Confessions of a Shopaholic

A few weeks ago some of my peers told me that they liked my style; particularly, elenavi said “Let’s take, for instance, this quote from your post: “However, here I am, I know it, and I intend to learn using it as much as possible!” Isn’t this your personal style? Of course! That's absolutely you! Imagine that while reading your post, it was like listening to you when we talk together at lesson on Monday!”
The way I write in informal English has been highly influenced by my readings, in fact, as silvia said “The way we write is inevitabily influenced by what we read. Therefore, we can learn how to improve our informal English only by reading a lot!”. And that's what I actually did during these last months, I started reading Sophie Kinsella’s books, which are written with a very informal and friendly style. I love her way of writing, which is much more similar to spoken language than to written language. Her novels are mainly about a young woman, Becky Bloomwood, who’s a real shopaholic, and who lives an amazing life, facing a lot of sentimental and economic troubles.

Ok, I know that Sophie Kinsella’s bestsellers are not exactly the kind of “contemporary literature” a student at her last year at university should be interestend in, but they’re so exciting that I like reading them in my free time!
An what is more, they help me improving my writing skills!

Sophie’s way of writing is so effective and attractive that you cannot stop reading her books, but while enjoying Becky’s adventures you can also learn how to write using informal written English, which is exactly what we’re asked to do in our blogs!

In order to show you what I mean by “effective and attractive style”, here’s the beginning of Sophie Kinsella’s “Confessions of a Shopaholic”:

“Ok. don't panic. Don't panic. It's only a VISA bill. It's a piece of paper; a few numbers. I mean, just how scary can a few numbers be?
I stare out of the office window at a bus driving down Oxford Street, willing myself to open the white envelope sitting on my cluttered desk. It's only a piece of paper, I tell myself for the thousandth time. And I'm not stupid, am I? I know exactly how much this VISA bill will be.
Sort of. Roughly.
It'll be about ... £200. Three hundred, maybe. Yes, maybe £300. Three-fifty, max.
I casually close my eyes and start to tot up. There was that suit in Jigsaw. And there was dinner with Suze at Quaglinos. And there was that gorgeous red and yellow rug. The rug was £200, come to think of it. But it was definitely worth every penny — everyone's admired it. Or, at least, Suze has.
And the Jigsaw suit was on sale — 30 percent off. So that was actually saving money.
I open my eyes and reach for the bill. As my fingers hit the paper I remember new contact lenses. Ninety-five pounds. Quite a lot. But, I mean, I had to get those, didn't I? What am I supposed to do, walk around in a blur?
And I had to buy some new solutions and a cute case and some hypoallergenic eyeliner. So that takes it up to ... £400?”

I know that all my peers (who actually are all women) know what’s going to happen to the poor Becky…isn’t it?

Well, it was just a funny extract from Sophie’s novel…just to show you how interesting her style is!
I’ll post some other extracts in the next weeks…and I hope my style will become more and more similar to hers!
I love it!

Camilla