Surprise Me

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What a delightful, healthy couple.’ Dr Bamford sounds approving, as though he’s giving us a good school report. ‘How long have you been married?’ One of the best parts of Sophie Kinsella's writing that also occurred in this novel is the ability to relate. I think many people will be able to relate to many of the characters but especially to different aspects of the main character Sylvie. Her internal dialogue and struggles were real alone with her outwardly concerns. Along with this, the humour! Oh boy, there were times that this novel had me either hiding a laugh or literally laughing out loud. Sophie Kinsella does humour amazingly well and I'm happy to see that she included it so appropriately in this novel. This is a standalone book and starts off well with lots of laughs. Sylvie and Dan Winter, both aged thirty-two, visit a new doctor for their physical. He jokingly tells them that because they are in such good health, there is a good chance they will live to be 100 or beyond, meaning they could be married for 68 more years. Sixty-eight more years?! To the same person?! That sends them both into a tizzy! Also: we have slightly edited this story when we tell other people. Like, the low-cut hooker top. No-one needs to know about that.

But what are we going to do with it, Sylvie? How are we going to fill the endless, soulless years of mindless drone work? Where’s the joy in our lives?” He looks around the kitchen with a questing gaze, as though it might be in a jar labeled joy, next to turmeric. Thank you to the following for permitting me access to an advance reader's copy (ARC) of Surprise Me. This generosity did not impact my honesty when rating/reviewing. I must admit this was my first Sophie Kinsella book and I am so very glad to have stumbled upon this little gem of a book. Ten years. It’s such an achievement. It feels like a mountain that we’ve scrambled to the top of. I mean, it’s a whole decade. Three house moves, one wedding, one set of twins, about twenty sets of Ikea shelves… I mean it’s practically a lifetime.

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But Ok, the couple decides to spice things up by planning surprises for one another. As you would imagine, things don’t always go as planned. Very amusing. The last half of the book turns a little more serious with lessons to be learned about married life, and the ending is as you would expect from this genre. I try to imagine myself, aged 102. I never thought I’d live that long. I never thought about life expectancy, full stop. I’ve just been going with the flow. For this novel, I feel like it can have such a broad audience that can be impacted. Younger adults, older adults, single, married, divorced, etc. I think the story and these characters cover such a large network that many could relate with different things that the characters are going through. Oh, you’ll live beyond a hundred,’ says Dr Bamford, sounding assured. ‘A hundred and two, maybe. You…’ He eyes Dan.

In his defence (he says now) he was getting over another relationship, and wasn’t really ‘out there’. For a time, this does seem like a frothy novel about keeping the spark alive in marriage before it becomes a deeper look at relationships between family, husbands and wives, work, and yourself. It’s when this novel goes deeper that I really enjoyed it.In 2014 she published a Young Adult novel Finding Audrey about a teenage girl with social anxiety and her madcap family, and in January 2018, Sophie published her first illustrated book for young readers about the charming adventures of a mother-daughter fairy duo, Mummy Fairy and Me (also published as Fairy Mom and Me). Well, not bam as in instant love. Bam as in I thought, ‘Mmm. Look at those eyes. Look at those arms. He’s nice.’ He was wearing a blue T shirt which brought out his eyes. He had a chef’s apron round his waist, and he was flipping burgers really efficiently. Like he knew what he was doing. Like he was king of the burgers. Sophie Kinsella has sold over 40 million copies of her books in more than 60 countries, and she has been translated into over 40 languages.