When I got married in 2000, I started reading the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella. I still remember sitting on the airplane during our honeymoon, reading Confessions of a Shopaholic and laughing out loud. The book was lighthearted, funny, and perfectly matched my obsession with Sex and the City. As Sophie Kinsella once said, “We all shop… We talk about it. We do it. We rejoice in it. We make bad decisions. Why hasn’t anybody written about this?”

It was such a happy season of life—everything felt new and exciting as a newlywed. I found her characters so relatable, capturing that little inner voice we all have but don’t always admit to. Her books became tied to some of my sweetest memories from my twenties.

Over the years, I had forgotten just how much I enjoyed her writing. Recently, I picked up The Burnout and found myself reading it exactly as I had decades ago—laughing out loud and completely entertained.

I was saddened to learn about Sophie Kinsella’s battle with brain cancer. My daughter and I were watching an awards show when I saw her picture and was surprised to learn about her diagnosis. She was only 55!

I haven’t read all of her books, so I’ve decided it’s time to revisit the ones I loved and discover the ones I missed. It feels like the perfect way to reconnect with a writer whose stories brought so much joy to a special chapter of my life.