I've Got Your Number

Poppy almost has it all: she loves her job, she's about to marry a semi-famous scholar, and she's wearing the family heirloom mega-emerald engagement ring he gave her. In one afternoon, Poppy's life is nearly derailed: at a luncheon at a hotel, she loses the mega ring! The ring is officially missing and Poppy is officially in deep trouble. It only gets worse when she dashes outside to search for cell service (oh sorry, she's a Brit. I mean mobile (moe-bile) service) and she's mugged. Her attacker makes off with her phone, leaving her ring-less and mobile-less and despondent. But her luck quickly shifts when she discovers a high-tech discarded mobile in a wastebasket (British: a bin) in the hotel lobby. She scoops it out and claims it as hers... after all, disposed articles are public property, right? Turns out that the phone she's swiped is the phone of businessman Sam Roxton's former personal assistant. Confronted by the handsome Sam to return the phone, she refuses, instead promising to forward any relevant correspondence on to him, a stranger she's never met, in exchange for keeping the phone for a few more days. After all, she has to find that heirloom ring. And she's given her new number to the hotel staff in case the ring turns up. And she has to get married in ten days. Doesn't she? 

Kinsella writes formulaic chick lit: there is the ubiquitous handsome guy who is mysterious and brusque in a Mr.-Darcy-kind-of-way, the frazzled yet delightful girl who just needs a good man to see past her insecurity/frazzledness to her true beauty, the idiot boyfriend, and the love triangle featuring all three of the previously mentioned tropes. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In this case, I was counting on Kinsella to provide a humorous and fast-paced story. I read this as a antidote to The Fault in Our Stars, which is currently vivisecting my heart so brutally that I needed a break from it. Luckily I've Got Your Number performed the service I had hoped it would. By page 25 I was laughing so hard, I had tears running down my cheeks. The scene involved Poppy stalling a Japanese businessman, at a loss as to how to prevent him from leaving the building. Suddenly she's blurts:  "I am a singing telegram!" in front of the whole contingent of Japanese businessmen, and proceeds to perform an original song/dance number to the tune of Beyonce's "Single Ladies." Every time I think about it, it makes me smirk! The laugh that keeps on giving. 

Rating: 3.5/5 stars. I always want the characters to have a little more love-story development than just getting together in the last couple of pages, but still that laugh made it all worth it. Excuse me while I go roll on the floor and laugh some more.