Review: A cute, fun, light, comic tale of one woman's efforts to hold it all together
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 17, 2012
Today's book review is a nice light-hearted romp into the magical world of shopping in high-fashion London.The Personal Shopper is the tale of Annie Valentine, a single mum of two who works at a posh London department store as a - duh - personal shopper. She helps the extremely wealthy (and the occasional friend/colleague) invent and reinvent themselves through clothes and accessories. She's a sassy, saucy, sweetheart of a character, which of course means she runs afoul of a horrid boss, well-meaning but not-quite-right men, and the occasional whiny customer more often than she should. She is struggling to give her two children everything - without the means to do so consistently. Which of course brings on drama (of both the tearful and laughter-full kind) of its own. She's also struggling to figure out what she wants from - and for - her own life. She loves helping people express themselves through clothes, using wardrobe-as-weapon to help women (and the occasional man) realize who they are, and who they want to be - and she uses the tricks of her trade on herself as often as on others.The ups and downs of Annie's life are familiar - both in this genre of book and to women everywhere. From teenage drama with daughter Lana to work challenges due to a snarky boss threatened by her success to man troubles as she struggles to balance what she thinks she wants with what she really needs, Annie is presented as a bit of an Everywoman - albeit one with WAY better shoes than most of us. She's a likeable enough character, although I must confess I occasionally found myself wanting to hold my hands over her mouth to stop her from calling everyone "Babes". I must confess that I also occasionally found myself shaking my head at the troubles she got herself into. She's a very human character, full of foibles - she means well and has the best of intentions, but we all know where that road takes you...All in all this was a cute, fun, light, comic tale of one woman's efforts to hold it all together, all the time. We've all been there - trying too hard, pushing ourselves into something we would recognize as not quite right if we only had the time and/or perspective to stand back and actually look before we leaped. The supporting characters were, to me, the meat and potatoes of this one - there are a lot of flamboyantly colorful eccentricities dangled throughout the book, and they kept me reading even in the midst of the occasional Annie eye-roll.