Becky Bloomwood strangles herself with her Denny and George scarf...

...and DIES.

I wish.

I just HAD to record that my first determined, conscious foray into chick-lit has been absolutely disastrous, and that all existing copies of any book in the Shopaholic series should be pounded up with all the other kinds of garbage and used to generate biogas, in which role they will provide far more entertainment than they do presently, and will be far more tolerable.

The first time I'd heard of the Shopaholic series was when it was described as a second cousin of the other-chick-lit-thing-that-got-plagiarised during the big Kaavya Viswanathan debacle, I think. So I read Opal Mehta when I happened to come across someone who had it, and thought mehh boring shit. But y'all know the big deal chick-lit is, these days, and I thought I wouldn't judge by the one book.

So, full of the happy, warm glow that comes with knowing that I am being fair, reasonable and perfectly amiable , I pick up Shopaholic and Baby from the King's County Library, Bellevue (YOU ROCK......MUAH!!!!!!!) and slowly come to terms with the fact that I have found the one book that I will never read again, even if the all the libraries in the world spontaneously combust and the only three books that are left behind are You Can Be a Winner and Chacha Chaudhary, Hinglish translation.

I mean, lead character Becky Bloomwood is brainless without being entertaining, superficial without being suave, and anNOYINGLY indecisive. She lies at the drop of a special-edition Lagerfeld, but has not one redeeming ounce of wit to save her.

I genuinely don't understand....what is so entertaining about a woman who spends two hundred out of three hundred pages in her book detailing the excruciating details of her inability to make decisions and learn lessons that most of us learn at ten? She's frighteningly stupid and irritatingly childish, so she is 'emotionally giving' and 'childlike', which is why the big, confident business guy wants her? And more criminally, is wanting to have BABIES with her?! I mean, did someone say POLLUTING THE GENE POOL?

One of my friends, a staunch champion of the Shopaholic series brought up this interesting comparison of Becky Bloomwood of O' Hara, pointing out that both are essentially non-intellectual lead characters, yet endearing to readers, in the classic usage of the overly 'human' lead everyone can empathise with. This deserves to be examined.

Firstly, Scarlett O' Hara. While non-intellectual is right, she is not guilty of anything that would be called stupid in a vacuum, in the sense that while her independence, crude forthright mind and tendency to marry frequently may have been against societal norms, the woman was not vacant between the ears. She was honest, clever and a survivor.

Becky Bloomwood on the other hand, is called stupid for a reason. Her conflicts are not with society, they are with her Bank Account Manager. Her problems are not with herself, they are with the rest of the world who just doesnt understand that a Miu Miu skirt can be a household item. She wavers indecisively throughout the book, shows an absolute lack of judgment or wit, and shops like her life depends on it.... with someone else's money. This is a woman to be pitied, if you're in the mood for it (I call it the Jesus mood...ya know...Psalm 3:2 : Let thouest tolerate them retards, for the tolerant will inherit the Lindt factory) or exterminated, if you're normal , so that she won't have babies and ruin all chance humankind has to survive...it's called survival of the fittest for a reason, and Becky is about as smart as Birthday Barbie's left toenail. Maybelline nail varnish, please.

I just want to know why this thing sells, that's all. Do you like the Shopaholic? Why?