Literature / Shopaholic

A series of chick-lit novels written by British author Sophie Kinsella, Shopaholic stars Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood), a (predictably enough) shopaholic. The first book starts out with Becky smack-dab in the middle of her addiction, living in a flat with her best friend Suze in London. Every book focuses on Becky's struggles in life, which she manages to survive with flying colors (or, more specifically, talent she doesn't realize and a lot of luck).

The series is quite funny and written in absorbing first-person prose, though it suffers from unrealism and dissonant morality. Despite that, it is a big seller in the chick-lit department.

A movie based on the first book was released in February 2009, retitled Confessions of a Shopaholic and set in New York City.

The characters:

• Becky Brandon, a former financial journalist turned personal shopper (which basically comes out to fashion consultant for normal people)
• Suze Cleath-Stuart, Becky's artistic best friend and former flatmate
• Luke Brandon, the creator of the PR company Brandon Communications; later Becky's boyfriend and husband
• Graham and Jane Bloomwood, Becky's caring but quarrelsome parents
• Jess, Becky's frugal, long-lost sister who's more than just 'careful' with her money
• Tarquin Cleath-Stuart, Suze's distant cousin and later husband who used to have a crush on Becky
• Tom Webster, Becky's next-door neighbor who doesn't seem to have much luck with romance

In order, the series is as follows:

• The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic (UK)/Confessions of a Shopaholic (North America)
• Shopaholic Abroad (UK)/Shopaholic Takes Manhattan (North America)
• Shopaholic Ties the Knot
• Shopaholic on Honeymoon (Short E-Story that can be read on Sophie Kinsella's website)
• Shopaholic & Sister
• Shopaholic & Baby
• Mini Shopaholic
• Shopaholic to the Stars
• Shopaholic to the Rescue
• Christmas Shopaholic

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This series provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents:
  • Elinor was emotionally neglectful towards Luke by abandoning him after divorcing his father and refusing to see him again until he can be of use to her. Luke even attempted to meet her as a young teenager, only for Elinor to coldly ignore him. It's left Luke with a lot of issues and he goes from idolising his mother to only reluctantly talking to her when he has to.
  • Jess's step-father to some extent; he believed in raising his children to be able to fend for themselves, and as a result Jess was forced to work from an early age if she wanted to go on school trips and buy her own school supplies, and she often had to make her own way to school no matter how dangerous and bad the weather was.
• Act of True Love: Elinor forbids Becky from telling Luke that it was her who helped make Luke's birthday party such a spectacular event, even if it would surely soften Luke's stance towards her. Elinor instead lets Becky, and Tarquin, take full credit and quietly slips away into the night.
• Adaptation Distillation: The Movie is pretty good.
• Aesop Amnesia: Becky never quite learns to cut back on her extreme shopping habit. She's only able to clear her debt in Shopaholic/Confessions because she's lucky enough to wrangle a job on television but promptly ends up back in severe debt during Abroad/Manhattan. Her extreme shopping habit then causes a lot of tension in Sister when Becky accidentally sells something purchased for Luke's clients, assuming it was something she had bought and forgotten about. Becky does improve slightly in the final books, if only because she has other things to worry about rather than shopping.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Suze fondly calls Becky 'Bex'.
  • In turn, Suze is never called by her full name 'Susan' by those close to her.
  • Becky and Suze call Tarquin 'Tarky'.
• All Women Love Shoes: Becky and Suze fall into this. Jess doesn't, however.
• Alliterative Name:
  • Becky Bloomwood and Becky Brandon.
  • Sage Seymour.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents
  • Mrs Bloomwood. When Luke finally asks Becky to marry him, Becky's mother shouts 'YES!' for her, at the top of her voice.
  • Their next-door neighbour Janice is also this to her son, Tom. After he gets married to Becky's half sister Jess, Janice goes out of her way to secure herself a grandchild. To the point of hiding their contraceptives and trying to trick Jess into taking pre-natal vitamins.
• Arc Words: “OK. Don't panic.” at the start of almost every book.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!:
  • Becky when it comes to shopping. She goes to a museum to try and better herself but is quickly distracted by the gift shop.
  • Suze in the early books is very similar; whenever Becky comes home with a shiny new shopping bag she drops everything in order to find out what's inside.
• Batman Gambit: The plan to get Corey to finally pay Brent the money that he's morally owed works because Becky knows that Corey adores his wife Cindy and would never want her to see him in a bad light. So she orchestrates a situation where they're in adjoining meeting rooms and just happens to open the partition separating them at the critical moment. Becky even figures out that Corey will still try to squirm his way out of paying and so has the original Rebecca on stand by, threatening to tell Cindy the truth about Corey if he doesn't pay Brent what he's owed. And this works.
