Tag: Sophie Kinsella

Craving Adult Contemporary?? Wedding Night and The Bookshop on the Corner Reviews

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New week, new type of post.

Since my thoughts on Jenny Colgan’s The Bookshop on the Corner and Sophie Kinsella’s Wedding Night are a bit short and non-spoilery, I decided to change up my usual review format to include 2 reviews in one post (rebel I know). Plus, both books fall under the same genre: British, adult contemporary!

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The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

Summary: Nina is a literary matchmaker, having plenty of practice as a librarian. But when the job she loves disappears, Nina is left with a lot of books and trying to figure out her next step. Taking her love for books and plenty of them in tow, Nina moves to a quiet village in Scotland, where the community is in dire need of reading. There, Nina buys a van and transforms it into a bookshop on wheels. Between sharing her passion for storytelling with the village and dealing with her grumpy, but caring landlord, Nina begins to feel more at home than she ever has before.

My Rating: 5/5 Stars

28372019.jpgMy Thoughts:

Jenny Colgan captured my heart in 2017 with Meet Me at the Cupcake Café and The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris, so kicking off my 2018 reading with another one of her books was a great start to my year.  

Obviously being a reader myself, I adored Nina’s appreciation for books and literature, and I found myself trying to figure how I could hypothetically open my own bookshop out of a van. After I finish writing this review, I’ll be off to Internet, looking for any fan art of Nina’s van/bookshop. I wish there was somehow a picture of it included in the book because I struggled to visualize it a bit (I know, minorish detail, use your imagination, Haley, but still!).

My favorite aspect of reading The Bookshop on the Corner was how cozy it made me feel. The majority of the novel takes place in Scotland, which I wasn’t expecting, but I loved this setting! I haven’t read any novels with Scotland as the main setting, and seeing Nina live on Lennox’s farm and participate in village life makes me want to move to the Highlands for a bit! Speaking of Lennox, I loved his role in the story, and it was really fun to see a whole new side of Nina come out when she talked to him. I also loved Surinder, Nina’s best friend, from pushing Nina to do something with her life to her comic relief.

Overall, if you’re looking for a book about books  or a cozy contemporary, The Bookshop on the Corner is the one for you. Personally, I love reading books about books, like Words in Deep Blue, so I would love to see a sequel to Nina’s story (even if it’s a just a small check-in).

 Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella

Summary: When Lottie’s boyfriend said that he had a big question for her, she thought it’d be finally be a marriage proposal, not a question about a trip abroad. Heartbroken, Lottie randomly receives a call from her first boyfriend and decides that it must be fate—a trip down the aisle seems like the right way to go! While Lottie is excited for this stage of her life, her sister Fliss feels the exact opposite. Going through her own divorce, Fliss is determined to end Lottie and Ben’s marriage with a ruinous wedding night.

My Rating: 3.75/5 Stars

My Thoughts:

I’ve been working my way through Sophie Kinsella’s books (I think my local library has ALL of them!), and next up on my TBR was Wedding Night. I didn’t know too much about the book going in, but I figured I would enjoy the wedding aspects of the novel.17406464.jpg

Unfortunately, there wasn’t too much about weddings itself in Wedding Night, as the novel primarily focuses on Lottie’s rashness in her marriage with Ben and Fliss doing her best to sabotage their marriage for her sister’s sake. There is a considerable amount of wedding talk in the beginning of the novel, with Lottie overcoming her failed engagement to Richard and trying to “plan” a wedding with Ben. Additionally, I really liked the first half of the novel for its introduction to Lottie and Fliss, before the wedding night shenanigans begin. My favorite aspect of the novel was the dual POV from Fliss and Lottie. I liked learning about their backgrounds, like Lottie’s first trip to Greece and her mentoring college students to Fliss serving as head editor at the travel magazine. While reading about Lottie’s honeymoon mishaps from her perspective were quite funny, I liked Fliss’s POV a bit better, with her growing connection with Lorcan.

Wedding Night was a really fun and light read for me, between Fliss and Lorcan’s blooming romance and Lottie’s honeymoon from hell, but it was a little predictable and often dragged towards the end of the book. I figured that Fliss’s sabotaging Lottie’s honeymoon and wedding night would eventually lose control, and I saw some of the cracks in Lottie’s past history with Ben before she discovered them herself. The plot did become a bit ridiculous and far-fetched at times, but overall I think it added to the book’s romantic-comedy vibe.

In conclusion, I recommend Wedding Night if you’re looking for a light-hearted, rom-com-y read. I have two of Sophie Kinsella’s standalones left, and I’m highly anticipating Surprise Me, coming out in February 2018!

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Have you read Wedding Night or The Bookshop on the Corner? Share in the comments!

Review: The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella

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Summary: Workaholic attorney Samantha Sweetings has done everything according to plan in her life, until now. She’s made an unthinkable mistake that’s bound to ruin her career at one of England’s top law firms. Instead of waiting to find out, Samantha flees London on a train and ends up in a small village. As she asks for help from a couple in town, she’s mistaken for an interviewee and lands a job as a housekeeper. While Samantha’s housekeepers don’t know she’s a lawyer, Samantha doesn’t know how to turn on an oven, let alone run a household. As she adjusts more and more to life as a housekeeper, Samantha questions if she’ll ever be able to return to her old life.

My Rating: 4.5/ 5 Stars

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My Thoughts:

I am a firm believer in that everyone needs a Sophie Kinsella book in their life. I absolutely love British contemporaries, and The Undomestic Goddess is sure to please for my fellow British contemporary-loving readers. One of my favorite aspects of many  British contemporaries I’ve read is seeing our main protagonists transition from city life to village life. Samantha’s life is consumed by her job as a lawyer, and I loved seeing her really embrace life as Trish and Eddie’s housekeeper and being part of village life with Nathaniel.

One of the biggest recurring parts of the novel is the fact that Samantha has no idea what it’s like to be a housekeeper. It was really comical to read her mishaps—thank gosh that girl has a credit card—and I especially enjoyed the scene where Nathaniel saves her from her burning chickpeas and flour-infused gravy. I really loved seeing Samantha grow closer to Nathaniel and to his mom, Iris. Iris’s cooking lessons with Samantha were among my favorite scenes in the novel—I love to eat food, I love to read about food!

I flew through The Undomestic Goddess in two days—I admit that it would have a bit faster if it hadn’t been for Thanksgiving prep and time with family- and I simply couldn’t put it down. It was so funny to see Samantha’s shenanigans play out with Trish, and I loved her relationship with Nathaniel and the Greigers grow more and more. It was a bit frustrating, but funny to see Trish and Eddie unaware of Samantha’s true intelligence. I also wanted her to abandon any idea of going back to her life in London. What else could she need beside free rooming, a cute gardener, and bread baking lessons?

My only complaint about The Undomestic Goddess is that we could have gotten to the ending a bit sooner, as Samantha debates if she’ll go back to London and work in law. I also wish that we got see more of Samantha’s life after she makes her final decision.

Have you read The Undomestic Goddess? If you have, I highly recommend picking up Sophie Kinsella’s latest book, My Not-So Perfect Life. Share your thoughts & feels in the comments!