kinsella's trademark tongue-in-cheek wit.

I had read this book years ago and loved it! I loaned the book and it was never returned. The story stayed in my mind for all the years. I bought it and it will not be loaned again!

An enjoyable and heart-warming story. A book I will keep forever.

My first ever review on a book and I have to do this for Lara and Sadie ❤️ I don't remember the last time I cried this much over a story !! It's so heart touching, humorous and emotionally strong! At the end of the story, it leaves a very beautiful message and memory! As an ardent fan of Sophie Kinsella's romcoms, this has to be my most favourite. Mustttt readdddd!

This is my absolute favorite Sophie Kinsella book ever, seconded by Undomesticated Goddess ! I loved the characters. This book has more substance than the others. I’m still looking for the necklace!

Ho iniziato questo libro con immenso scetticismo, ma seppur non amo le storie surreali né ho amato ogni secondo. Come ogni libro della Kinsella...:-)

El libro es muy divertido y original. Perfecto para una lectura ligera y para desconectar. Lo recomiendo. Es fácil de leer.