Review: Mr. Wrong Number by Lynn Painter

Mr wrong number book review scaled

Title: Mr Wrong Number
Author: Lynn Painter
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Format: Ebook
Rating: ☆☆☆/5

There’s an unwritten rule—and, maybe it’s written in some parts—that if you’re staying over at a person’s house, you are to keep the house clean. That’s pretty important, because, although I’m far from being a clean freak, I don’t want to put up with guests trashing my place.

That said, I didn’t enjoy the blatant disrespect and how the female protagonist chose to conduct herself while she lived with the male protagonist. I should mention that the male protagonist shared his home with her brother and after she fell on hard times, he—her brother—asked that she stay with them for a short period.

Miss slobby wasn’t aware of this arrangement and messed up the house thinking that there would be no repercussions since the house belonged to her brother. Fellow readers, even if you’ve moved out and have to come back to your parent’s house for a holiday, that doesn’t give you a right to make a mess of the place.

The female protagonist was so unlikable: she told unnecessary lies, excused her multiple bad actions, and behaved like everyone was overreacting when they complained about her bad behaviour. She didn’t even feel guilty about lying after she was outed as a liar to her workplace. And, her superior at said workplace managed to make it seem like Olivia—the female protagonist—was being wronged by her employment being terminated because of her falsehood.

Enough with my mini-rant and onto the actual subject matter of the book: the steamy texts and mistaken identity.

Up until the end, how Colin—the male protagonist—got Olivia’s number wasn’t explained. But, that wasn’t really a problem because I could fill in the gaps myself. The steamy texting between the protagonists—which, in actuality—weren’t all too steamy—culminated in perhaps the most underwhelming of all identity reveals in fiction.

The coming-together after the reveal was decidedly underwhelming and with the many annoying scenarios, I was hard-pressed to abandon the book altogether. What kept me going was my positively masochistic personality, because the book pretty much watered down after the reveal. Towards the end, it almost seemed like the author took different mismatched pieces of cloth and tried to tack them together.

So, yeah, I didn’t enjoy this one. I might give this author another chance in the future because I liked the writing and the decidedly unique authorial voice.

Recommended for:
1. You like the Cohabitation trope.
2. You’ve always wanted to read a book where one of the protagonists is friends with the other’s sibling.
3. You don’t mind terribly messy female protagonists.

Preye

Hi! I'm Preye ("pre" as in "prepare" and "ye" as in "Kanye"), and I am a lifelong book lover who enjoys talking about books and sharing bits and pieces of all the fascinating things I come across. I love books so much that I decided to become a developmental editor, and right now, I work with authors to help them tell their stories better. On this blog, I share everything from book recommendations to book reviews and writing tips, so feel free to stop by anytime you like!

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