• Beta Couple: Suze and Tarquin. Interestingly enough, they got married before Becky and Luke did, despite having dated for a shorter amount of time.
• Better as Friends: Becky and Tarquin come to this conclusion, and do end up being quite close friends. However Becky never did have a romantic attraction to him, she just briefly considered it because he's wealthy. However, she does quickly chastise herself for even thinking like that.
• Better than Sex: One paragraph has Becky describing the pleasure she gets from buying stuff is "like the better moments of sex".
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: When Caroline tells Becky Tarquin is "well-endowed", Becky thinks she means his fortune at first, but Caroline is quick to correct her. Apparently it runs in the family
  Caroline: All the Cleath-Stuart men are the same. They're famous for it. Never a divorce in the family!
• Birthday Party Goes Wrong: Becky is determined to throw Luke a fabulous surprise birthday party in Mini Shopaholic but she's destined to fail from the very start; she has a strict budget to work with, she's fallen out with her mother who would usually be her biggest asset, all of her attempts to barter for goods keeps falling through and the surprise part is nearly ruined when a mass email is accidentally sent out to all of Luke's contacts. Then the surprise is ruined completely when a drunken associate of Luke happens to run into him and Becky shortly before they're due to arrive at the party. Turns out Becky had planned a bigger and better surprise party away from the simple one at home with Elinor's help, and she's able to genuinely surprise Luke after all.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
  • While she might be Luke's ex-girlfriend, Venetia Carter comes across as a kind and caring person who only has Becky's best interests at heart. However, it's quickly revealed that she's anything but when she starts gaslighting Becky into thinking that Luke wants to leave her. Venetia wants Luke back, and will absolutely take Becky down if it means getting her own way. Becky notices her true colours early on, but it takes Luke a little longer to catch on, though he is absolutely furious when he realises the hell that she has been putting a pregnant Becky through.
  • Lois Kellerton appears desperately unhappy and worryingly fragile when she first runs into Becky, and it's revealed that she's been struggling a lot with her career. Becky is very concerned about her delicate state of mind until it's revealed that it's a total act to try and drum up some publicity; and that her rival Sage has been in on the act the whole time. This doesn't stop Lois from taking full advantage of Becky's generosity.
• Bittersweet Ending: The end of Abroad sees an unemployed Becky unable to get a job in the financial world due to the Daily World reporting on her manic shopping habit and excessive amount of debt, and her promising television career ends before it's really begun. She and Luke have practically broken up, and she's only able to get herself out of debt by selling off almost all of her belongings. But she is able to get a job as a personal shopper at Barneys, a job she's naturally incredibly talented at, and the book ends with Luke tracking her down and asking for another chance.
• Blatant Lies: Becky lies constantly throughout the series.
• Boarding School: Tarquin attended an all boys one, and Danny seems to think this makes him not 'completely' straight.
• Borrowed Catch Phrase: Usually it's Becky saying 'OK. Don't panic' at the start of every book but in Shopaholic to the Rescue it's Luke saying it instead.
• Break the Cutie: Becky really does go through an awful lot throughout the books. She keeps slipping into debt, she is publicly humiliated and loses all her television career prospects, she tries and fails to connect to a secret sister she never knew she had (though this, fortunately, ends with her finally bonding with Jess), she can't even enjoy the run-up to her own wedding because her mother and mother-in-law are both adamant that it's done their way, she has to cope with Luke's ex-girlfriend trying to break them up while she's pregnant, she then finds herself having to move back home because hers and Luke's home isn't ready yet, she's used by two celebrities when she's just trying to make a career for herself, and then she has to cope with her father and Tarquin getting caught up in a cult, and temporarily losing Suze as a best friend. While some of that is Becky's own fault, you can't deny that she has gone through a lot.
• Bridezilla:
  • Surprisingly averted with Becky. While in the end, she ends up having two weddings in order to please both her mother and mother-in-law, neither of them was the wedding that she actually wanted. She realises that she just wants to be married to Luke and even briefly debates about eloping with him instead.
  • Alicia is such a demanding bride that she's actually dropped by vendors, and this only gets worse when Becky accidentally gets the perfect wedding that Alicia wanted. It's later revealed that Alicia then got her marriage annulled less than an hour after saying her vows, because she met an even richer man at the reception.
