Review: I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

Title I’ve Got Your Number
Author Sophie Kinsella
Published February 14th, 2012 by The Dial Press
Pages 433 Pages
Intended Target Audience Adult
Genre & Keywords Contemporary, Romance, Humour
Part of a Series? No
Source & Format Purchased from Target, Paperback
Find It On Goodreads ● Amazon.com ● Chapters

Synopsis

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.

“I just need to look at this from a different angle. Like…what would Poirot do? Poirot wouldn’t flap around in panic. He’d stay calm and use his little gray cells and recall some tiny, vital detail which would be the clue to everything.
I squeeze my eyes tight. Little gray cells. Come on. Do your best.
Thing is, I’m not sure Poirot had three glasses of pink champagne and a mojito before he solved the Murder on the Orient Express.”

When Poppy Wyatt loses her engagement ring, an antique, three-generation-old emerald and diamond ring given to her by her fiance, Magnus Tavish, in a hotel fire drill, her life as she knows it is over. Just when she thinks things couldn’t get any worse, Poppy’s mobile phone is stolen, immediately rendering the emergency contact number she distributed to the hotel staff in case they located the ring useless. Her luck begins to look up, however, when she discovers an abandoned mobile phone in a litter bin. Following the universal law of finders keepers, Poppy pockets the phone and immediately begins using it as her own, with hilarious, and often unexpected, results. Little does Poppy know that what she found was actually a company phone that formerly belonged to Violet Russell, the personal assistant to Sam Roxton, a brusque, no-nonsense public relations executive. Sam and Poppy eventually come up with a rather unusual phone-sharing arrangement, in which Poppy keeps the phone in order to intercept any calls about her missing ring, with the condition that she forward all pertinent emails and other work-related information to Sam. As their lives (and texts) become increasingly intertwined and Poppy becomes unintentionally immersed in the mercenary business practices at the White Globe Consulting Group, Sam and Poppy’s lives will never be the same again.

“As I scroll down, I start to feel uncomfortable. I’ve never had so much access to someone else’s phone before. Not my friends’; not even Magnus’. There are some things you just don’t share. I mean, Magnus has seen every inch of my body, including the dodgy bits, but I would never, ever let him near my phone.”

I have a very dysfunctional relationship with Sophie Kinsella. I adored both Confessions of a Shopaholic and Shopaholic Takes Manhattan and continued to dutifully read the followup novels in the Shopaholic series in spite of a rapidly waning interest. Despite this, I was still interested in reading Kinsella’s other work and began delving into her standalone novels. After being thoroughly underwhelmed by The Undomestic Goddess and Can You Keep A Secret? and actively disliking Remember Me?, you can imagine my reluctance to explore any of her newer standalone releases. But I am, if nothing else, a glutton for punishment with an innate curiosity, and I couldn’t resist when I saw one of her newer releases for 40% off at Target. Thankfully, I am happy to report that my Sophie Kinsella standalone curse seems to have ended with her 2012 release I’ve Got Your Number.

“Oh God. And I’m still a bit shaky on Proust. (Proost? Prost?) And I didn’t revise the Latin names for bones. And I’m wearing red woolly reindeer gloves in April. With tassels.”

Poppy Wyatt is a classic Kinsella heroine in the same vein as Confessions of a Shopaholic‘s Rebecca Bloomwood. Like Becky, Poppy is spunky, flighty and a little insecure, as well as harboring a secret that has the potential to change her life forever. Unlike Becky, however, Poppy is a much more nuanced character with a backstory and personal growth that had me crying and applauding in turn. Poppy is undeniably a people-pleaser and a bit of a doormat, too intimidated to assert herself lest anyone be the least bit offended or put out. Always thinking of other people’s feelings first, Poppy invariably puts herself last. At times it was difficult to watch the more unscrupulous characters take advantage of her generous nature. Poppy is also a physiotherapist. Although she is passionate about her work and proud of the fact that it enables her to help an innumerable number of people, Poppy’s occupation is simultaneously a source of shame and embarrassment when it comes to Magnus’ family. Surrounded by a group of academics and intellectuals who are more interested in being published in academic journals than in the feelings of those around them, Poppy is intimidated by their intelligence and inevitably feels inferior when she’s unable to keep up during particularly combative games of Scrabble or in conversations about the latest publications on the fourth-century virtues and the stoics. Poppy continually struggles to find acceptance and belonging within a group of people from whom she couldn’t be more different.

