The Undomestic Goddess
Sophie Kinsella, 2005
Romance Graphic novels & humourContemporary fiction
A burned-out City lawyer reinvents herself as a housekeeper and discovers she can’t cook, clean, or stop thinking in billable hours.
Feels like humor, wonder and hope. About identity, ambition and freedom.
A page from the book
A woman who has learned to live with the sea.
But if you’re a lawyer at Carter Spink, you don’t sit around. Not when every six minutes of your time is worth money. If I let six minutes of time tick away, I’ve lost the firm £50. Twelve minutes, £100. Eighteen minutes, £150. And the truth is, you get used to measuring your life in little chunks. And you get used to working. All the time. Sophie Kinsella.Sophie Kinsella is the pen name of Madeleine Wickham, a former financial journalist who had already published novels under her real name.
Books that feel like this
More by Sophie Kinsella
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Sophie Kinsella, 2000
A financial journalist with a maxed-out VISA and a wardrobe full of justifications lets you in on every beautiful, doomed lie she tells herself.
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Questions readers ask
- What is The Undomestic Goddess like?
- Feels like humor, wonder and hope. About identity, ambition and freedom.
- What should I read after The Undomestic Goddess?
- If you liked The Undomestic Goddess, try Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris), Love, Theoretically (Ali Hazelwood) and Bossypants (Tina Fey).
A taste of the feed
What New York couples stay together for, when the children aren't the reason.
In other parts of the country people tried to stay together for the sake of the children. In New York they tried to work things out for the sake of the apartment.
Me Talk Pretty One Day · David Sedaris
How a doctorate turns into a side hustle you never put on the CV.
Not that there would be anything wrong: sex work is legitimate work, and people who engage in it are just as deserving of respect as ballerinas, or firefighters, or hedge fund managers. But ten months ago, when I graduated with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Northeastern, I figured that by now I’d have a reasonably remunerated academic position. I did not imagine that at twenty-seven I’d be paying my water bill by helping adult men pretend that they have dating lives. And yet here I am, fake-girlfriending my way through my student loans.
Love, Theoretically · Ali Hazelwood
What happens when the world demands a polished exterior and a stoic silence?
Some people say, “Never let them see you cry.” I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.
Bossypants · Tina Fey
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