• Broken Pedestal: Luke's blind worship of his mother comes crashing to a halt when he finds proof that it was Elinor who didn't want to see him after moving to America, and not her new husband; if anything he actually encouraged Elinor to make time for Luke. While Luke remains cordial with her, their relationship never is the same after that revelation.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Becky might be in debt when she's working in finance, but she actually does know her stuff and is able to give some pretty sound advice to people. Becky herself is surprised by this, and assumes that she has absorbed more knowledge than she thought about finance while working at Successful Saving. Though the fact she keeps sliding into debt is what ultimately costs her a career in finance, as people are reluctant to invest in someone who is terrible with money herself.
• Character Death: Luke's beloved stepmother Annabelle dies from an illness shortly after Minnie's birth.
• Cigarette of Anxiety: Becky's given up smoking, but during some stressful moments she wishes that she could light up.
• City Mouse: Becky is this when she returns from New York to live back at home with her parents in a quiet English village.
• Cliffhanger: Almost every other novel;
  • Abroad/Takes Manhattan ends with Becky and Luke possibly rekindling their relationship.
  • Sister ends with the revelation that Becky is in the early stages of pregnancy.
  • To the Stars ends with the rather ominous 'We're all called Rebecca' in reference to the cult Graham and Tarquin have apparently found themselves in.
  • Christmas has Becky telling Luke that she's pregnant.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Becky just happens to be at Brandon Communications when Alicia is openly discussing the location where she plans to open up her new PR firm and then she just happens to stumble into the exact same road after lunch with Zelda and then is then fortunate enough to run into a member of staff who can confirm Alicia's plans to poach Luke's biggest client the Bank of London.
  • The sheer amount of times that Becky and Alicia run into one another after she's fired by Luke; they both have the same wedding planner in New York and end up running into one another a few times throughout the city. Then when Becky and Luke move back to America, their daughter Minnie just happens to go to the same exclusive daycare as Alicia's daughter.
• Convenience Store Gift Shopping: When none of the presents Becky ordered online turned up at Christmas, she has to buy last minute presents to replace them. Turns out Danny stole them as they were delivered when neither Becky nor Luke was home.
• Crazy-Prepared: Robyn has emergency rose petals to hand when Becky and Luke's exit from their wedding is initially ruined by Alicia storming in and threatening to tell the truth about them not really being married. Becky later discovers that Janice also has emergency rose petals at her Oxshott wedding, and notes that she would make a good wedding planner.
• Creepy Doll: Elinor's baby gift for Minnie is an antique china doll (a rather impractical gift for a newborn baby). Becky describes it as having "ringlets and scary eyes, like in a horror film." She ends up selling the doll on eBay after Jane decides it's too spooky to have in the house.
• Crossing the Burnt Bridge: When Becky mistakenly thinks that she and Luke are over, she quickly realises that the one good thing about it is that she no longer has to be polite to his mother. She informs Elinor that they're planning to tattoo the baby at birth and that they're thinking of Armageddon or Pomegranate as potential names. When Becky confesses what she did to Luke, he seems deeply amused more than anything, and Elinor herself never brings it up again; likely putting it down to Becky being hormonal.
• Darker and Edgier: Shopaholic and Baby is notably more serious than the previous books, and shows Becky growing up and actually learning from her previous mistakes. This increases even more with Mini Shopaholic.
  • And it intensifies even further in Shopaholic to the Rescue. Tarquin and Graham run away with a potential cult leader on a mission to find Graham's mysterious former friend, Suze stops talking to Becky and becomes best friends with Alicia, and Becky no longer wants to shop because she doesn't feel like she deserves it. And that's just the first third.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Luke's parents divorced when he was young and his mother then abandoned him the moment she left for America. It's effected him quite badly and he later has a mental breakdown when he realises that his mother really didn't want to see him, and it wasn't her new husband like he had initially thought.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Luke, especially when dealing with Becky and her more eccentric ideas.
  • Once Becky gets to know Jess better, she discovers that she is hilariously deadpan, often without meaning to be.
  • As warm and kind as Michael is, he also has a wonderfully deadpan sense of humour.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Becky talking about how everyone in Elinor's apartment complex is rude and look down on people like they smell. She continues ranting while Michael tries to subtly warn her that Elinor is stood within earshot. Whereupon Becky hastily adds 'except Elinor' but it's not all that convincing.
• Disproportionate Retribution: A mild example, but when the make up artist on Morning Coffee purposefully makes Claire look pasty and washed out beneath the studio lights. Claire has done nothing to deserve it, while she ended up taking Becky's job it was only because Becky herself was 'let go' by the studio for her reckless spending despite being a financial advisor on the show. Even Becky herself realises this and sincerely congratulates Claire on getting the job.
