Title: Mr. Wrong Number Author: Lynn Painter
Published: March 1, 2022
Genre(s): Romance: Contemporary
Page Count: 352
Summary from Goodreads: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.
In my undoubtedly and unassailably expert opinion, Mr. Wrong Number is a categorically horrible romance—for the following reasons:
1. Heroine Olivia takes “I am a free-spirited manic pixie dream girl” to a toxic place, as anyone who is hurt by her impulsive and/or self-centered behavior who expresses it is an Unsupportive Asshole. While a non-rent-paying guest in Hero Colin’s condo, she proceeds to: break his printer and spill toner all over the carpet, drinks a sealed bottle of $400 tequila he was saving for a special occasion, makes a horrible mess in his kitchen that he has to clean up, ruins his kitchen equipment, and regularly sleeps in his bed without asking. But COLIN is the unreasonable bad guy for being upset about all of this, because he’s rich and Olivia is just a clutzy weirdo and That’s Just How She Is. Zero personal accountability for any of her actions.
2. Hero Colin is a misogynist. He frequently calls women (including Olivia) “batshit crazy,” seems to have no positive relationships with any women except his sister, and subscribes to the patriarchal view that it is reasonable for men to physically assault each other over “ownership” of a woman. He also catfishes and manipulates Olivia, and his self-centered non-apology can be paraphrased as follows: “I know it was my fault that you dumped me, but I feel so bad about it that I just can’t live with myself anymore. I love you so much!” This is emotional manipulation and, again, a complete failure to take personal accountability for one’s behavior.
3. There is no suggestion on the page that Olivia and Colin have a viable romantic future together. The consistent lack of transparency, communication, and respect on both sides is offset only by their alleged “porn star” quality sex together. (Painter’s sex scenes are far from good.) Neither character appears to have the maturity and insight required for a committed relationship.
4. The characters live in downtown Omaha. I would respectfully like to ask Painter why everyone in this entire book is white. It is true that Omaha remains one of the more racially segregated cities in the country, and perhaps Lynn Painter lives in a West Omaha zipcode where she doesn’t meet anybody darker than a vanilla milkshake. But Ernie Chambers did not spend 46 years in the Unicameral for this white-washed portrait of downtown to exist. (Related: it is abso-fucking-lutely unrealistic that Colin’s country-club-attending, law-firm-owning, white Catholic parents would have allowed him to be enrolled in Omaha Public Schools just because he didn’t want to go to Creighton Prep.)
In conclusion: this ain’t it.
