Lezersrecensie
Heerlijk reisje naar en door New York City
Review in het Engels, omdat het boek Engelstalig was:
I love New York. I know that’s a cliché that’s worn on t-shirts around the globe, but I truly do love New York. When a book manages to make the city one of the main characters in the story, I’m basically sold. This book did it beautifully. The standard romantic locations are visited: Bethesda Fountain, the High Line, the Flatiron and of course The Strand bookstore. But our protagonists wander all over town. From a baseball game at Yankee Stadium to sitting on the red steps under the glowing lights of Times Square. They even hop all over town to find the best pizza and end up traversing the length of Manhattan. But aside from specific locations, the “feel” of the city is incorporated too. This book is like a little trip to and through the city.
The story itself starts off cute and lighthearted, but slowly gains depth the further we get. It was a nice surprise, because I was definitely just expecting a shallow romance story, but this packed more oomph.
Our protagonist, Elle, is a screenwriter who is house-sitting her sister’s place in New York City for the summer. The man next door, Parker, is a rich and seemingly haughty douchebag. Elle needs help exploring locations for her screenplay and Parker needs a date for some events, so the pair somewhat begrudgingly decide to help each other out. Just for the summer.
I liked the characters. Parker’s journey is interesting and Elle had a lot of quirks that I have too. Dipping her fries in a milkshake, getting excited over Impressionist paintings, needing a podcast to fall asleep and dreaming of owning a place on Gramercy Park. (It’s me, hi). The entire story is told from Elle’s point of view, which fit the story, I think. This single pov and the writing style reminded me of Emily Henry’s novels. She has a similar voice and also manages to write great romance with a solid journey for the characters to go through. If you like her books, you’ll like this too.
I guess the only thing I didn’t like is that Elle’s trauma response appears just a little too eagerly towards the end, when she should have learned by then to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I don’t want to post any spoilers so I won’t go into too much detail, but let’s just say the happy ending was right there for the taking a while before the end of the book and the author chose self sabotage instead. I get that that is the more interesting choice, but I felt like we had been there before and the character had gotten past some of her issues. But aside from that…truly, no notes! Very enjoyable book that I plan to reread whenever I need a trip to the Big Apple.
Also, kudos for the Taylor Swift lyric and for the fact that it wasn’t from what would have been the obvious album choice (1989). Highly recommend listening to that album while reading, though. It’s the perfect soundtrack.
I love New York. I know that’s a cliché that’s worn on t-shirts around the globe, but I truly do love New York. When a book manages to make the city one of the main characters in the story, I’m basically sold. This book did it beautifully. The standard romantic locations are visited: Bethesda Fountain, the High Line, the Flatiron and of course The Strand bookstore. But our protagonists wander all over town. From a baseball game at Yankee Stadium to sitting on the red steps under the glowing lights of Times Square. They even hop all over town to find the best pizza and end up traversing the length of Manhattan. But aside from specific locations, the “feel” of the city is incorporated too. This book is like a little trip to and through the city.
The story itself starts off cute and lighthearted, but slowly gains depth the further we get. It was a nice surprise, because I was definitely just expecting a shallow romance story, but this packed more oomph.
Our protagonist, Elle, is a screenwriter who is house-sitting her sister’s place in New York City for the summer. The man next door, Parker, is a rich and seemingly haughty douchebag. Elle needs help exploring locations for her screenplay and Parker needs a date for some events, so the pair somewhat begrudgingly decide to help each other out. Just for the summer.
I liked the characters. Parker’s journey is interesting and Elle had a lot of quirks that I have too. Dipping her fries in a milkshake, getting excited over Impressionist paintings, needing a podcast to fall asleep and dreaming of owning a place on Gramercy Park. (It’s me, hi). The entire story is told from Elle’s point of view, which fit the story, I think. This single pov and the writing style reminded me of Emily Henry’s novels. She has a similar voice and also manages to write great romance with a solid journey for the characters to go through. If you like her books, you’ll like this too.
I guess the only thing I didn’t like is that Elle’s trauma response appears just a little too eagerly towards the end, when she should have learned by then to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I don’t want to post any spoilers so I won’t go into too much detail, but let’s just say the happy ending was right there for the taking a while before the end of the book and the author chose self sabotage instead. I get that that is the more interesting choice, but I felt like we had been there before and the character had gotten past some of her issues. But aside from that…truly, no notes! Very enjoyable book that I plan to reread whenever I need a trip to the Big Apple.
Also, kudos for the Taylor Swift lyric and for the fact that it wasn’t from what would have been the obvious album choice (1989). Highly recommend listening to that album while reading, though. It’s the perfect soundtrack.
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