• Dr. Jerk: Dr Venetia Carter. She breaks countless moral codes as Becky's obstetrician.
• Fashion Hurts: Becky frequently ends up with shoes that actually pinch her feet or are hard to walk in, but she still loves how they look and willingly suffers the pain. She also mentions some clothes that are uncomfortably tight that will hopefully 'break in' over time.
• Flanderization Jess starts out as a well-meaning, if strict, Granola Girl who is thrifty but willing to indulge others when it comes to their spending habits, but steadily becomes 'greener' and more militant as the books go on. As of Shopaholic Christmas, she is an avid vegan who obsesses about consumerism, finds almost everything “problematic” and even looks down on recycling because it's still not good enough for her. The fact she gives 'words' instead of presents at Christmas is supposed to be heartwarming when it's closer to Narm Charm.
• Foreshadowing: When Becky's colleague on Morning Coffee was revealed to have a false degree, the Daily Word ruined his reputation so brutally that she actually feels quite sorry for him, and expresses how surprised she is as she always thought they were one of the better tabloids. She later experiences how cruel they can be first hand.
• Friendship Moment: Frequently between Becky and Suze, who remain very close to one another throughout the years. The most notable moments are Suze letting Becky live with her for years without paying full rent and Becky buying so many of Suze's frames that she can eventually branch out into her own business.
• "Friends" Rent Control: Averted. Becky falls behind with the rent when she's living with Suze, who often has to pay it for her.
• Friends with Benefits: Suze and Tarquin try this for a while but eventually end up falling into a genuine relationship that ends up with them married with children.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: Suze and Luke are close enough for him to be able to ask her if he can propose to Becky at her wedding, but they don't actively spend a lot of time together unless they're with Becky and Tarquin. Asides from not having a lot in common, Suze also used to work for Luke and was subsequently fired by him when she ended up promoting their rival company.
• Gaslighting: Venetia does this to a pregnant and vulnerable Becky. As her obstetrician, Venetia purposefully and gleefully preys on Becky's fears about pregnancy, such as pointing out varicose veins that don't exist and by taking away her beloved shoes and handbag while claiming that they're not good for her health. Venetia then makes various excuses to spend time with Luke, spends their appointments talking to Luke and ignoring her own patient, and then eventually tells Becky that Luke does want to leave her, he's only staying for the sake of the baby. She's only caught out at the very end when Becky desperately blurts out a piece of information that she wouldn't have known if Venetia hadn't of said it, which immediately clues Luke into what's really going on.
• Genius Ditz: Becky comes across like this, she's actually pretty smart when she puts her mind to it.
• Gone Horribly Right: Becky gives Tarquin a mini-make over before he and Suze attend a party, sincerely hoping that he'll find someone and get lucky. And he does, with Suze herself. When Suze says that she doesn't know how it happened but Tarquin just looked so much more handsome and polished than he usually does, Becky wails that it was her fault because she was the one who made him look cooler.
• Honor Before Reason: One of Becky's zany schemes leaves her at a fancy hotel with no clothes to wear other than an old grey t-shirt that only just serves as a minidress. She's given the opportunity to go into the nearby city to do some shopping, but decides not to because she had promised Suze that she wouldn't spend any more money on clothes.
• Hospital Hottie: Venetia Carter is tall and beautiful with gorgeous red hair. She knows it, too.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In the first book, Becky accuses her mother of wasting money by constantly buying new decor and appliances for the kitchen. Of course, Becky isn't exactly the poster girl for sensible spending.
  • When Becky gets a weekend salesclerk job, she intends to purchase a particular pair of jeans with her employee discount, but a customer gets her hands on the jeans first. Becky thinks to herself that this is completely unfair because the customer would "probably wear them once and chuck them out — or never wear them at all!" Becky's own closet contains countless clothes that are unworn or that have been worn only once.
• Ice Queen: Elinor, Luke's birth mother is this.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Becomes this gradually as she warms up to Becky.
• Idiot Ball: Becky is prone to clutching this tightly and not letting go until the very last minute.
  • In Dreamworld/Confessions Becky has numerous chances to admit that she's in debt and needs some help. She works in finance, she knows exactly how it works and who to go to. She even ends up advising someone else who is in the exact same situation as her on what they should do, and the irony doesn't hit her until afterwards. Becky's just lucky that she was able to land a high-paying television job at the last minute.
