Sunday, May 6, 2012

I've Got Your Number: You've Gotta Have It!


If someone were to ask me to name a few of my favorite authors, I’d probably still be rattling off my list come Memorial Day. (By the Fourth of July, they’d still be getting texts from me saying, “Elizabeth Gaskell! Did I mention Elizabeth Gaskell?”) There are the authors I get swept away with (Herman Wouk), the authors I look to as old friends (Jane Austen and the Brontes), the authors I can turn to for an adventure (Hemingway) and the authors who just make me feel proud to be a woman. (Love you, Candace Bushnell!) Then there are the few – the select few – who without fail can make me double over with laughter to the point where I actually have to put the book away in public for fear of being mistaken for a crazy person on the train.

Sophie Kinsella, I’m looking at you.



I fell in love with Sophie’s work during my junior year of college, shortly after the release of her novel Confessions of a Shopoholic. Since then, much of my literary life has been spent waiting for her annual new releases and devouring them in a matter of days. With each of her books, you can count on finding a fantastically effervescent leading lady, a swoon-inducing love interest, and a downright side-splitting good time. Her latest novel, I’ve Got Your Number, is no exception.

I’ve Got Your Number centers on Poppy Wyatt, a lovable physiotherapist with a pretentious fiancé and a penchant for footnotes (which she includes throughout the book, discussing things like…footnotes.[1]) When she loses her engagement ring and cell phone in one afternoon, she has no choice but to swipe the abandoned mobile she finds lying in a trash can. Of course, the phone belongs to hunky businessman Sam Roxton, who, even with his curt text messages, is clearly Poppy’s perfect match. Through emails, emoticons and one fantastic game of virtual Scrabble, we come to adore Poppy and Sam, as they come to adore each other. The story is funny, romantic, smartly-written, funny –

Oh, did I already mention that?

(Seriously, people. I won’t give anything away, but there’s a scene right off the bat that involves Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”, a singing telegram, and a Japanese businessman. It’s downright spectacular.)

Only Sophie Kinsella - and maybe Lucille Ball and Kristin Wiig - could make such zany antics so believable, so charming, and so hilarious that you will always want to go back for more. It takes a real talent to leave you snorting with glee until the very last page (and trust me, I never snort), and Sophie manages to do it not through cheap laughs, but through wonderful characters who stay with you long after you return the book to the shelf. It is just the kind of book that should be adapted for the screen. I know I would be there opening night.

If you’re looking for a great summer read, you will not find one better than I’ve Got Your Number. Trust me - your beach bag will not be complete without it.









[1] If you’re wondering if footnotes about footnotes are as awesome as they sound – Spoiler alert! They are.


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