“He looks up, straightening his tie, and flashes me a smile.
I’ll have to admit, he does have quite a smile. Kind of heart-stopping, especially as it comes out of nowhere.
I mean…you know. If your heart was in the kind of place to be stopped.”

Sam Roxton is an absolutely charming love interest that stole my heart right along with Poppy’s. Sam isn’t an unrepentant ‘bad boy’ or womanizer waiting to be saved by the love of a good woman. He isn’t an angel with a heart of gold with a savior complex who wishes to rescue or help every woman who crosses his path. He is simply a good man. Hard working, intelligent, capable and not without a rather unique sense of humour, Sam Roxton is a man that any woman would be lucky to have in her life. Now, that isn’t to say that Sam isn’t without his fair share of flaws. He can be impatient and quick to temper. His curt, no-nonsense demeanor can often be interpreted as cold and distant. But this does not make him unlikeable in any respect. Rather, all these flaws and attributes coalesce to make a character that is undeniably real. Kinsella breathed new life into the often hackneyed, cliche romance-genre hero and instead crafted a character that was easy to root for and even easier to love.

“I saw a girl who races to help others but doesn’t help herself. And right now you need to help yourself. No one should walk up the aisle feeling inferior or in a different league or trying to be something they’re not…I also know that standing up for yourself can be hard. But you have to do it. You have to get it out there.”

It is during Sam’s increasingly frequent interactions with Poppy that his character truly begins to shine. Sam and Poppy are equals, and he treats her as such. He values and appreciates her and doesn’t hide this fact. He is complimentary and thankful when she helps him at work. Perhaps most importantly of all, Sam challenges Poppy to be the best version of herself. Isn’t that what we ideally strive for in all of our relationships, be they romantic or otherwise? Sam is supportive and empowers Poppy to demand what she rightfully deserves in her life, rather than settling for the sake of keeping the peace or to avoid being difficult.

“She would have been great at public executions, Annalise. She would have been the one at the front, jostling for a good view of the ax, already sketching the gory bits to put on the village notice board, in case anyone missed it.
Or, you know, whatever they did before Facebook.”

If there was one aspect of the story that felt a little lackluster, it would have to be the secondary characters. Lucinda and Willow are archetypal villains, utterly unscrupulous and, more often than not, patently ridiculous. Poppy’s friends were relatively amorphous apart from a scant couple of identifying characteristics. Ruby is unfailingly nice while Annalise is an unapologetic trouble-maker and coquette who apparently has no qualms about flirting with her friend’s fiance right in front of her (Remind me: Why was Poppy friends with this person, again?) If there was one instance where the secondary cast shone, it was in Kinsella’s creation of Wanda, Magnus’ mother and Poppy’s prospective mother-in-law. Although she is initially portrayed as a formulaic antagonist, I was pleasantly surprised by the direction Kinsella eventually took with her character. She provided some much-needed insight into Magnus and I was fascinated by the twists and turns Wanda’s relationship with Poppy eventually took.

“I’m not exactly proffering my ring hand. But neither am I hiding it. It’s neutral. It’s the Switzerland of hands.”

I’ve Got Your Number is Sophie Kinsella at her finest. Irreverently funny (There was a particular scene featuring Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ that had me laughing aloud, much to the confusion of those around me) and achingly heart-warming, this is one novel that shouldn’t be missed! I’ve Got Your Number is an utterly engrossing thrill ride from which one never wants to get off. How engrossing, you ask? Well, I was so absorbed in Poppy’s story, I was awake until after 4:00am one morning because I couldn’t bear to put this book down for an instant until I knew how it all would end! I’m happy to report that I was not disappointed in the slightest and wound up going to sleep with a smile on my face a mile long. I highly recommend this novel to anyone looking for a quick pick-me-up. I promise that you won’t regret it!

Overall Rating

Around The Web

Still not sure this is the right book for you? Why not listen to what some other bloggers had to say about it?

● Eva @ We Fancy Books wrote “Wonderful books deserve good ratings! And I have to say that I am now officially a Sophie Kinsella fan.” (Read the rest of the review Here!)

● Mercy @ Worn Pages and Dusty Shelves wrote “This is just the perfect escape read. I think it probably is the most entertaining of the Sophie Kinsella books I’ve read so far. Definite must read.” (Read the rest of the review Here!)

● Shelleyrae @ Book’d Out wrote “The story is well paced, well written and holds a few surprises. There is more to the novel than simply the romance, with growth for the protagonists, but a happy ending is assured.” (Read the rest of the review Here!)