Angela watched her best friend Louisa get married to her boyfriend since she was fourteen. On the day of the wedding, Louisa asked Angela if she is indeed going to marry Mark, her boyfriend of ten years. Angela and her boyfriend was already engaged but never really set a date.

That night, Angela went to the car to pick up her comfy flats only to find Mark having sex with a girl at the back of the car. Angela confronted her best friend and her husband at the party why they knew about the affair and never said anything. Angela made the bride cry, injured her husband Tim and saw Mark by the door with just his boxers on. The entire guests saw what happened.

Angela feeling heart broken, cheated on, lied to and embarrassed, flew to New York on a whim. As soon as she arrives at her hotel, she immediately made a couple of friends, is dating two men on her second night and was offered a freelance job at The Look magazine a few days after. And it gets interesting from there on.

I Heart New York
Lindsey Kelk
Harper Paperbacks
336 Pages
ISBN-13: 9780007288380
Rating: ♣♣♣

I have always wanted to read the “I Heart..” series by Lindsey K. Kelk. I had access to the e-books but never really had the chance to start reading them.

I Heart New York is reminiscent of Sex and the City. In fact, it has been mentioned two or three times in the book.

Angela, the protagonist, like Carrie Bradshaw, is a writer, but a children’s book writer in the UK. She was soon offered a freelance writing job for The Look magazine as a blogger, blogging about her heart aches and dating experience in New York. Angela has started to love the finer things that shopping experience in New York can only give living with just her post-wedding shoes, a Louboutins no less, and bought her very first expensive handbag, a Marc Jacobs. Like Carrie, she made a friend in Jenny Lopez (aka Samantha, SATC) as soon as she arrived in New York, friends who are older than her, teaching her The Rules in dating, friends with connections and friends with equally sadder love stories. Like the SATC TV series, you’ll read snippets of Angela’s thoughts on love, dating and being pensive about things.

People go to LA to “find themselves”,they come to New York to become someone new.

We all dreamed about New York. What’s not to like about it? The diversity, the energy of the city, the shopping, the Sex and the City experience, the men in Wall Street or the troubled artist in Brooklyn. Finishing the book made me want to live in New York only with a realist view of New York. The cost of living in New York is darn expensive, you’ll only live in debt if you succumb to the wants of big fashion houses around the city and living a certain lifestyle. So, when it’s not happening anytime soon or ever, Lindsey Kelk book, I Heart New York is a great escape to New York dream land.

Let’s talk characters. Angela is British, smart and thin so the looks department and charm of the British accent worked for her. Dating two men at the same time and offering it as bait to your future employer can only end badly. Jenny Lopez (not the artist girl from the Bronx, in fact, the character insist not to reference her to the same person) works in the hotel where Angela ended up staying. At thirty, she hasn’t figured out how to become Oprah, her lifelong dream. We all know we can’t be Oprah. But she forged a strong bond with Angela having been through the same situation as her like many New Yorkers. She has that cynical look to relationship, men and dating. She insists  that Angela should just be dating as many men as possible. Alex and Tyler are the two gentlemen Angela is dating. Alex is the front man of a band and Tyler is Mr. Wall Street. I’ll leave the description at that so no spoilers.

Who would you go for? The artist or the rich guy? Who is playing and who is being real? I was confused myself truth be told until it was revealed at the end of the book. And, can you play the field with two different men and not end up feeling invested in one them?

Have you read this book or the entire series? Would love to read your comments so leave them in the section below. Thank you for reading!