The official description (because I’m normally too lazy to write my own synopsis except for when the official synopsis is on the misleading side):
Poppy Wyatt has never felt luckier. She is about to marry her ideal man, Magnus Tavish, but in one afternoon her “happily ever after” begins to fall apart. Not only has she lost her engagement ring in a hotel fire drill but in the panic that follows, her phone is stolen. As she paces shakily around the lobby, she spots an abandoned phone in a trash can. Finders keepers! Now she can leave a number for the hotel to contact her when they find her ring. Perfect!
Well, perfect except that the phone’s owner, businessman Sam Roxton, doesn’t agree. He wants his phone back and doesn’t appreciate Poppy reading 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.
In a nutshell: I LOVE IT. I may be in the minority but I much prefer Sophie Kinsella‘s non-Shopaholic books over the Shopaholic series, primarily because I wanted to punch Becky Bloomwood in the face after “Shopaholic Takes Manhattan“, but I digress. Why do I love this book?
Firstly: I like Poppy. Seriously. She’s a physical therapist who loves what she does. Even though she may not be a Robert Burns fanatic and mispronounced Proust in front of her super genius soon-to-be in-laws, you can tell that she’s smart. The high jinks she gets into to find her ring and hide the fact that she lost it are funny, not grating. And lastly, she’s got a good heart.
Second: I like Sam. All of Kinsella’s leading men tend to be cut from the same cloth: high-powered, no-nonsense businessmen who find the funny, sometimes flaky and neurotic but good-hearted girl to be a breath of fresh air (hey, there are worse formulas out there). But compared to the rest of them, Sam Roxton seems like an actual person. He has more interaction with Poppy than the other guys had with their respective heroines. We get to see them talk, learn about each other, and discover that there’s more to the other than meets the eye.
Third: the writing’s funny. While the plot is definitely ridiculous (as befits a Kinsella novel), the humor keeps it from being annoying. My favorite part was the scene in the jewelry shop 😛 Concerned salesladies FTW! 😀
Fourth and most important: I like the premise. In this day and age, a huge chunk of our lives can be found on our mobile phones – photos we’ve taken with friends and family, music we like, our work, and who knows what else. I liked the premise that these two people got to know each other via their mobile phones, thought that they knew each other well because of all the info they found out, then later realized that they didn’t know so much after all.
But like all books, there are some things that could be improved.
First: the corporate espionage part of the plot got dragging. It kept going round and round to the point that I just wanted it to end already.
Second: the abrupt turnaround of Antony and Wanda Tavish. I get that they’re described from Poppy’s POV but the sudden change in demeanor was a bit off-putting. You’ll get what I mean when you read the book.
Third: the footnotes. Oh god, the footnotes. I get that they’re Poppy’s thing, that they’re supposed to be cute and all, but I just skipped over them because they were so annoying.
Overall,I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella merits a 4.5/5. I stayed up until 3 am because of this book. That should tell you something 😛