  • Due to trying to be crafty and sending her clothes ahead to the hotel she and Luke are staying at, Becky is left with no clothes other than a nightshirt when her package doesn't show up. Luke suggests that Becky goes into the local city to do some shopping, but Becky refuses, as she had promise Suze that she wouldn't. This is perhaps the one situation where Suze would completely understand that Becky urgently needs to do some clothes shopping. Becky picked an awfully strange time to suddenly develop a moral code.
  • Given the fact that Becky lied about having a stalker, a lot of people doubt that she's actually dating Luke Brandon, especially when a recent magazine article printed that he was single. So when Luke is late for Tom and Lucy's wedding, people naturally assume that Becky really is making it up. Becky's response is to just lie yet again and claim that he's only half an hour away, and then claims that he's actually at the reception but people keep missing him. However, she's found out and is only saved when Luke does show up. She also apparently didn't bother to check her phone, which has several messages from Luke about being late. Becky could have even shown these messages as proof.
  • Luke, Becky and Minnie are living with Becky's parents at the start of Mini Shopaholic while they are looking for somewhere to live. They find a house that's perfect, but everything falls through at the last minute. On seeing how relieved the Bloomwoods were to have their home back to themselves, Luke and Becky decide to stay in a hotel until their house is sorted. For some unknown reason, Becky decides to lie about this to her parents, telling them that they were moving into the house instead. There is no reason for her to do this, her mother is furious when she finds out, and it drives a rift between Becky and her mother for the rest of the book.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every book has the word "shopaholic" in the title.
• If I Were a Rich Man: In Confessions/Dreamworld, Becky decides to make more money by winning the lottery. She then daydreams about all the things she would buy with her winnings, only to get cross when she realises that she still wouldn't have enough to buy a mansion with the money that's leftover after wiping out her debts and giving various gifts to her friends and family.
• Ignored Confession:
  • Happens to poor Becky quite a lot when she tries to tell the truth about whatever trouble she's gotten herself into. And always, she'll refuse to repeat it and instead make up some lie about what she was really saying.
  • Becky really does try to tell Luke about the fact she's booked two weddings and isn't sure how to get out of either of them but it turns out that Luke isn't listening; he's too caught up in the fact that he was lied to as a child and that it was Elinor who never wanted to see him while growing up. Becky then doesn't have the heart to burden Luke when he's already suffering.
• Imaginary Love Triangle: Between Luke, Becky and Venetia; Becky and Luke are married, but Becky is led to believe that Luke and Venetia are having an affair together when Venetia herself tells Becky that they are. However it isn't true, and Luke is disgusted with Venetia once he finds out exactly what she's been telling Becky.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • Some of Becky's justifications for shopping and buying clothes borders on this. This also goes for when Becky omits the truth about certain events in her life.
  • Unable to tell Minnie no when she wants a toy pony, but also wanting to save face in front of a judgmental mother who is watching nearby, Becky comes up with the idea of using Minnie's pocket money to pay for it. As Minnie is two years old and hasn't received pocket money before, it means that she's got a considerable amount of back payment to use. Which isn't so bad, but then Becky immediately comes up with the idea that Minnie can use her future pocket money too, and keeps buying Minnie countless new toys with this in mind. It comes to a head when Nanny Sue works out that Minnie has used up all of her future pocket money for the next century.
• It's for a Book: After learning that she's pregnant, Becky writes a letter to Harvey Nichols, asking them a "hypothetical research question" about whether a woman who gave birth in their store would be eligible to receive free clothes for life.
• Jerkass Has a Point: The 'evil' debt collector in the second book, John Gavin, actually has a point when he gives the reason for denying Becky an extended overdraft.
  John Gavin: "This is Becky Bloomwood who has had her overdraft limit extended six times in the last year. And who each time has failed to keep within those limits. This is Becky Bloomwood who has consistently lied, who has consistently avoided meetings, who has treated bank staff with little or no respect, and who seems to think we're all here solely to fund her appetite for shoes. I've looked at your file, Miss Bloomwood. I know the picture."
• Karma Houdini: Becky, over and over again
  • Averted in Shopaholic Abroad. When Alicia feeds info about her shopping addiction and financial irresponsibility to the Daily World, she loses her job, all prospects for future related jobs (and she never does work in finance ever again), Luke's respect, and the respect of nearly everyone in the US and Britain.
• Kissing Cousins: Suze and Tarquin, though they're distant cousins.
  • Suze does comment that one benefit of marrying him is that she doesn't have to change her last name.
