Sophie Kinsella, prolific writer, has died at the age of 55. Identified with a glioblastoma in 2022, Kinsella (a pen identify for her actual identify, Madeleine Wickham) shared the information on social media in 2024. In the present day, her household introduced her loss of life on Instagram.
And I, together with hundreds of thousands of loyal readers, am devastated.
Recognized for her witty storylines, her laugh-out-loud dialogue, and her completely flawed (however heat and beautiful) characters, Kinsella is finest identified for penning the Confessions of a Shopaholic sequence, together with greater than 40 different books, together with fan favorites like Can You Hold a Secret?, The Undomestic Goddess, and Keep in mind Me?. However her books weren’t simply business successes — they felt like actual individuals. Like Rebecca Bradley (neé Bradley) may stroll proper out of the web page and sit down subsequent to you, and also you each would know one another immensely.
And for a teenage lady feeling slightly unmoored, that type of connection was a balm.
I began studying Confessions of a Shopaholic within the early 2000s. I feel I used to be 13 once I learn the primary one, and one thing in regards to the cowl caught my eye at Barnes & Noble. I sat down and skim the whole factor whereas my massive sister shopped, and after that, I used to be hooked.
I learn each guide Kinsella wrote, and every time, one thing else brightened slightly bit inside me. As a result of Kinsella wasn’t simply writing humorous books — she was writing characters that deeply resonated with me. If Becky Bloomwood may come out the opposite facet of her troubles, nicely then so may I. She wrote characters with dysfunctional households, characters in unhealthy relationships, characters who longed for extra. She wrote characters who have been self-aware, characters who needed to discover their demons and battle them, characters who generally wanted slightly push. She wrote characters who have been weak, characters who have been robust, characters who have been persistent.
Above all, she wrote characters who — finally — have been unashamed of who they have been. Their flaws weren’t issues to repair about themselves; they have been issues to embrace. Each a part of them — their forgetfulness, their failures, their flakiness — was celebrated. All of it constructed as much as make them good, regular people who have been attempting their finest, day in and day trip, and who by no means, for one second, gave up.
To today, once I want a consolation learn, I seize a Sophie Kinsella guide off my shelf. I can decide any single one in every of them up, flip to a random web page, and immediately really feel comforted and protected. It’s like speaking to an outdated pal, one thing Kinsella knew her readers felt about her and her books. “They really feel like they know me and that they are my finest pal, and I really feel like I do know them, too,” she informed The New York Instances in 2007. “It’s like we share a common friend: my characters.”
I’m so grateful she had a lot to share. From one lady who wanted to know there have been different ladies like her on the earth — loud ladies, humorous ladies, opinionated ladies — thanks, Sophie Kinsella. Your legacy will stay for all of us who have to really feel like we’ve a pal close by, for all of us who want a reminder that we’re by no means an excessive amount of and we’re by no means too little; we’re precisely who we’re, and we must be exceedingly in love with ourselves. Flaws and all.
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