A review by alphareads
Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

adventurous funny lighthearted tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

 
Rating: 3.5 (🌟🌟🌟⭐)
Featuring a resident ghost, a bewildered heroine, a swoon-worthy hero, and a plot that is both wildly humorous and emotionally moving, Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella is a ChicLit novel that piqued my interest. The protagonist of the book is a businesswoman who, after a breakup, makes an unexpected acquaintance with a ghost and gains new insight into her life from this mysterious guide. It's amusing to observe Lara's development and learning from this perspective, but, as usual with Kinsella, the greatest part is the humour. 
Though the intriguing storyline was a big draw, it was the book's genre that ultimately convinced me to give it a read. The term "ChickLit," which refers to a specific subgenre of literature, is generally understood to refer to books written for female audiences. To everyone's shock, I chose this book because of how unconventional I can be about some specific gender roles. Yes, men can read ChicLit too!
This review will highlight a few aspects of the book that stood out to me and that I feel needs to be discussed. 

Genre fusion


The author manages to mix ChicLit, Romance and Humour in this heartwarming novel. She sustains the balance between these genres through the book (or at least in the part that I read) and gets the reader feeling that they are reading one genre. That fusion, and successfully done, is one of the highlights of this novel. 

 

The opening


“The thing about lying to your parents is, you have to do it to protect them.”
The opening line/ paragraph of a novel has only one goal: to grab the reader’s attention. The first sentence gives the writer a chance to show the reader their style of writing, introduce the main character, or set up the event that starts the story (the inciting incident). This “simple” rule is a hit-or-miss type of situation and Sophie hits it right on the head. The opening in my opinion, immediately entices the reader to continue past the first page and continue.  The author captured my attention right off the bat. 

A strong Heroine:


The character of Lara is extremely sympathetic. She has a gentle and dependable nature. She is a gifted woman still attempting to establish herself as an adult, as she is frequently exploited due to her trusting attitude. Her character has depth, and the reader can see how she changes throughout the book. Especially since she had previously stated, "I'm allergic to family occasions." Sometimes I think we’d do better as dandelion seeds-no family, no history, just floating off into the world, each on our piece of fluff. ” then somewhere along the line saying, “It’s easy to discount family. It’s easy to take them for granted. But your family is your history. Your family is part of who you are.”

Overall, this is a good book to get into for a weekend ride. It is not too serious and you will have fun reading it. I recommend.