• Lamaze Class: Becky attends a birthing class but Luke is unable to join her at the last minute so Jane and Janice join her instead. They then proceed to tell Becky and the rest of the class what giving birth is really like, and that all the spiritual thoughts and controlled breathing in the world won't do anything for the pain. In fact, they advise that all the expectant mothers take as much pain relief as they can get, much to the distress of the teacher.
• Lethal Chef: Becky tries making her own curry to save money on takeout meals. It's incredibly, painfully hot. Becky and Suze only manage to eat a few bites before Suze decides to order takeout after all.
• Let's Have Another Baby: Becky says this to Luke in Mini Shopaholic. Luke doesn't like the idea because they haven't bought a house yet and they already have their hands full just dealing with Minnie. Though he seems delighted to hear that Becky is pregnant at the end of Christmas Shopaholic.
• Lots of Luggage: Becky will get hysterical if someone tells her to pack light for a trip. Her preferred method of packing is to include outfits for every contingency she can think of, no matter how unlikely it is. She also tends to shop a great deal during trips, so she usually returns home with more luggage than she left with.
• Making Room for Baby: Deciding that Luke's apartment isn't an ideal place to raise a child, he and Becky try to buy a house but have tremendously bad luck with actually finding one where the deal doesn't fall through for some reason or another. They end up moving in with Becky's parents for a couple of years and then move from rental property to rental property depending on where Luke's job takes him. They still don't have a permanent residence as of Christmas and Becky has fallen pregnant again.
• Mirror Character: Elinor and Jane in Shopaholic Ties the Knot. They both plan Becky's wedding around their friends rather than Becky herself, they both book venues without Becky's input and they're both taken aback at the idea that she might want to get married somewhere else. Admittedly Jane is a lot more well-meaning than Elinor, but she does (most likely unconsciously) guilt trip Becky into going along with her ideas. In fact, Becky actually gets more say about the New York wedding; she's allowed to choose her own theme, dress and cake, while she's only given a few catering choices for the Oxshot wedding, and even then she's guilt-tripped into using a local caterer because they're a friend of the family.
• Mistaken for Gay: Janice is mistaken for Becky's partner when she and Jane fill in for Luke at Becky's birthing class in Shopaholic and Baby.
• Mistaken for Pregnant: In the first book, Becky arrives at her parents' house in a distraught state, having finally realized that her debts are out of control. Before she can explain this to her mother, Jane says, "And I know that if it were a case of us looking after a ... a little one, while you pursued your career..." Becky interrupts by exclaiming that she's not pregnant. In Shopaholic Ties The Knot, Becky starts to tell her mother about problems with her upcoming wedding, and Jane makes a circling gesture with her arms and says she just needs to know "how much to let the dress out by." Becky again has to correct her mother and say that she's not pregnant.
• Mistaken for Servant: In Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, Becky wears a black skirt and a white blouse to a party where she barely knows anyone. The wait staff there are all wearing white shirts and black skirts or pants, so several party guests mistake Becky for a waitress.
• Money Dumb: It follows a woman that has severe compulsion for buying clothes and luxury items, leading her to be entirely in debt for the most part of her adult life. All of her purchases are frivolous and/or unnecessary (though she always rationalizes for what she needed to buy it). Gradually she starts showing symptoms of having Compulsive Buying Disorder, especially in the movie, where the mannequins actually talk her into buying stuff.
• Morning Sickness: In Shopaholic and Baby, Becky mentions that she suffered from this early in her pregnancy. Naturally, she coped with it by going shopping to distract herself from the nausea.
• Neologism: While trying to one-up a snooty customer looking down on the Leatherby Hall gift shop's 'hygge' display, Becky swiftly informs them that it's actually 'sprygge' which she claims means that warm feeling of relief you get after narrowing avoiding a troublesome situation. It then takes off as a genuine trend.
• Never Wake Up a Sleepwalker: Early in the first book, Becky walks into her and Suze's apartment while Suze is doing yoga. Becky narrates, "I don't want to disturb her in case yoga is like sleepwalking and you're not meant to wake people when they're doing it."
• No Bisexuals: Sometimes Becky's descriptions of other women verge into outright attraction; she even states that if she were a man she'd want to date them. Her sexuality is never stated, but she's certainly open minded.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Nanny Sue the celebrity nanny who assesses Minnie's behaviour is clearly based on Super Nanny.
• Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Becky's parents don't believe her when she says she's dating Luke, the head of a big PR company.
