Review: I've Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

RATING: 3.5 napkins

I've lost it. The only thing in the world I wasn't supposed to lose. My engagement ring. It's been in Magnus' family for three generations. And now, the very same day his parents are coming, I've lost it. The very same day. Do not hyperventilate Poppy. Stay positive!!

Poppy Wyatt has never felt luckier.  She is about to marry the ideal man, Magnus Tavish, but in one afternoon her 'happy ever after' begins to fall apart.  Not only has she lost her engagement ring but in the panic that followed, she has now lost her phone. As she paces shakily round the hotel foyer she spots an abandoned phone in a bin. Finders keepers!  Now she can leave a number for the hotel to contact her when they find her ring. Perfect!

Well, perfect except the phone's owner, businessman Sam Roxton doesn't agree.  He wants his phone back and doesn't appreciate Poppy reading all his messages and wading into his personal life.  

What ensues is a hilarious and unpredictable turn of events as Poppy and Sam increasingly upend each other's lives through emails and text messages.  As Poppy juggles wedding preparations, mysterious phone calls and hiding her left hand from Magnus and his parents... she soon realizes that she is in for the biggest surprise of her life. (courtesy of sophiekinsella.co.uk)

(via Goodreads)

I've been reading Sophie Kinsella's work since Confessions of a Shopaholic. In my head, Ms. Kinsella's work is your typical chick lit, and over all, when I read any of her books, I know I'd get a good, easy, fun read out of them. And to me that's a good thing, but of late, it's also not becoming a good thing since the formula of (most of) her stories are becoming too familiar.

In I've Got Your Number, the base of the story is a bit of a stretch for starter. When you lose your phone, I don't think your first reaction would be to usurp a found phone and immediately claim it as your own, even temporarily. No? But by doing something normal like that, I suppose you won't get the premise such as the one in this book.

Then, you get Poppy, Ms. Kinsella's typical heroine who makes dumb choices out of desperation (in her mind), surrounds herself with friends who have questionable morals but she still loves them nonetheless, gets too caught up with her own neuroses sometimes,  redeems herself by the fortuitous results in the end thereby totally endearing herself after all. Then there's Sam, Ms. Kinsella's typical hero who has enough dimension to capture your attention, may be slightly flawed with his impatience and a bit of arrogance but totally gets the heroine therefore making him the perfect hero for the heroine. Then, stir in a bit of a dilemma where the heroine saves the day, inadvertently or not. Then let's not forget the use of obscure words such as pusillanimous in dialogues. Thesaurus much?

But you know what, despite all that, I found myself enjoying the story and the characters by the end of the book; which is the case in all of Ms. Kinsella's books that I've read so far, and on top of that, it continues to make me look forward to her next book. So in the end, I guess something about her writing and story reaches out to me as a reader. It keeps me engaged or guessing enough to make me want to finish the book. And like I mentioned earlier, the characters redeem themselves enough that in the end, I end up rooting for them rather than strangling them...

What does this all mean then? I guess if you're a fan of chick lit, I think you'll enjoy this book enough. You'll laugh enough, you'll get the build-up to the (light) romance, and it's not a bad way at all to keep you occupied while sunning yourself in the beach or having a quiet time in your backyard sitting on a lounge chair.

-Leftie