Title: Mr Wrong Number
Author: Lynn Painter
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Format: Ebook
Rating: ☆☆☆/5
Synopsis
Things get textual when a steamy message from a random wrong number turns into a thrilling anonymous relationship in this hilarious rom-com by Lynn Painter.
Bad luck has always followed Olivia Marshall…or maybe she’s just the screw-up her family thinks she is. But when a “What are you wearing?” text from a random wrong number turns into the hottest, most entertaining—albeit anonymous—relationship of her life, she thinks things might be on the upswing….
Colin Beck has always considered Olivia his best friend’s annoying little sister, but when she moves in with them after one of her worst runs of luck, he realizes she’s turned into an altogether different and sexier distraction. He’s sure he can keep his distance, until the moment he discovers she’s the irresistible Miss Misdial he’s been sort of sexting for weeks—and now he has to decide whether to turn the heat up or ghost her before things get messy.
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.