With 2019 I did a decent job of branching out in my reading, going deep into contemporary romance territory. Most of the reads consisted of Christina Lauren with a few novels grouped in from other authors. One of the names though that pops up as much or more than Christina Lauren is Sophie Kinsella. It would seem that this day has been a long time coming, and hopefully this review makes some of my followers happy as it finally happens on the blog; I am reviewing a Sophie Kinsella novel!
I’ve Got Your Number follows Poppy Wyatt as she goes to celebrate with her friends her engagement, an exciting afternoon at the hotel turns disaster though as first the hotel’s fire alarm goes off and her ring goes missing, but then in the midst of tracking it down her phone is stolen. Her one lifeline to finding her fiancé’s family ring seems to bring about total defeat until she comes upon a phone in the trash. Fate seems to smile upon her as she gives the hotel the new number, and sets off, but the owner of the phone, Sam Roxton, isn’t too pleased with the turn of events, demanding it back. Somehow they come up with a way to to work it out, but the events that unfold only show how a phone can hold a person’s entire life.
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
While being a little far fetched/exaggerated (what romance isn’t though??), this was a really fun read. It also makes a good point about how phones dictate our lives. Not even just in terms of us being glued to them, we practically encase our lives in them with all our information, schedule, contacts, etc. It makes the idea of someone going through my emails or texts a little scary, but in this case it works really well to throw two people at each other.
The whole incident of her losing the ring in the first place draws you in immediately as you’re panicking with Poppy. Not that a brand new ring doesn’t already make you sweat, but one with family history? Priceless and pretty hard to say ‘oh yeah, lost it’. So when the fire alarm goes off, and she can’t track it down, she’s being rushed out the building, and on top of that none of her friends are helpful (like not at all), I wanted to slap them myself. Not a single one panicked with her, or offered to help. They literally just went off to their next thing. It isn’t some small, trivial thing she lost, it’s like that one stuffed animal a kid loves lost and a parent going crazy trying to find it! See what I mean? I was panicking with her during this, and getting angry for her. And then to go from that to her getting mugged, and the phone which she was waiting for the call on being stolen, that was just an awful moment. It makes the phone in the trash actually feel like a decent idea, and you’re almost agreeing with her logic as she takes it and starts to give the hotel it’s number. Well, at least up until Sam calls and we realize why the phone was in the trash.
The characters made this book, which seems to be a big contemporary must in these novels. Have a bad character? Book will not survive its own plot. Poppy is smart, determined, and yet less confident in herself. Sam is successful, intelligent, handsome, but so driven that he doesn’t think about others, their feelings, or anything outside work. It’s a little cliche summed up like that, but the two end up righting these flaws and helping each other through them. Poppy’s is the one that got me a little, since from the start I questioned her relationship with her fiancé and his family. They are scholars, and talk over her head a lot, leaving her feeling inferior, and the little confidence she has being eaten away by every comment, no matter their intention.
I really liked the characters and was glued to this novel because of them. This one was definitely a great introduction to Sophie Kinsella, and I’ll be looking at more of her books as we get further into 2020! If you need a good contemporary romance novel to get your year going this one can for sure get your year off to a good start!
A Writer Can Dream 
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