Chick lit short story
On Amazon UK HERE
I downloaded this to read while I had a twenty minute/half hour wait for something, and thought that, at 53 pages and as a bit of lighthearted fun, it should fit the bill nicely. Unfortunately, it lasted just shy of ten minutes; the story ended at 47%, after which were the first chapters of another book. I know the book is free, and obviously the point of free short stories is to try and make you pay out for another book, but I think the blurb should make clear what the content is.
Anyway, back to the story. Chick lit is not a favourite genre of mine but I have read the first Shopaholic book a couple of times and liked many aspects of it (the debt letters and the Finnish aspects were very funny, and Becky's money catastrophes were quite real, and something a lot of single girls about town could relate to), but this story, although well-written for what it is, and even quite entertaining in a odd sort of way, was just too daft.
The 'plot' is basically Becky being on honeymoon with husband Luke, and wanting to turn it into a shopping spree. An appealing premise, the sensible husband and the shopaholic wife, but in this book she was just completely inane. For instance, she saw some attractively packaged art equipment and suddenly fancied the idea of being an artist, spending a fortune on paper, easels, brushes, charcoal, gouache, etc and setting up her easel in front of a cathedral, only to discover that she couldn't draw. Lukes wants to visit various places of interest in Venice, but all Becky is interested in is buying expensive glass to impress her friends.
It was too silly to be funny, to the extent that you couldn't imagine why an intelligent, successful man like Luke would have married a woman who was uncultured, selfish, superficial, bored by anything apart from clothes and fantasy images of herself, and ridiculously, childishly impulsive. There was more to Becky's character in the first book, and some genuine wit; this is just like a parody.