• Not So Great Escape: Becky is inspired by Die Hard and tries to escape the pet store she's been locked in by climbing up into the ceiling and out of the skylight. She unfortunately gets stuck, and as she's dressed like Santa Claus's wife, people assume she's just partaking in a charity stunt.
• Not with Them for the Money: Luke is very wealthy but Becky isn't with him for his money, even if she does enjoy the benefits of it. Whenever Luke's company gets into financial difficulties she's more concerned for her husband than anything else, and is always willing to cut back and partake in a more moderate lifestyle if needed. She also insists on earning her own money to fund her love of shopping.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten:
  • The Wham! incident is never ever mentioned in the Bloomwood household, to the extent that their music is turned off if it happens to come on the radio. But Becky's frustrated parents finally bring it up again after losing their patience with her and it's revealed that, as a child, Becky lied to her school friends and said that George Michael would be attending her birthday party. Becky is horrified when it's bought up and as a show of good faith Becky's mother promises that they won't bring up the incident again.
  • As a child, Becky once stole several pairs of doll shoes from a store and had to send them back with an apology letter. Bought up a couple of times after Becky witnesses a shoplifter.
• One Drink Will Kill the Baby: Averted. When Becky is upset about Luke and Venetia Carter, Suze tells her to drink some wine to calm down, saying, "Just a sip won't hurt the baby."
• One-Steve Limit: Averted with Venetia of all names; Suze mentions a friend called Venetia in Secret Dreamworld/Confessions and Becky later meets Luke's ex-girlfriend Venetia in Baby.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Becky is deeply concerned when Luke goes from being a workaholic to avoiding it completely in favour of drinking and giving away his possessions to people on the street. He's rattled by the revelation that Elinor really hadn't wanted him around after divorcing his father and takes some time to recover, although Becky notes that he's different now she's seen him at his most vulnerable.
  • Distraught at her father and Tarquin going missing, and mistakenly blaming herself for it, Becky is no longer able to get any pleasure from shopping for herself. Once Suze, Luke and Jane realise what's going on, they're incredibly worried and eventually discover that Becky is so depressed that she doesn't feel as if she deserves to treat herself like that.
• Opposites Attract:
  • The compassionate and somewhat ditzy Becky with the serious but thoughtful Luke.
  • Suze is cheerful and confident and ends up married to the anxious and fretful Tarquin.
• Pair the Spares
  • Tom and Jess. Tom has had a crush on Becky ever since they were children and ends up marrying her half-sister instead.
  • Suze and Tarquin. Tarquin also had a crush on Becky in the first book.
• Photographic Memory: Luke is said to have one of these. We never see if he actually does—chances are Becky's just exaggerating.
• Power of Friendship: Becky ends up getting out of the majority of her scrapes because she's surrounded by friends that love her and would do anything for her. She has a knack for making friends, from her clients at work to a young teenager she meets while staying in Jess's village and even her former bank manager. Each one of them has helped Becky out at least once, helped by the fact that for all her faults, Becky is a sweet and generous friend.
• Prized Possession Giveaway:
  • After falling into debt for the second time, and without a job to help pay it off, Becky decides to sell her possessions to make money. She auctions them off and the final item just happens to be the Denny and George scarf that bought her and Luke together. Suze pleads with Becky to keep it, but Becky insists on selling it too, believing that she and Luke are over. Turns out both the people bidding on it were doing so on Luke's behalf, and when he meets Rebecca again he returns the scarf to her.
  • When Luke is going through his midlife crisis, he starts giving away his expensive shoes and clothes to people on the street. They're not exactly prized possessions, but it's still extremely out of character for him and a clue that he's more distraught than he's letting on.
• Product Placement: In Shopaholic Abroad, Becky and Suze eat Kit Kats very often because a friend of Suze's got her lots of them. In Mini Shopaholic there's a Call-Back to it as during the meetings with Elinor to plan Luke's surprise party, Becky comments that she doesn't know the function of a Kit Kat.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: Becky routinely lies her way out of being a responsible adult without facing barely any serious consequences (and the few times she does, everything ends up okay with her seemingly having forgotten her lesson).
• Pursue the Dream Job: After a failed career as a financial advisor and not being able to find work as a personal shopper, Becky decides to become a celebrity stylist. Ignoring Luke's offer to introduce her to some people who could help, Becky instead buys clothes for her potential clients and randomly shows up where famous stylists might be, hoping that they'll take her on. Eventually Becky gets extremely lucky when Luke's client Sage Seymour agrees to take her on as a stylist, but further attempts to get herself known in Hollywood fails because all anyone is interested in is that Becky witnessed Lois Kellerman shoplifting. After pushing her friends and family away when they desperately need her in the name of her career, and realising that being famous is terribly lonely when she has no-one to share it with, Becky decides that being a celebrity stylist isn't for her.
