I’ve always been a Sophie Kinsella fan. You can always rely on her for a light, amusing read with a main character who gets herself into a bit of a mess, but who manages to come right in the end.
I Owe You One doesn’t really stray from that theme, but for some reason, I didn’t love it as much as most of Kinsella’s other books. It was still enjoyable, easy reading but I just felt that the main character, Fixie Farr, didn’t get as much credit as she deserved. Firstly, she got landed with a really crap nickname: ‘Fixie’ – due to her constant urge to fix other people’s problems, and issues in general wherever she saw them. However, her own life is a bit of a mess.
Secondly, she was also given what I considered really horrible siblings. I didn’t really understand how the family motto of ‘Family First’ that had been so deeply ingrained into Fixie’s psyche, and she had such a strong sense of commitment to their family business, it seemed to have conveniently skipped her brother and sister. Why was she the only one who had such a deep sense of family pride? And why did her mom not see this?
Thirdly, Ryan, who she’s had a crush on since she was about 10 years old turns up and immediately jumps onto the ‘take advantage of Fixie’ bandwagon … and everyone just stands back and allows it! They’re all so busy admiring his wonderfulness, that nobody notices what an absolute tosser he actually is!
Is Fixie truly as naive as she comes across? Well it would seem that she is. But thankfully her natural instinct to help people leads her to meet Sebastian, a successful businessman who attempts to show her that she needs to look out for herself first before thinking of everyone else all the time.
Kinsella has focused her positive characterisation on Fixie and Sebastian, while it seems she’s aimed at making most of her other characters as shallow and unlikeable as possible.
It’s an enjoyable, easy read, and I give it 3 stars.
Jan's Book Buzz 
Leave a Reply