Review: Twenties Girl

Twenties Girl was recommended to me just prior to a trip to Texas from California. It was my mother that recommended it to me. She loaned me her hardcover copy with a sincere request that I remove the cover while I read it so as not to ruin the clean white book cover. I thought instantly how it would be jammed in my backpack, jostled around for the airline inspection, and the ride under the seat in front of me for 3 ½ hours. My parents both loved reading and I did not inherit that love, but, on occasion I do find a good work to brag about. Twenties Girl is that book.

The hardest thing for me to do is to tell you why I liked this book. I still have not figured it out. I do not relate to the main character. She is British, as is the author. She is neurotic and just the kind of character someone like me would love to give life-coaching lessons to. I don't relate to the ghost in the story either. She is an old woman when she dies, but young at heart as a ghost. I never could visualize completely what she looked like, unlike the main character. I knew just who should play the role of Lara for the, (I hope it will make it to film), release of this novel. I won't tell you who my choice is as it may be different for you and that was the one thing about the book that rose from the words on the page and struck me in the center of my mind. The words had a voice and the voice had a face and they went together perfectly from the first chapter to the last.

The easiest thing to tell you about this book is that it is a very different experience to read it than the books that grace the top sellers in the store. This one is fresh, complete in its story, and doesn't go where you expect it to go. The story seems deliberately intimate. The relationship between Lara and her dead aunt Sadie, who is the ghost, is one you can talk about without sounding like you believe in ghosts or haunting. Lara has a life we have seen in someone we know at work or school. Her life is complicated and the reader is brought in very close to witness it.

The words in the book are foreign to me as a native Californian. Sophie Kinsella is British and uses phrases that are familiar to those "across the pond". This did not take away from the story or my enjoyment of it. It added to the authenticity of it. I found I had to discover the meaning of some of them to get the full value of the storyline. That was worth doing while reading it.

Here are a few things I would like you to take away about this novel. It feels like a new romantic comedy, not a hashed over one. It is romantic on dual levels and comedic on every level. It has a voice you will hear in your head long after you set it down. It is a book you can read quickly, but, you will be disappointed that it is over after you get to the last page. You can read it again because it has depth and you will read new things the second time. You won't want to loan it out. I kept the copy I borrowed and you would lose yours if you loaned it to someone.