Lindsey Kelk, I Heart New York

This chick lit novel follows Angela Clark, an English girl whose life is turned upside-down when she catches her long-term boyfriend cheating on her, then finds out that all her friends already knew. Feeling heartbroken and betrayed, Angela impulsively hops on a plane from London to New York, where she immediately falls in love with the city. Her new BFF Jenny shows her around town, takes her shopping, and gives her a ton of advice on life, love, and the perfect makeup products. Angela is excited about her new adventure but hesitant to start dating again — that is, until she meets two gorgeous men, Wall Street finance guy Tyler and Brooklyn-based musician Alex. But who is truly the right guy for her? And when Angela is faced with two great job opportunities, one in New York and one back in London, she must make an even bigger decision: will she go back to her old life or embrace her newfound happiness in New York?

I’ve read and enjoyed some other books by Lindsey Kelk, so I was excited to read this one. Unfortunately, I found it pretty disappointing. I expected it to be light and fluffy — indeed, that’s what I’m usually looking for with this type of book — but it was so insubstantial that I completely lost interest. Angela has a fun narrative voice, but she doesn’t seem to care about anything except shopping and dating. And while readers are clearly supposed to be rooting for one of Angela’s suitors over the other, I found them both pretty obnoxious. The economics of this book also frustrated me. Angela is a freelance writer and not working on any particular project when the book begins, yet she is somehow able to afford (1) a last-minute trans-Atlantic flight, (2) several nights in a boutique Manhattan hotel, (3) half the rent on a Manhattan apartment, and (4) thousands of dollars’ worth of designer clothes, handbags, and shoes, all within a period of about three weeks. I mean, I get that this is supposed to be a wish-fulfillment fantasy type of story, but I still wasn’t able to suspend my disbelief. I would say that if you genuinely wish you were Carrie Bradshaw, you might like this book, but I was not a fan.