Tag Archives: Sophie Kinsella

The Undomestic Goddess (Sophie Kinsella)

Rating: [rate 4.0]

The Undomestic Goddess (Sophie Kinsella) Workaholic attorney Samantha Sweeting has just done the unthinkable. She’s made a mistake so huge, it’ll wreck any chance of a partnership.

Going into utter meltdown, she walks out of her London office, gets on a train and ends up in the middle of nowhere. Asking for directions at a big, beautiful house, she’s mistaken for an interviewee and finds herself being offered a job as a housekeeper.

Her employers have no idea that they’ve hired a lawyer — and Samantha has no idea how to work the oven. She can’t sew on a button, bake a potato or get the #@%# ironing board to open. How she takes a deep breath and begins to cope — and finds love — is a sory as delicious as the bread she learns to bake.

But will her old life ever catch up with her? And if it does…will she wnat it back?

I’ve been a reader of Sophie Kinsella ever since I got ahold of my first Shopaholic book when I was in college. It was because of her books that I started liking chicklit, and Becky Bloomwood/Brandon will always be the benchmark of typical a typical chicklit protagonist. The thing is, I couldn’t really relate to Becky since I’m not that much of a shopaholic. :P However, Samantha Sweeting is someone I could definitely relate to. :P

It was scary how I can relate to Samantha in the first part of the novel: workaholic, long hours in the office, always on the run. Geez, was I like that for the past months? :| I know I didn’t work on weekends, but I pulled long hours…and was gladly doing so. I knew I wasn’t that close to being like Samantha, but it was surprising and scary how much similar I was with her when it comes to how I work.

Anyway, I like this book because although the story can seem a bit typical — kind of like a reverse Cinderella-like — it was very relatable. Samantha’s lack of knowledge in domestic work may seem a bit exaggerated, but I like how Kinsella made her change very realistic, and the lessons that she made Samantha learn are also very important: how to slow down and live life, that work is not everything. I like how money wasn’t much an object here, seeing as Samantha may be really rich because of her job (seems like she could definitely afford a jet charter for herself), and her employers are definitely rich, so it’s refreshing coming from the Shopaholic books which was all about money. :P Anyway, I loved how the characters interacted with one another, especially the Geigers and Iris and Nathaniel. I’m not too fond of the love story, but it was a necessary plot point in the story else it wouldn’t have the very dramatic movie-like ending. ;)

It’s not a terribly serious book, but it’s a good read if you want something with enough substance but light enough not to bring the reader down. :)