Mr. Wrong Number by Lynn Painter, enemies to lovers romcom

Mr. Wrong Number is entertaining, dramatic, enemies to lovers romcom with forced proximity but annoying main character. I buddy read this with Toni and we weren’t happy with some things but overall it’s enjoyable.

Disclaimer – Many thanks to PRH International for free e-ARC.
This post contains afiiliate links.

Synopsis

Things get textual when a steamy message from a random wrong number turns into an 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. 

Review

dramatic, enemies to lovers romcom

Mr. Wrong Number is fun and entertaining romance that revolves around Olivia and Colin finding perfect Mr Wrong Number and Miss Misdial in each other. The story is about family, friendship, love, betrayal, judgments and presumptions, and ghosting.

Writing is lucid, entertaining, fast paced. I finished this in a single day. The story is written in first person narrative from Olivia and Colin’s intermittent alternative perspectives. Plot is most fun and also little predictable from the beginning.

Book started with Olivia coming back to her hometown after the greatest bad luck of her life that ended up burning whole building. She has to stay at her brother, Jack’s apartment and with his roomate. Alone in apartment, while wallowing in self-pity and heartbreak, she recieves a text “What are you wearing?” from a wrong number that turns into a series of fun sexting. She find a connection with Mr Wrong Number and as it’s been anonymous she shares more with Mr Wrong Number. But her bad luck hasn’t eneded yet, as the roomate is Jack’s best friend- very handsom, accomplished and organised- Colin. They never get along and Olivia’s childhood hasn’t been all rosy because of Colin’s rude comments.

Colin thinks she is made of disasterous bad luck, little sister of his best friend who has turned into a beautiful disraction. Olivia thinks he is stuck up, all knowing rich guy, still looking handsom and sexier than she remember with is six pack abs. Things get more awkward when Colin finds out she is his Miss Misdial.

It was interesting to see where things will go between Olivia and Colin, when Olivia will figure out Colin is Mr Wrong Number and what would be her reaction to it, if she will choose Mr Wrong Number over Colin, and how she will overcome her insecurity for serious relationship.

I was going through reviews of this book I saw many mixed reactions. Some readers didn’t like Colin while some didn’t like Olivia. For me, I liked Colin little more than Olivia but they both did things that were annoying.

Olivia is fun. I liked her in first half of the book. She is lovely, smart, fun, and briliiant writer. I felt bad for her on hearing her full story about her heartbreak that lead to burning the building she was living in, at the same time it also made me laugh. Her clumsiness and series of unfortunate events were adorable and entertaining. I loved she laughed at her own gracelessness and bad luck, living in a moment, not taking her family’s comment about her life being a series of screwups at heart, and kept working on making her situation better by finding job and apartment really soon after everything.

But she is not a perfect person and I’m not talking about her klutzy nature. She lied to get job and money she needed terribly, she is judgemtnal towards Colin in almost whole book, and she overreacted without thinking more than once that made her annoying character and also made story super dramatic.

Colin is most interesting. He is acts like Mr. Darcy and looks like Ryan Gosling. I definitely was going to like him more than Olivia. People easily assumed he is arrogant and he got things easily, so did Olivia. Him throwing rude comments in their childhood printed in Olivia’s mind he will make joke of everything bad happening in her life. But he is grown up man now and regretted what he said all those years. He never stopped showing he is not what Olivia thinks, kept her secret of lies and praised her writing. I loved that moment when he saw Olivia beyond her clumsiness that made him fall in love with her.

There is layer of his dysfuctional family, a father who wanted him to be lawyer and take over their firm, arguments and fight between father and son ever since he chose to be in finance and getting master degree in Maths. His heart is at right place but even with his good intentions, I didn’t like him for ghosting Olivia when he figured she is Miss Misdial. He had plenty opportunity to make things clear and laugh at it but he didn’t and then another mistake with the set up.

Colin and Jack’s friendship is great. I respect Colin more for thinking about Jack first as soon as he discovered who is Miss Misdial, Jack’s little sister. He worried how his feelings for Olivia affect his friendship with Jack and that makes him true and loyal friend and he was even ready to take punch. 

Chemistry is super hot with witty banter and enemies to lovers arc. Colin’s abs, smirks and winks didn’t just melt Olivia. I so so loved imagining him. There are few romantic scenes but for most of the books they are like friends with benefit as Olivia felt insecure to make it serious or label what they have and Colin went along to keep Olivia happy. A sure receipe for complex and dramatic romance.

Why 3.5 stas-

I would have given this 5 star for entertainment and all the right trope but I didn’t. So here comes the rant (my email to Toni was much longer than this. I so wanted to copy pasted it but lots of spoilers made me change my mind. Anyway, I have included all the points we talked in my review)-

1. Last 30% of the book lost it’s charm. Many things happening here are unbelievable. End was not satisfying. From how things were happening readers would expect big gesture or real apology but there isn’t any.

2. Some things were left unresolved. We see Olivia felt insecure about turning their friends-to-benefit thing into romance because of past relationship and betrayal of her ex (Elli), and Colin knew that but they never talked about it. There is just one line something like, “Suddenly Elli lost his power and mention of him doesn’t hurt her”, that’s it.

3. There is no exploration on Olivia, a non-parent, writing parenting articles and loses job for that or Colin ghosting and how technology is changing relationships, that me and Toni talked about but not in story. We both didn’t like the idea of ghosting.

4. I agree with Toni. Some side characters- Colin’s sister, some of Olivia’s family members- didn’t add much to story.

5. My big issue after that unsatisying ending is Olivia. Her lack of understanding Colin or listening him out, being constantly judgemental, and thinking very low of him, is grating and irritating. If you have that much trust issue and you’re not ready to put behind 15 yrs of being enemies or forgive him for his rude comment, why exactly are you sleeping with him!! Anything bad happens, losing job, finding he is Mr Wrong Number, Colin setting up things, her knee jerk reaction is “Colin has motive of making her look fool and he used knowlege of her being Miss Misdial as advantage”.

She wouldn’t give the guy a chance and label him asshole, said he can never be serious with her when it was her who didn’t want their relationship turn serious. I was surprised by Colin’s patience and really questioned if the guy has self-respect or not. I get it’s hard to change mindset and mental picture of someone who was rude for 15 yrs but poeple change and again back to my point if she didn’t believe in that she should sleep with him.

Overall, Mr. Wrong Number is fun, entertaining, fast paced, and dramatic romcom with all right tropes but annoying main character.

I recommend this if you like,
Clumpsy heroine
Hero in STEM
Enemies-to-lovers
opposite attracts
Forced proximity
best friend’s sister
witty banter 
Many laugh out loud moments
judgments and presumptions
Ghosting
Dysfunctional family

Book Links

Goodreads | Storygraph | Amazon.in | Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Thank you for reading! Let’s chat..,

What do you think about book and review?
Have you read this or added to TBR?
How do you feel about ghosting and how technology is changing relationships?

Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | Goodreads

Just in case you missed–

Sign up to receive email whenever I publish new post-

Many thanks to @PRHGlobal @BerkleyRomance for eARC via #NetGalley

How do you feel about ghosting and how technology is changing relationships?

Read #bookreview of a #romcom #MrWrongNumber by #LynnPainter dealing with this topics on my #bookblog

⬇️ https://t.co/d2GP7qQGtX

— Books Teacup and Reviews (@BooksTnReview) May 6, 2022

---