My Not So
Perfect Life
Sophie
Kinsella
Bantam Press
2017 391
Pages
Author Sophie
Kinsella’s patented chick lit formula is the literary equivalent of blandly
satisfying comfort food like mashed potatoes and chicken soup. My Not So
Perfect Life constitutes another helping, only slightly more astringent in
flavour.
That faint tinge
of bitter comes from the setting of the cutthroat world of marketing and
branding in London, with its high-pressure 18-hour work days for pay
significantly lower than most corporate jobs.
As a former refugee from advertising, I can testify from personal
experience that it can be a brutally abusive environment too. While British employers in this field, restrained
by more stringent workplace legislation, may be kinder and gentler than their
Indian counterparts, I wouldn’t bet on it. One of the nastiest ad persons I had
the misfortune to encounter was an expatriate Englishwoman in Dubai so awful
that even the Arabs couldn’t stomach her.
Conventional
mass media advertising and marketing is all about manufacturing synthetic
realities, as is a lot of the social media that is now replacing much of it.
Kinsella’s protagonist Katie “Cat” Brenner is the usual Cinderella-style
underappreciated rom-com heroine – with a small twist.
The novel’s title
is a sardonic reflection on Cat’s efforts to project a glossily “perfect”
lifestyle on online platforms like Instagram and Facebook, spurred by envy of
her peers. The sad reality being she toils thanklessly under a scattily
inconsiderate boss in a lowly (and low-paid) admin job that is also the lowest
level in the office food chain, enduring a tiny shared flat with no wardrobe,
an awful daily commute - besides having no meaningful or fulfilling social
life.
Given the
sack, Katie reluctantly reverts to her Somerset country girl roots. This part
of the novel is the most lively, with the heroine using her marketing smarts to
help her father and stepmother set up a successful rural hospitality business.
When the hated former boss responsible for her ouster signs on for a country holiday, Katie senses an
opportunity for revenge...
Of course,
this being a Sophie Kinsella novel, it ends with all wrongs righted, the guilty
punished and the girl getting her Prince Charming, besides the requisite
happily-ever-after. Kinsella
mocks pretence and privilege, but still manages to present the people involved
as human rather than mere caricatures.
Despite the standard chick lit conventions
being all present and correct, the focus here is more on one woman’s growth in finding her
own identity - in a world obsessed with worshiping superficial imagery.
Comments
Post a Comment