Title: I’ve Got Your Number
Author: Sophie Kinsella
Category: chick-lit
Publisher: The Dial Press, February 14, 2012
Pages: 448
Source: ARC via netGalley, read on my Kindle
Star rating: 5 out of 5
When it comes to books, I have terribly happy memories of the early-2000s. I discovered chick-lit, probably on one of those lovely three-for-two tables Borders used to have near the front door. I read them all: Jane Green, Jennifer Weiner, Marian Keyes, Helen Fielding, and others I’ve forgotten. I loved the formula: single career girl in a big city (the best ones were always in London) looking for love. They were comfortable and predictable, and I gobbled them up.
Those authors have changed and shifted their styles over the years, to topics a little more serious. They’re a bit heavier in their tone, with the drudgery of life in the suburbs (authors: there are happy people in the ‘burbs!), with two kids and a minivan and a husband who may or may not be unfaithful. I miss the old stuff. I miss the carefree and sweet stories, even if they all followed the same pattern.
And that’s why I still adore Sophie Kinsella (a.k.a. Madeleine Wickham). She can still write the single-girl-in-London story so well. Her characters are always lovable, and quirky, and a bit disheveled, and you can’t help but root for them.
In her latest, Poppy is engaged to Magnus, a genius from a genius family. At a bridal shower, Poppy loses her engagement ring, an expensive emerald, a family heirloom. Someone pulls the hotel fire alarm and the scene is chaotic. The ring is lost, and Poppy is distraught, and to make matters worse, her phone is stolen right out of her hand on the street. In the hotel’s lobby, she finds a discarded phone in a trash can and uses it to put out the alert about her lost ring and stolen phone.
But it can’t end there. No, Poppy has found a phone belonging to an important company, and an important man, Sam Roxton, wants it back. The ensuing events are mad-cap and a bit zany (in a good way) and Poppy’s life unravels just before an unlikely someone starts to put it back together again.
Only Sophie Kinsella can write a story like this. She takes the most unlikely people and events and makes them seem utterly believable. Her writing skill is impressive, to boot. I hope she never abandons this format completely. Sometimes you just want to read something fun.
As an aside, I’ve been obsessed with greatly enjoying Downton Abbey so much lately. And even though Sam Roxton as described in the book looks nothing at all like Dan Stevens, that’s who I pictured through the whole book. A visual:
I guess I could’ve gotten stuck on the guy who plays Carson. 