• Retail Therapy: The entire series is a Deconstruction of this trope: Becky winds up in massive debt because she uses spending to cope with negative emotions, and the debt leads to more negative emotions and more spending. It gets to the point where it’s a genuine addition. In short, it both creates far more problems and even makes worse ones.
• Running Gag
  • Becky daydreams leading her to think that she'll be known as 'The Girl in [insert clothing item here]'
  • Played With in Shopaholic Ties The Knot; she instead thinks that she'll be known as 'The Girl Who Changed Elinor Sherman'
• Scrapbook Story: The trope is taken partway: Chapters begin with letters and other documents.
• Significant Name Overlap: There are four Rebeccas in Stars and 'Rescue'' and they're all linked to one another
  • The original Rebecca, who traveled with Graham, Brent, Corey, and Randall during their life-changing road trip
  • Corey's eldest daughter, Rebecca, who he named after the above Rebecca as he was in love with her and never quite got over losing her to Brent.
  • Becca, Brent and the original Rebecca's daughter who was named after her mother.
  • Becky, who actually wasn't named after the original Rebecca; if anything Graham pleaded with Jane to call her something else. This Rebecca was named after the the book.
• Spoiled Brat: Minnie in Mini Shopaholic is prone to tantrums when she doesn't get her own way, receives several warnings from the toddler group she attends for acting out and has been banned from four Santa's Grottos for her appallingly bad behaviour, one incident actually saw her biting Santa. She is just two years old. While Nanny Sue (a celebrity Nanny along the lines of Super Nanny) assures Becky that Minnie is simply a lively and intelligent child who needs some structure in her life, her naughty behaviour is never really addressed as Becky's shopping addiction somehow takes centre stage instead. Minnie does calm down when she gets older, though she's also Out of Focus until Christmas Shopaholic.
• Spoiled Sweet:
  • Becky is materialistic, has an unhealthy obsession with shopping and spending money, and constantly lies to stay out of trouble. However, a fair amount of what she spends is on gifts for her friends and family, and she's more than happy to loan out her clothes and accessories to people she barely knows, regardless of how much they cost. Becky is always willing to support her friends, whether it's inadvertently buying up all of Suze's home-made picture frames so she gets her own range, or letting Danny design clothes for her to try and get him noticed by the fashion industry. Becky is especially wonderful with the easily stressed Luke and often tries to find ways to comfort and relax him.
  • Suze comes from an incredibly wealthy background and wants for nothing money-wise, especially when she marries into even more money. However, she's also very generous with it and often helps Becky pay rent and various other bills without asking for anything in return.
• Status Quo Is God: In each book, we see Becky learning a heartwarming Aesop about love, family and not spending too much etc...only to find that she reverts back to her shopaholic ways in the next one. However, there are some changes and continuity nods—Becky learns thriftiness in one book and in the next is still seen doing a few things thriftily. By the time of Shopaholic to the Stars and To the Rescue, she is genuinely trying to be better.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Despite not being a TV character, Becky somehow manages to wear different clothes every single day. Indeed, it's a wonder how it all fits in Suze's wardrobe in the first two books.
  • In The Movie, as well as the second book, it does not fit in the wardrobe until Becky vacuum-packs it all, and even then it falls out when the closet door is opened.
  • Finally, in Mini Shopaholic, Becky makes a deal with Luke that she won't buy herself any new clothes until she's worn everything in her wardrobe at least three times. Jess comes around to help her inventory everything, and they conclude that even if Becky wears as many layers as possible, every day, she still won't be able to buy clothes until late October. This promise is made in early January.
• Wham Line:
  • From Shopaholic to the Stars: "We're all called Rebecca."
  • The 'word' that Becky gives to Luke at the end of Christmas Shopaholic "Pregnant"
• What Does He See in Her?: Luke is asked this frequently about Becky, especially in the wake of her causing yet more trouble by not thinking about the consequences of her actions
  Luke: Becky’s instincts match no one else’s. Becky has ideas no one else has. Her mind goes to places no one else’s does. And sometimes I’m lucky enough to go along with her. Yes, she shops. Yes, she does crazy things. But she makes me laugh. She makes me enjoy life. And I love her more than anything else in the world.
• Womanchild: Becky has a rather puerile habit of lying to get herself out of trouble, which only puts her into deeper trouble.

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