The Bursting Bookshelf

I've lost it. :( The only thing in the world I wasn't supposed to lose. My engagement ring. It's been in Magnus's family for three generations. And now, the very same day his parents are coming, I've lost it. The very same day. Do not hyperventilate, Poppy. Stay positive!! :)

A couple of glasses of bubbly with the girls at a charity do and Poppy's life has gone into meltdown. Not only has she lost her engagement ring, but in the panic that followed, she's lost her phone too. As she paces shakily round the hotel foyer she spots an abandoned phone in a bin. Finders keepers! Now she can leave a number with the hotel staff. It was meant to be!


Except the phone's owner, businessman Sam Roxton, doesn't agree. He wants his phone back, and doesn't appreciate Poppy reading all his messages and wading into his personal life. As Poppy juggles wedding preparations, phone messages and hiding her left hand from Magnus and his parents, can things get any more tangled?

Review:
Ever have one of those days that you just need a cute book to unwind after a long day? If you're at all a fan of rom-com books, you've definitely heard of Sophie Kinsella. If you're looking for a super fast, light, beach read, this is your book.

This book follows Poppy as she stumbles through her engagement to Magnus: her appealing, if not boring, fiance. After she loses her engagement ring (firmly cementing her as a ditsy and sometimes nitwit to the point of being obnoxious), she finds a cell phone in the trash. Turns out the owner is a mysterious business man, Sam, whom she ends up striking a deal with: Poppy keeps the phone as long as she helps out Sam with his emails.

As you can imagine, the texts these two exchange inevitably lead to a cute will-they-won't they. Their journey from tense strangers to tentative friends is adorable, and I really enjoyed watching them both develop into that relationship. Their dynamic together is nothing special: pick any other rom-com book from the 2000s and you will get the same cutesy dynamic between the two leads.

Let's talk about Poppy. She's a career woman desperate to get married. All she seems to care about is getting hitched to Magnus and making literally every situation she encounters ten times harder for herself. She loses her ring, and instead of being honest about it, she takes a long and convoluted path of deception. After realizing how poorly matched her and her fiance are, she decides to go through with the wedding anyways despite ample warning signs. Every time I found myself rooting for Poppy, she would do something aggressively stupid and I would find myself getting a bout of secondhand embarrassment. I know she was meant to be flawed, but all I saw was a character who was not believable and very hard to root for.

Other characters in the book were not very well fleshed out. Poppy's coworkers were inconsistent and ill defined. Poppy insisted that they were her closest friends, but one showed up for all of five minutes, and the other was actively trying to seduce Magnus (the bland fiance). Honestly, the book would have been better without these two characters. All they made me do was question why a person would ever consider them friends.

So, would I reread this book? Absolutely not. I've had my fill of meddling Mary Sue characters. Would I recommend it? If you can catch this book at a used bookstore or on sale in the iBooks/Kindle/Google Play store, go for it. Otherwise, you're best to pass this book up in favor of a more interested rom-com read.