Sadie, Darcy, and Rosanna are moving into University of New York student housing the summer before their freshman year for summer internships and summer classes. They have never met in person before, but have video chatted a few times. Sadie was born and raised in New York. She is looking for her soul mate and believes he is “just around the corner.” Darcy is from California, has money to blow, and is looking for a summer of carefree fun after a hard breakup. Rosanna is from Chicago. She is one of five children. She came to New York with a pocket full of dreams and an empty bank account. Three very different girls, with three very different backgrounds fall in love with New York, boys, and their new found friendships.
City Love by Susane Colasanti is just an okay book. I know that is a very vague description but I really can’t give it a good or bad review. When I started reading City Love, I wanted to stop after a few pages. Sadie, the character that opens the book started to annoy me as soon as she began describing her life in great detail. The whole book is written in first person narrative and each character has their own voice. If it weren’t for Rosanna, I would have stopped reading. Rosanna’s story intrigued me and kept me interested throughout the novel. Darcy’s story kept me slightly involved but Sadie’s story just made me roll my eyes.
City Love is the start of a trilogy, something I did not know when I started the book. I haven’t been interested in reading any new series’ lately, but now I’m semi- hooked on this one. This surprises me because at first, I thought the novel was going to be a huge disappointment. A lot of the conversations between the characters seem to be forced and awkward, this alone made the book less attractive to me from the very start. The novel doesn’t progress as fast as I would have liked it to; each characters description of events were long winded, leaving the book open-ended by the last page. City Love ended in a spot where even if you’re mildly interested, you’ll at least start the second book to see where the three girls choices take them. City Love is written as an in-depth look into three young girls who have big dreams, big hearts, and potentially big problems.
Sadie is the most up-beat character I have ever met in a story. She is full of happiness, sunshine, and unrealistic views of the world; this girl needs to leave New York and realize that life isn’t perfect. As much as we all may want to have Sadie’s attitude towards life, it isn’t possible. Sadie believes that random acts of kindness and warm fuzzies (her way of spreading love) is all one needs to live life to the fullest. Even though I think Sadie needs a wake-up call, I do love her career choice. Urban design sounds awesome. Making more outdoor spaces unique and inviting is just what our country needs to get people out of the house and into a reality that doesn’t require our faces in our cell phones.
Speaking of cell phones, Rosanna doesn’t have one. That’s mainly because Rosanna is living day to day on very little money. Rosanna is working at a day camp in the city and eating a lot of bagels for dinner. I like Rosanna. She is taking what the world has given her and using it for the greater good. Rosanna meets a guy who is completely different from her. He was born into a rich family and continues to make his own money so that he can be even wealthier. I like the way their relationship grows and matures; I was rooting for them the whole time.
Darcy moves to New York thinking that she will play the dating game all summer long. She soon learns that the best laid plans don’t always pan out the way we want them to. Darcy is attending classes to get a jump start on her Freshman year. She took a year off between high school and college to get some real-world experience. Even though Darcy has money from mommy and daddy, that doesn’t mean she is spoiled. Darcy likes to treat her friends to nice things just because she can afford to.
City Love is about all about different types of love. Love of New York, love in romantic relationships, and love in friendship. The love of New York and the romantic love are explored in great depths by each character. On the other hand, the friendship love is lacking. I feel as if the love between friends living together is not pursued by each character as much as it should have been. Since City Love is the first book in a series, it should have been dedicated to building a relationship between three new roommates. Some of the love experienced by each girl made me think, “Come on, this is too good to be true. Where’s the catch?” There was a lot of cheesiness going on. Sadie, Darcy, and Rosanna throw themselves into romantic relationships too soon which could ultimately open themselves up for potential heartache. The series has potential and is quite similar to MTV’s Real World. I think some of the cliche lines and the lack of real friendship needs to be reevaluated to make the book more attractive to people who don’t think the world is full of just rainbows and butterflies.
I was given a copy of this book as a part of the Spread the City Love Campaign. All the opinions are my own!
Life, Army Wife Style 