Weekly Reader: Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella; Cute Chick Lit With A Fascinating Ghost and Standard Protagonist

Weekly Reader: Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella; Cute Chick Lit With A Fascinating Ghost and Standard Protagonist

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book that has "20" or "Twenty" in the title


Spoilers: There are many Chick Lit stories in which the protagonist, usually a lovelorn woman stuck in a dead end job, receives magical assistance from a unique advisor whether it's a genie, a fairy, the ghost of a beloved movie star, or in the case of Sophie Kinsella's Twenties Girl, a deceased relative. The problem with most of these novels is that the unique advisor is so well written and fascinating that they end up being the best part of the book. The rest including the modern protagonist pale in comparison and the parts without them seem like filler.


Unfortunately, Twenties Girl firmly fits the rule rather than the exception. It tells the story of a young Londoner who is visited by the ghost of her deceased great aunt and makes all of the inevitable mistakes in romance, work, and friendships before learning the proverbial lesson and helping the ghost move on.


Lara Lington is having a rough time lately. She went into partnership with her friend, Nora, to become a corporate headhunter until Nora abandoned her. Lara's boyfriend, Josh, broke up with her and she is convinced that he still loves her. She feels intimidated by her famous Uncle Bill ("Yes the Bill Lington," Lara insists) who runs a successful chain of coffee shops and is peddling his Two Little Coins Seminars in which he offers the keys to success in which anyone can start, like him, with two little coins and a big dream.


Lara is already pretty miserable and when she is told that her 105 year old Great Aunt Sadie Lancaster has died and she has to attend the funeral. The funeral has a darkly comic tone as it is clear that no one had much contact with Great Aunt Sadie, nor was very close to her so no one particularly wants to be at her funeral. Lara's parents are there to assuage their guilt over not visiting her at her retirement home. Uncle Bill and his wife, Aunt Trudy are there to promote Bill's caring family man persona. Their daughter, Lara's cousin, Diamante to promote her fashion label and so Bill can pay for her charity boob job. (She's getting a boob job and then giving an interview afterwords-"half the proceeds of the interview go to charity.") Lara's sister, Tonya (Tonya and Lara? Hmm, someone loved Dr. Zhivago enough to name two sisters out of the female leads) is there to point out other people's miseries. Lara is practically dragged there by her parents when she would rather sit at home and try to save her flagging business and moan and whine about Josh.

The funeral is bound to be a brief, dull, impersonal one when Lara has an encounter that makes it less dull and way more personal. A dark haired woman in a lime green flapper dress appears only to Lara and bemoans about not having her favorite necklace. The woman is the ghost of Lara's Great Aunt Sadie, but as she looked when she was 23: a devil may care exuberant flapper. At first Lara doubts her imagination and mind, but after she finally comes to terms that Sadie is real and a ghost, she and Sadie strike a deal. Sadie needs her favorite necklace because when she wore it she "felt special." Lara needs help fixing the problems in her life. Lara will look for Sadie's necklace if Sadie helps Lara with her career and lovelife.


The novel sparkles whenever Sadie enters the scene. Kinsella did a great job of capturing the style of a prototypical flapper. She describes the fringe and bejeweled A-line dresses, short bob cuts, and the deco accessories perfectly. She also brilliantly recalls the slang such as "barney mugging" for sex, "gaspers" for cigarettes, and so on. Sadie is a blithe spirit who lives for the moment even after her moments have passed.


Sadie's backstory is revealed throughout the book and interests the Reader with the small doses that they receive. Sadie lived with conservative parents dismayed by her free spirited lifestyle and a brother who was killed in WWI. She had a best friend, Bunty, with whom Sadie shared hi-jinks like stealing cars, dancing to jazz, and getting in plenty of trouble. She also had a lover, Stephen, who was a dedicated artist and painted landscapes and nude portraits of Sadie. Her parents caught them and Stephen was sent away while Sadie was forced into a catastrophic and short lived marriage. Kinsella showed that despite her family's original perception of Sadie as "a million year old nobody," Sadie was an interesting person who lived an interesting life. Unfortunately, Kinsella did that so well that this Reader wonders why there weren't any flashbacks of Sadie's life or the book didn't take place exclusively in the 1920's and focus on Sadie.


Unfortunately, Sadie is merely a supporting character to a less developed protagonist. Lara does not have Sadie's spunk or ability to get past situations. In fact most of the time, she comes across as immature and whiny. After Josh breaks up with her, Lara constantly insists that they will still be together. She leaves voice mail messages and follows him. She has Sadie use some new found possession abilities to find out what were the reasons for their breakup and she acts according to those reasons. This is supposed to make Lara seem adorable but instead comes across as shrill and stalkerish.

She has some allegedly cute moments with a new love interest but they are mostly repetitive and follow the standard plotline of people saying and assuming the wrong thing just to add complications that we've read and seen many times. Sadie is the most interesting part of the book and it shows.


Lara only comes into her own twice in the novel. The first is when her former friend, Nora returns and tries to poach a client that Lara did most of the work on. Lara tells her off about abandoning her and lying about her experience in headhunting. Lara manages to start her own business with Sadie's help in finding clients and Lara's outlook on comparing to matchmaking, matching people with the perfect job.


The second time comes after Lara learns the truth about Sadie's necklace and what her true legacy was. Once she learns this, she wants to make right by Sadie and honor her the way she deserves. She calls out the person who robbed her of her legacy and stole her necklace to remove all traces of the robbery. She also creates a memorial for Sadie that is the perfect send off. A 1920's dress code is given and people laugh and drink champagne with a guzzle and a cry of "Tally-ho!" Just the way Sadie wanted.


Twenties Girl does provide a good theme of our family history and heritage being a part of us one that Lara finally understands. It's a good theme with Sadie as a memorable character to reveal it. But hidden inside a typical chick Lit novel with the typical feather brained lead, it doesn't stand a ghost of a chance.