ARC Review: CITY LOVE by Susan Colasanti

Release Date: April 21, 2015

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Page Count: 366

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Sadie, Darcy, and Rosanna are living together in New York City the summer before their freshman year of college begins. With no parents, no rules, and an entire city to explore, these three girls are on the verge of the best summer of their lives.

Sadie is a native New Yorker. She is hopeful, romantic, and an eternal optimist who is ready to find her soul mate. Then she meets her dream boy: cute, funny, and quirky in all the right ways. The chemistry between them is unreal. Could he be the one?

Darcy is a free spirit from SoCal with rebellious tendencies and unlimited financial resources. Moving to New York City is just another adventure for her. Darcy wants this summer to be all about boy adventures—nothing serious. But how much fun is too much?

Rosanna leaves Chicago for NYC so she can put her past behind her and reinvent herself. The only thing standing in her way is the grand total of seventy-three cents she has saved. Then she meets a guy who wants to show her the glamorous side of New York—a side that she would never get to experience on her own. If Rosanna doesn't resist, she may find herself in city love.

Told from alternating points of view, City Love captures the moments in each girl's life when everything is thrilling, amazing, and terrifying all at once . . . in a way it will never be again.

If I'm being completely honest, when I first started reading CITY LOVE, I didn't expect to love it as much as I did. 

The beginning was VERY cringe-worthy to me. The dialogue had very cheesy elements, the writing was sub-par, and the characters were mediocre. I was not impressed by the first 1/3 of the novel, and I'm surprised I didn't quit it right there. If I'm not loving a book by the 100 page mark, 99% of the time, I will put it down and move on to something else. However, something in the back of my head told me to keep going with this one. To not give up, and to read the whole book and judge it later. So, I did just that, and MAN, am I glad I did. 

I ended up LOVING this book by the end of it! 

If the end had been like the beginning, there's no doubt that I would have given it 5/5 stars. Well, not even the end, more like the last 2/3! After that 100 page mark, things just really picked up for me, and I found myself unable to put the book down for a minute. I just had to know what was going to happen next!! 

The book takes place from three unique perspectives: that of Darcy, Sadie, and Rosanna. One of the things that I really adored about this book was how all the voices were so unique. After the first few chapters, it was fairly easy to distinguish who was speaking in the chapters because each character had such a unique internal and external voice. I also loved how the different backgrounds of the girls translated into their different mindsets and attitudes. With few exceptions, no two girls really thought the same on most matters, just as neither spoke the same nor made decisions in the same way. Each girl brought such a completely different outlook to this story, and, in turn, brought so much depth that would otherwise have been lacking had the story been told from a single POV. 

This wasn't a book that really made me swoon. This wasn't an ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS "I'm going to read this over and over just to get all the cutesy feels" type of book. This was romance with an edge: raw, real, and, in some instances, very painful. It was a real romance. Not to discredit ANNA, as that is one of my all time favorite novels, but this was a completely different end of the romance spectrum from that book. This wasn't a book that really made me swoon, however, it filled my heart in other ways. It filled it with a sense of wholeness, in the sense that I could really get into the characters heads and feel the comfort they received from their lovers. I could really sympathize and understand them. But then, I also felt heartbreak. I felt the tragedy of this story, and the fact that I could feel both of these is what really made me love this story. It took me through the progression of a true romance,  one that wasn't romanticized (for lack of a better term) or just overly-fluffy. It felt real to me, and that is why I love it. 

Now, I just need LOST IN LOVE in my life, right now (that ending to CITY LOVE had me in tears!) I'm so excited that this is the first in a trilogy, and I cannot wait to pick up the other books