Surprise Me

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Don’t get me wrong, I love Sophie Kinsella novels; they often serve as my break from reality. Surprise Me isn’t a bad read, it just didn’t have that special something I often find in Kinsella’s books. Still I would recommend for a light, fluffy and fun mindless read! 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). Surprise Me is, ultimately, a story about marriage, secrets, commitment, family, introspection, and enduring love. It's classic Kinsella with well-crafted characters, humour, heart, a surprising twist and a delightful ending that will definitely make you smile. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Party Crasher and Love Your Life comes awitty and emotionally charged novel that delves into the heart of a marriage, and how those we love and think we know best can sometimes surprise us the most For two people who were meant to know each other inside out they sure jumped to a lot of conclusions about the other and gave each other surprises they really didn't want. Dan getting Sylvie a snake? He was meant to know her oh so well but somehow he thought buying her a snake would please her.

He’s looking at his phone now, and I glance at mine, too. We don’t have a no-phone rule on dates because who can go a whole meal without looking at your phone? After reading this novel, I'm getting the itch to reread all of Sophie Kinsella's novels because they are just so well done and thoroughly entertaining. I cannot wait to read more from her in the future! Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing me with a copy in an exchange for an honest review. 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!What can they do to keep their marriage fresh for that long? "We need surprises. That's what we need. Surprises." But as Sylvie's best friend and next-door neighbor Tilda tells her, "Surprises have a bad habit of going wrong." In her signature fashion, Sophie Kinsella brings a cast of quirky, funny characters to this new work. [She] keeps the laughs coming. . . . Readers will follow the story with bated breath as the couple struggle to make their marriage right after everything they thought they knew about each other proves wrong.” — Library Journal 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. Those surprises initially turn out to be fun, silly things that often made one laugh. However, the surprises soon turn out to be more serious and as the story continues, a scandal makes them realize that what they thought they knew about one another might just be an illusion. And you’ll never see Dan doing Christmas shopping. He has no interest in presents, and his birthday becomes an actual tussle. (Me: ‘You must want something. Think.’ Dan (hunted): ‘Get me… er… I think we’re out of pesto. Get me a jar of that.’ Me: ‘A jar of pesto? For your birthday?’)

I so enjoyed the hilarity of the first half of the book and having a British son in law, I could just see him involved in some of these escapes. The second half of the story is when things got serious. It seemed that as much as Sylvie and Dan thought they knew one another both inside and out, there were many surprises in store for them as they have found out that there is a possibility given their lifestyles that they could be married for the next sixth-eight years. Could they be together for that long without a) killing one another, b) being bored to tears, or c) find themselves so far apart. So, these two set up a plan with surprises involved in which they will continue to add zest and spice to their marriage. In his defence (he says now) he was getting over another relationship, and wasn’t really ‘out there’. Thank you so much to NetGalley, Random House, and Sophie Kinsella for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book to read and review! A gin and tonic for me,’ says Dan, when she’s finished writing. ‘Then the scallops also, and the bream.’ Of course, I loved how British this was. I’m American, but I love reading books by British authors and books that take place there. This book, like all of Kinsella’s books, had that quaint British charm. I especially loved where Sylvie worked. Willoughby House sounds like a dream.

The prologue is a tease about Sylvie finding out some terrible secret about her husband, Dan. The first chapter starts with "Five weeks earlier". At the halfway point we've consumed two of those weeks and I'm alternating between frustration and boredom. I get it already: Sylvie and Dan have a surface bonhomie that buries some serious fissures with their lives. Seven years,’ I tell him. ‘And we dated for three before that. Actually, it’s ten years exactly since we met!’ I clutch Dan’s hand with a sudden swell of love. ‘Ten years today!’

Sophie was born in London. She studied music at New College, Oxford, but after a year switched to Politics, Philosophy and Economics. She now lives in London, UK, with her husband and family. I have this secret little vocabulary for my husband. Words I’ve invented, just to describe him. I’ve never even told him about them: they just pop into my head, now and then. Like…

thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an e-galley of the book in exchange for an honest review Sylvie is happily married to Dan. They have 5 year old twin girls. And everything seems perfect when both Dan and Sylvie are told by their doctor that they are healthy enough to live past 100, which they calculate as meaning that they have 67 more years together. Then they look at each other and wonder how they’ll fill those 67 years… And then their happiness seems to unravel. And course, things work out in the end – which can’t possibly be viewed as a spoiler given the author and genre. Sophie Kinsella has always been one of my go-to favourite authors. I remember the enjoyment of reading the Shopaholic series for the first time and now I have reread them countless times (along with each of her standalone novels).