Can You Keep a Secret Review

Can You Keep a Secret by Sofie Kinsella is an adult contemporary novel. It is about a young woman named Emma who has a lot of little secrets (from boyfriend, friends, family and coworkers) that she never dreams she could tell. However, on a plane ride with heavy turbulence, in fear she spills out all those secrets to a complete stranger who she never expects to see again. Then he shows up at her job only for her to discover that he is the CEO of the company.

I was really looking forward to this book. The concept sounded so funny and cute. However, I only ended up giving this book 2 out of 5 stars. I just didn’t really like it. None of the characters were that likeable and some I down right disliked. It didn’t help that I found Emma to be quite self-centered and annoying and the main male lead (Jack) was secretive and, at times, a jerk.

The story was funny and entertaining when just looking at that main plotline. But the amount of cursing was so distracting and made me uncomfortable. The main character’s belief in and use of horoscopes made me roll my eyes and say “really”. I didn’t like the way the author dealt with sex either. The characters spoke about it in a very blasé, open and intimate way (sometimes even in public places). Not to mention how much sex is in here. She has sex, she runs into people having sex (in apartments, in public) and she attempts to have sex at work – it’s everywhere.

It also didn’t help that the perspectives of the characters reflect very worldly views: on sex, relationships, work, the nature of lying, etc. Not that I am unaware that these are accurate representations of the current western world mindset, but I have never read anything that so blatantly put it out there. Most of the contemporary books I have read are light and fun and don’t reflect this (they focus on other things); but that may be because they are predominantly young adult novels, not with an adult audience in mind.

I must admit, it was also hard for me to get behind the reconciliation at the end. A major breach of trust occurs and I didn’t feel that the man did anything to warrant such a quick return of trust. The consequences of that breach are just brushed aside and other issues are used to distract the audience into forgetting what he did. I didn’t like this and couldn’t be happy for their being together at the end. Perhaps if this situation was handled differently I would have enjoyed it more.

Overall I am sorry to say that I was very disappointed with this book. I am willing to give the author another try, but if that one turns out in a similar way as this than I don’t think I will be reading anything else by her.