Onlyscreen deep
K atie Brenner has the perfect life living in London, working in a glamorous high- flying job in advertising and a supercool social media presence.
But the truth is she’s another 20- year- old hopeful, flatting in expensive yet sub- par conditions, faking her Instagram posts and waiting for her award- winning boss to notice her. One day, after another hideous commute across town, she arrives at work and is laid off.
She has to return to the village where she was born, the very place she thought she’d escaped. All Katie’s hopes and dreams for making it Big in London are shattered. So she throws all her energy and efforts into her dad’s latest moneymaking scheme: glamping.
And would you believe it, it takes off with a little help from Katie and her advertising background. That is, until her ex- boss shows up for a week of rest and relaxation in Somerset. My not so Perfect Life is nothing but an easy read. Part workplace drama, part romantic comedy, part revenge novel, you can easily predict the plot. True to the genre, things unravel, things start turning around and then things finally work out. Although predictable, author Sophie Kinsella is a No 1 best- selling author because she’s good at the genre.
“And now I’m totally Cat Brenner from London. Cat Brenner who works in a cool office with distressed- brick walls and white shiny desks and funky chairs and a coat stand in the shape of a naked man.”
But there is a decent message that underlies this story about not getting caught up in the grip of social media. While young people feel compelled to make their lives look better in images on Facebook and Instagram than they are in reality, it leads to unsettling anxiety, the compare- and- despair factor and FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out.
But Katie seems to figure it all out in the end. As one would expect.