Books I've Read: Mini Shopaholic

I've adored Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic series ever since a friend of mine introduced me to it. They're fun, easy-to-read books, and I thought Rebecca Bloomwood was charming and easy to relate to. Until now.

Sadly, I think Mini Shopaholic is proof that the adventures of Becky Bloomwood & co. need to end. In this installment, we find Becky, her husband, Luke, and their daughter, Minnie, living with Becky's parents. Every time they find a house to buy, the deal somehow falls through, and to make matters worse, the Bank of London has gone bust, causing a state of panic and forcing people to cut back on expenses. Of course, Becky is incapable of cutting back and decides instead to throw a vulgarly expensive surprise party for Luke (one that she can't afford), and hi-jinx ensue.

Becky's irresponsibility and impulsive nature could very easily be excused earlier on in the series: she's young and reckless, but she's also twenty-five, and very few of us have it totally together at that age. But when you're twenty-nine and married with a toddler, shouldn't you grow up just the teeniest bit? Isn't it time you carefully planned your finances and didn't make such expensive, impulsive buys? That's the big problem I had with this installment: Becky is no different now than she was in Confessions of a Shopaholic. She's still hopelessly addicted to shopping (as evidenced in the opening scene when her brat of a daughter wants an expensive toy pony and she relents), and when she finds herself in tricky situations, she lies and schemes instead of just coming clean and telling the truth. She's even diagnosed with a shopping addiction and agrees to therapy, but when the book ends, surprise, surprise! Her husband's PR company magically lands a movie-star client who wants him to work with her out in Los Angeles for a few months, so the whole lot of them decides to go, effectively excusing Becky from getting the therapy she needs. And when a rich benefactor decides to step in and pay for Luke's surprise party, Becky doesn't learn any sort of lesson regarding budgeting or fiscal responsibility.

Reading this book was maddening, which is a shame since I love this series, and adore Kinsella. Hopefully this will be the last of the Shopaholic books--I just can't stomach reading about a forty year-old Becky Bloomwood gallivanting around, buying over-priced clothes and trying to make some ridiculous fantasy come to life. I just can't.

I give it one star.

Books I've Read: Dexter by Design

Ah, Dexter. My favorite vigilante serial killer. I fell in love with both the television series and the books a couple years ago, and Dexter is now cemented as one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. Lucky for me, my sister knows this, and surprised me with Dexter by Design for Christmas. (Okay, so she didn't surprise me, per se. I told her I wanted it. But still.) After reading it, I gotta say, I was a little underwhelmed.

Dexter by Design picks up at the tail end of Dexter and Rita's honeymoon in Paris, where they catch a bizarre art exhibit entitled Jennifer's Leg. The exhibit is comprised of several videos showcasing Jennifer in several stages of amputating her own leg, and represents the new trend in art: making the artist part of the piece itself instead of passively creating it. Hmmm, can we say foreshadowing, anyone?

When Dexter gets back to Miami, he discovers an artist of a kind-of-a-different-but-not-really sort, one that loves to leave dead bodies artfully displayed around the city. After a botched investigation that leaves his adopted sister, Deborah, hospitalized, the "artist" is now after Dexter, and is dangerously close to outing him to all of Miami.

While this story is loads better than the last installment, Dexter in the Dark, it didn't blow me away like the first two books did (Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Dearly Devoted Dexter for those of you who are living under a rock). Dexter, who always manages to talk himself or cleverly extract himself out of very tricky situations, showed uncharacteristic stupidity at certain points in the story, and there were some parts where I figured out what was going to happen before the character did. I also found some of the sub-plots a little slow-moving. For example, we found out like, two books ago that Rita's children, Cody and Astor, had serial killer tendencies, and that Dexter promised to show them the Harry Way, but there really hasn't been a whole lot of progress on that end since. Just little bits and pieces, as if Lindsay is saying, "Wait! This is still part of the story too! Don't forget about it!" And I'm still trying to figure out what part Doakes will play (besides comedic relief) since he's still alive, and can very much communicate, but is still rendered helpless in some aspects. Will he be the threat he once was? It doesn't look like it, although Lindsay has made a point to include him in every book since his close call. Maybe this is Lindsay's tactic: make us think that Doakes is now reduced to making us laugh and then catch us off-guard by having him play a pivotal role in a future story. Who knows.

I give Dexter by Design two and a half, maybe three stars. It was still an enjoyable read, but is far from the solid storytelling and character development that was present in the first two books.