Book Review: I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella
May 29, 2012 12 Comments
One of my favorite chick-lits is The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella. Twenties Girl and Can You Keep a Secret? were also 5-star books for me. The Shopaholic series I liked a bit less (except the hilarious Shopaholic and Baby) mainly because Becky Bloomwood is so stupid. So stupid! I mean, unbelievably stupid to the extend that I find it ridiculous rather than funny.
That happened again with this book, I’ve Got Your Number. Maybe the main protagonist, Poppy, is not quite as dumb-brained as Becky, but not far off. Therefore, this book can be counted amongst the books that give chick-lit a bad name. If you’re not a chick-lit fan, or if you are prejudiced against chick-lit, don’t read this book. Or read it and find your prejudices confirmed so you will never have to pick up a chick-lit again.
Poppy is getting married to Magnus in a few weeks, a high-brow researcher with equally high-brow parents who can’t talk about mundane things, and make Poppy feel terribly inadequate. At a girl’s night out she loses both her engagement ring and her phone. Luckily, she finds another phone in a bin, so at least she can phone around asking people to look out for the ring.
A major problem is that she’s due to meet up with Magnus and his parents (who have been away for a while) soon, and they will want to see the antique family heirloom, her engagement ring. Instead of just owning up, as any semi-intelligent being would do, she tries all kinds of tricks so she doesn’t have to admit that she lost the ring. Even Magnus doesn’t know about it. But as we all know, lie upon lie doesn’t work and Poppy is getting into bigger trouble as time goes by.
The more important story, or that’s what it becomes further on in the book, is about the boss of the owner of the phone that Poppy found. The owner was a PA who dumped her phone when she walked out of her job, and Sam Roxton, her boss, wants the phone back, because his business contacts all have the PA’s phone number and all his email also gets directed to that phone.
Poppy manages to convince Sam that she really needs the phone a bit longer and he gives in. Yeah, as if. Not very likely, is it? And while waiting for news of her engagement ring, and while helping out her wedding planner (yeah, she’s mad and doing all the work herself because the wedding planner is SO busy!), she reads the business emails before she forwards them to Sam and gives him advice on how to deal with certain people in the company. Sam is impressed by her people skills.
Poppy becomes more and more involved in Sam’s company and the wedding seems to be taking a second place.
Yeah, right. Somehow, the book was still fun to read although totally unrealistic with an infuriatingly silly protagonist. It helped that I was tired as I was reading this book during the 24hour readathon. I would suggest this book for chick-lit lovers (only) who want something even lighter than normal.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
I got this book: as an ebook, free download
I read this in: Dutch (Mag ik je nummer even?), the original language is English
Number of pages: 384
First published: 2012
Genre: chick-lit
Extra: I read this for the e-book challenge.
About Judith
Leeswammes' Blog 
The best chicklit I have read so far (but I don’t read that many as you know, Judith) was Bridget Jones’s Diary… I found it so hilarious I reread it a couple of years later while on the train… And I couldn’t help myself laughing out loud again.
Perhaps I should try another one of those you mention that you liked a lot.
Nadine, other than *The UNdomestic Goddess* I think *Bridget Jones* must have been the first chick-lit I read (it’s also considered the first ever chick-lit written, I think). I enjoyed that although here also, I did find her a bit silly. Just not quite as silly as some of Kinsella’s protagonists.
I don’t know if I would have liked this one if I read it (all of the text messages would have annoyed me) but I listened to the audio and I really enjoyed it. The narrator sounded exactly how I imagined a Sophie Kinsella heroine. Definitely predictable and not high-brow, but it kept me entertained at the gym.
Sounds awful! Never read Kinsella and never will, this review just made sure of that, :).
Rikki, I did like some of the other Kinsella books (see top of my review) – sorry to have put you off completely.
I wonder if something was lost in translation… I loved this book. I thought it was a tongue in cheek poke at how reliant we are on our phones. Yes things are exaggerated but there was a lot of truth in there for me. And I thought her use of footnotes was really well done – although I know something went wrong with them on the ebook formats. I read the paper edition where they were all in the right place. No it’s not high literature but I don’t think it gives chick-lit a bad name 😦
Ellie, I read the ebook and the footnotes weren’t very handy. They appeared at the end of a chapter and I didn’t want to move back & forth so I sort of skimmed them when I got to the end of the chapter. That was a pity.
I didn’t enjoy the footnotes in this one either, but the text messages didn’t bother me at all. Funny, as usually I can’t stand texts/IMs in books.
Stephanie, I often do like text and email etc. in books, but it depends on how it’s done. The footnotes could have worked for me, but not at the back of the chapter in my ebook.
Twenties Girl is my favorite SK book! I enjoyed this one too, but I did find a few things that bugged me.
Same here, Athira. On both counts. 🙂
Pingback: Mag ik je nummer even? | Boeklover