The first time I encountered English author Sophie Kinsella’s work, I was in the seventh grade, furtively being passed a copy of her 2001 novel Confessions of a Shopaholic in study hall by a classmate whose name I’ve since forgotten. What I’ve never forgotten, though, is the joy of losing myself in protagonist Becky Bloomwood’s fun, frothy world. Yes, a little part of me recognized shades of my own nascent compulsive behavior in her shopping addiction even then, but I was thrilled to encounter an adult protagonist who seemed to take as much enjoyment in life as the heroines of my YA Gossip Girl and The Clique novels did (or, actually, much more, since nobody could have mistaken The Clique ’s Machiavellian mean girl Massie Block for happy).

I’m as devoted as the next feminist to

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