by Sophie Kinsella is a fun, if typical, chick-lit novel. Emma, our star, is your average twenty-something living in London and trying to piece it all together. One day, she gets drunk, gets on a plane, and gets bumped to business class. During some terrible turbulence, she gets nervous Three days later, the CEO of the company she works for comes into the office to meet the front-line employees and jumpstart some failing brands (Emma works in marketing).
Do those two events sound disconnected? Well, then you haven't read enough chick-lit or seen enough chick-flicks. The handsome American in the first paragraph? He's the CEO, of course. Cue embarrassment, backpedaling, eventual admission of life story, and complete upheaval of Emma's life. It's actually really, really funny, and somehow relateable.
Emma is our main star. She's a typical twenty-something living in London. Her career is new, she's unsure of who she is and what she wants. She's insecure, and she keeps secrets. Not big secrets, like, "I've cheated on my boyfriend with his dad" type of secrets, more like "I weigh ten pounds less than my driver's license says." or "I don't actually like jazz, I just said that to impress a guy, and it stuck somehow." You know, little, embarrassing things. I think somebody pretty, but capable of coming completely unglued is needed for this role, and I pick a capable actress like Rosamund Pike
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Connor is Emma's boyfriend. He's sweet, generous, hard working, and a total bore. He loves her to death, and is so, so good to her, but he's like a 75 year old man trapped in the body of a 30 year old. Oh, and he's gorgeous. Like a living Ken doll. Who else but Oliver Jackson-Cohen?
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Lissy is Emma's best friend. She's a lawyer, and a top notch one at that. She's smart above all else, but she's also caring, and petite and sweet. She, of course, has an embarrassing secret of her own! I saw Carey Mulligan in this and I think she'd be brilliant.
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Jemima is the flatmate of Emma and Lissy. She's rich, beautiful, a little snobby, and very vindictive. Her whole aim in life is to land a rich man, "get a rock on her finger" and live the life of a trophy wife. She'll probably succeed, too. I think Alice Eve would make a good choice.
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Kerry is Emma's older cousin, though she was orphaned as a young teen and actually lived in Emma's house while they were growing up. She's a bit older, and even though she's a cousin, she holds the spot of the annoying older sibling: she does everything first, and she does everything better. She's successful, ambitious, wealthy, snotty, thin, pretty... you get the picture. I pictured Vanessa Branch immediately (though this was inspired by a brief guest spot on the Gilmore Girls, not Orbit gum commercials, actually.)
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Jack Harper is our main man. He's the American CEO of Panther Cola, a company that seems to have melded Coke and Nike, and Jack is the brilliant marketing genius behind it all. His best friend and business partner has just died, and Jack is trying to put his life back into gear, when wouldn't you know, this drunken, adorable girl babbles incoherently at him on an airplane and captures his curiosity. He's supposed to be sort of the frat-boy-grown-old, charming yet disheveled, wealthy yet completely casual kind of guy that you wish you could bring home to mom. You know, a multimillionaire who eats pizza on a park bench and loves it. I cannot, absolutely cannot see anybody but Robert. Downey. Jr.
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