Book Review: I Heart New York by Lindsey Kelk
December 2nd, 2009 by Leah
At her best friend’s wedding, Angela Clark finds her boyfriend cheating on her in his car. After storming back into the wedding to confront her best friend, Angela flees to New York and ends up staying in the first hotel she comes to.
The girl working on the concierge at the hotel, Jenny, befriends Angela and takes her under her wing, giving Angela a make-over and showing her New York City’s sights. Within days, Angela is dating two guys and has a job blogging about her adventures in the City but will home lure her back?
I hadn’t really heard of I Heart New York until a while ago so when I saw it on a market stall I thought it sounded fantastic and decided to buy it. I read some reviews, some good, some bad and finally decided to give it a read myself. I wanted to enjoy it so so much as I love books set in New York but I just found I Heart New York a major disappointment. I read a lot of books set in New York – I wish people would set their books in other American states, there are 50 of them after all! – so I expect a pretty high standard when reading about the fantastic city that is New York. I’ve never been to New York so I want the book to transport me there. I Heart New York failed miserably.
My main problem with the book is that there’s essentially no plot. It’s plotless. Nothing of major importance happens in the book to set up an exciting and readable ending and I found myself fed up after 60-odd pages. I perservered to see if it got any better and it just didn’t. My next problem with the book is just how easily everything slipped into place for Angela. I’m willing to let some things slide when reading chick lit books but even for me, this was totally and utterly unbelieveable. I can take the fact Angela and Jenny became friends so quickly but I can’t take the fact she managed to blag herself multiple dates within two days of being in New York nor the fact she just so happened to land a job blogging about her life. It was all very convenient and I was waiting for something to come along and unsettle Angela’s now-perfect world but nothing ever did and the book just kind of tailed off.
Yet the book started so well, with Angela finding her boyfriend Mark cheating on her at her best friend’s wedding. I thought that the opening two chapters were hilarious, but it all seemingly went down hill from there. The blurb on the back makes it sound as if Angela jumped onto a plane to New York wearing her bridesmaids dress but that wasn’t the case. As far as I’m concerned that would have been a fantastic thing to include because everyone seeing her at the airport wearing a bridesmaids dress, clutching a pair of expensive shoes, would be thinking “What on Earth’s going on?”. As it is, the book misses out any kind of airport scene and after Angela tells her mother she’s leaving we skip to her arrival in NYC. After Angela’s arrival in NYC, everything then falls into place and she (seemingly) has the perfect life and that’s pretty much all that happens.
I can’t say I particularly cared for Angela throughout the book because her life all fell into place perfectly and still she complained. It’s very hard to be sympathetic towards someone who two/three days after breaking up with her boyfriend of 10 years, is then dating two other men. She spent the first day in tears after the break up but after that she was fine. It was very peculiar. Regardless of how much Angela and Mark’s relationship had deteriorated over the years, I still expected Angela to feel a bit more heartbroken after the break up of a 10 year relationship, not to mention the fact it was her first proper relationship. Another thing that irritated me about Angela was the fact that she was dating two guys – and blogging about it – but when one of the guys told her he was dating people other than her, she went completely off on one. Pot. Kettle. Black. That’s pretty much Angela in a nutshell: immensely self-absorbed. My favourite character was Jenny, whom Angela befriends during her first hour in New York. She was a fantastic character and I absolutely loved her. However even Jenny irritated me, the way she worshipped Angela – constantly calling Angela “heroic” for running away after finding her boyfriend cheating on her – was beyond irritating, but apart from that, she was hugely enjoyable. I’d love to see her in a book just about her. Of the two men Angela dates, Tyler and Alex, Alex was my favourite. I always thought Tyler seemed blase about the whole thing and I didn’t particularly like him. All of the characters, bar Jenny, though were all one-dimensional and quite cliched though: the Brit in America, the hotshot banker, the rock star…
Kelk’s writing is nothing spectacular and I hated the way, as I mentioned above, that Angela was treated like some sort of heroine for fleeing the country and coming to New York. I would actually call it cowardice, but that’s just me. Kelk’s writing made Angela seem pretty childish I think, too, not just because she chose to fly rather than fight but because, considering she was supposed to be 26, she still had no idea what she was doing with her life. I didn’t expect Angela to have it all mapped out, but all she seemed to do before getting her job, was spend money whilst having no viable income. I also found myself getting irritated with the fact she kept calling the men “boys” as it made her sound like a teenager. The book also had a few editing errors (on the first page Angela is “peaking” rather than “peeking” as well as “thing” rather than “think”) which drives me insane – books are proofread so many times you would think they’d pick up on an error so small. It may be a childish thing to pick up on but it’s just incredibly irritating.
For me, though, the book tried too hard to be in the mould of a Sophie Kinsella novel. It tried to be funny, it tried to make Angela a likeable heroine but for me it failed on all accounts.It’s so light I’m surprised it’s not suspended in mid-air. Don’t get me wrong, I like a light-hearted read as much as the next person but the least I expect from such a light-hearted read is for it to make me laugh. This did not and I found it a hugely disappointing read. I have I Heart Hollywood to read, the sequel to I Heart New York, so we’ll see if it gets any better.
Posted in 2009 Releases, Book Reviews, Rating: 1/5 | 8 Comments »
Fantastic review. I’ve never read this book but I can understand why certain aspects of what you’ve written about would annoy you so much. I hate typos myself, so sloppy. I also dislike books where the heroine is constantly considered as being so brave and wonderful.
Ha, at last we agree on something again – this is like a Pop Tart deja vu, hehe. I am baffled by all the raving reviews on Amazon and I was starting to wonder if I had perhaps missed something (quite unlikely) because I really wouldn’t rate this book more than a 2/5, and that’s mostly because of the fantastic cover, which really IS beautiful and eye-catching! In my review, I pointed out more or less the same things you did – good beginning but no plot, too many things happen too easily, too simple, typos etc. Plus I didn’t like the main characters (including her name). It’s a cute little thing if that’s your cup of tea and apparently a lot of people think this book is fantastic, but it’s still good to know someone shares my sentiments, heh. Oh and no offence to the author (congrats on the successful book deal and all), but I guess you just can’t win ‘em *all*.
I quite liked this one lol, but not so keen on …Hollywood so far!
“It’s so light I’m surprised it’s not suspended in mid-air”
Hahahahaha! That just cracked me up. Great line. Wouldn’t it be good if the books with no substsance did actually suspend in mid air, like a warning that it’s not worth reading. Haha.
Good Review
Totally agree. After reading this book I felt like I had completely wasted my time.
Great review! I was about to read this, too, because I Heart Heart New York but it’s a good thing I decided to surf the Internet for a review. But guess what? I’ll try reading this too just so I can trash it. Lol!
I have 3 chapters to go of this book. I also found the editing errors a tad annoying, I have counted 8 errors so far. I loved the opening chapter and laughed a lot, but through the rest I only laughed once, when she said “I might as well have told him I carried a watermelon”. I’ll read the rest today to see what the ending is like.
I think its an ‘ok’ read, but I find i can’t really relate to the characters as they seem like teenagers who just want to drink, party, spend, and hook up with guys. I think it needs more substance and maturity.
I disagree, I loved this book and loved I heart hollywood as well, Lindesey Kellk is a great writer and would give it a 5/5.