Sophie Kinesella is the type of writer that can make you really believe in the characters she creates. I first found one of her books completely by accident. I was looking for a good chick lit book that I could read quickly. I picked up Confessions of a Shopaholic, thinking that it would just be another book that I’d read and forget about. Now it’s been years and I’m still buying her books as soon as they come out. The Undomesticated Goddess was one of the first books that wasn’t part of the Shopaholic series and I think that’s the main problem. Kinesella is great when it comes to writing for Becky Bloomwood, the main character in those books, but she has problems developing new and fresh characters.

The Undomesticated Goddess is a book that revolves around a woman completely unlike Becky. She doesn’t care about her looks, only wears black, and wears the same makeup everyday. She is also tightly wound, has tons of money (apparently), and works as a lawyer. I say that she apparently has money because when she disappears for six months, she never worries about money or what will happen to her apartment hours away, which is something I would like to experience in my own personal life. When she makes a big mistake at work, she escapes to the country where she accidentally becomes a cook and maid for a wealthy couple, even though she doesn’t have any experience cleaning or cooking.

Okay I have a really hard time believing that anyone could get through life without picking up at least a few basic housekeeping tips or learning how to cook at least one thing. This character though can only make toast and doesn’t know the first thing about cleaning. She doesn’t know what rubber gloves are, can’t name a single type of vegetable, and yet she’s able to fake her way through everything pretty easy.

I’ve read this book a few times now and I really don’t like the character or how quickly the change happens from an undomesticated goddess into a woman who can do almost anything. In the first hundred pages or so I remember a scene where she sprays cleaner on the granite counter while the cleaner clearly says not to use on granite. Less than 50 pages later though she knows everything there is to know about cleaning.

I think it’s really hard to find any sympathy for the main character because she is essentially lying to everyone in her life. She knows that the man who has fallen in love with her hates lawyers so she deliberately doesn’t tell him about her old life and lets him find out from a newspaper article. She also lets him think that she was in an abusive relationship with another man and continues to let him believe that even when she heads back to London for a few days. I almost wanted the book to end with him telling her that he needed a break, or at least that he needed to get to know the real her. Instead I was disappointed by the stereotypical happy ending I got.

Rating: 5