Book Review: My Not So Perfect Life

Sophie Kinsella specialises in taking current trends and perennial insecurities and combining them into a somewhat-implausible but appealingly-empowering yarn – here we see what happens when a ‘has it all’ girl loses it and has to keep pretending. Except Katie never really had it all to begin with; her carefully-curated social media profile makes her life seem far more glamorous than it actually is, and even her friends and family don’t know the truth about her tiny shared apartment or her low-level job.

Her nemesis at work, Demeter, seems to be the living embodiment of everything Katie wants to be. Pity that Demeter can’t stand her (when she notices her existence at all, of course). And when Demeter fires her – well, that’s the last straw. Hiding out at home, in decidedly unglamorous Somerset, Katie becomes involved in helping her parents set up a ‘glamping’ resort – all the while hoping no one from London and what she still thinks of as her ‘real’ life turns up.

So naturally, Demeter and her family are about to arrive for a visit – and Katie’s determined to get her revenge. Things get more complicated, though, and she realises Demeter’s not nearly as ‘together’ as she seems – and that they might be able to help each other out.

The workplace politics are, as usual, beautifully portrayed, and the satirising of faux-natural/organic/wholesome culture is hilarious. A most pleasing read indeed.