Can You Keep a Secret?
by Sophie Kinsella
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Book Summary Information
Author: Sophie KinsellaEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-03-01
ISBN: 0385338082
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Book Reviews of Can You Keep a Secret?
Book Review: Poor character development, but good for the road in audio
Summary: 2 Stars
How shall I round off my 2.5 star rating? I'll round it down, since so many seem to have rounded it up!
In spite of the pink packaging that suggested it would be little more than girl talk for women, I bought the audio book for a buck in a second-hand store. I figured it could be a buck well spent for a long road trip.
And that much, it was. It did help pass the time on the road, although I would not normally pick something quite that light and quite that undeveloped. My single, highest accolade goes to the narrator. I give her a whopping 50 on a scale of ten, for her amazing reading of the various characters, proper enunciation, emphasis, conveyed meaning, etc. You rarely find this in a talking book, and it was a joy to be entertained by this voice. (The charming British accent is also a plus for many of us Americans.) The only demerit is for her rendition of Jack's dialog. The low, mono-toned, ominous-sounding voice for the leading male character is a big let-down compared to all the rest of the narration, and it only exacerbates the author's paucity of character-building for him.
I agree with others about the lack of character building. For someone as brilliant as Jack to fall for this rather scatter-brained young woman, he'd have to see something more in her than mere hints of possible gold nuggets behind her idiosyncrasies. As the story progresses [spoiler alert!], you see them move toward marriage without any hint of serious discussion. A lot seemed to depend on how she would take his revealing her secrets on TV and on how he would take her having told part of his secret to her girlfriends. In real life, by that point, you'd have both decided you wanted to explore where this might go, so that sorting out these things would be part of the process, not a possible deal-breaker at every step of the way. In high school, everything might depend on whether the boy passes you a note, or a girl lets you walk her home. But Jack is not only an adult, he's a successful entrepreneur, apparently very insightful. Their relationship should have been more adult and less high schoolish.
Further, what did she see in Jack? I didn't get the impression she's a gold digger, but I did get the impression her attraction was mainly the coincidence of their meeting (plane... office...), and the fact that she could date the head honcho. At best, she seems infatuated.
If you read lighter stuff now and then and don't mind filling in a lot of the lacking character as you go, then you might like this book at least as much as I did. But remember, I was a "captive audience" in my car with the talking book, and hearing the narrator was at least half the fun. Frankly, I can't imagine finishing this book, if I were sitting at home reading it by the fire--not because it's a bad book, but because there is so much to read and so little time; I think I'd set it aside for something better.
Summary of Can You Keep a Secret?
With the same wicked humor, buoyant charm, and optimism that have made her Shopaholic novels beloved international bestsellers, Sophie Kinsella delivers a hilarious new novel and an unforgettable new character. Meet Emma Corrigan, a young woman with a huge heart, an irrepressible spirit, and a few little secrets:Secrets from her mother:
I lost my virginity in the spare bedroom with Danny Nussbaum while Mum and Dad were downstairs watching Ben-Hur.
Sammy the goldfish in my parents? kitchen is not the same goldfish that Mum gave me to look after when she and Dad were in Egypt.
Secrets from her boyfriend:
I weigh one hundred and twenty-eight pounds. Not one eighteen, like Connor thinks.
I?ve always thought Connor looks a bit like Ken. As in Barbie and Ken.
From her colleagues:
When Artemis really annoys me, I feed her plant orange juice. (Which is pretty much every day.) It was me who jammed the copier that time. In fact, all the times.
Secrets she wouldn?t share with anyone in the world:
My G-string is hurting me.
I have no idea what NATO stands for. Or even what it is.
Until she spills them all to a handsome stranger on a plane. At least, she thought he was a stranger.
But come Monday morning, Emma?s office is abuzz about the arrival of Jack Harper, the company?s elusive CEO. Suddenly Emma is face-to-face with the stranger from
the plane, a man who knows every single humiliating detail about her. Things couldn?t possibly get worse?Until they do.
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