TBR Jar Review: The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella

So I ended up reading this even though I wasn’t sure I was in the mood for it. I do like Kinsella’s books normally but they just seem to fall into a sort of pattern often, which can get a bit boring. 

In this book we follow Samantha, a high-achieving career lawyer in London. One day she makes a massive mistake that costs the company millions of pounds and she finds herself escaping to the countryside, where she ends up as a housekeeper for a mostly kind, but sometimes a little condescending couple. Here she struggles to learn the simple household tasks of doing the ironing and preparing dinner. Tasks she never had time for in her hectic London life. She settles down and when her old life comes knocking she has to make a choice whether to stay or go back. 

This book was okay for me. It was fine, but not much more than that. It did follow the pretty predictable pattern of chick-lit in general, so there weren’t really any major plot twists or anything to keep you on the edge of your seat. The story was good enough and the characters were okay, but at the same time I do feel like we didn’t really get to know them THAT well. They were pretty much stereotypes; the highstrung career woman who really wants a simpler life, the nouveau riche lady who has a heart of gold but takes herself too seriously sometimes, the bumbling man who wants to seem business savvy but really doesn’t know what he is doing, the love interest who is a poster boy for the life our heroine wants….and so on. 

The book sets up for a big plot point having to do with the relationship of the main character and the love interest, but then when it finally rolls around it’s pretty much resolved in the space of a page or two. And the pacing in general seemed a bit off to me. At first it moves pretty slowly and then suddenly everything happens at once. 

As I said this book was fine. I gave it 2 stars out of 5. The next pick from my jar is “Camille” by Alexandre Dumas.