Review - Jessie Hearts NYC by Keris Stainton

Title:- Jessie Hearts NYC

Author:- Keris Stainton

Pages:- 255 pages, Paperback

Published:- July 2011

Publisher:- Orchard Books

Jessie's just arrived in New York, hoping to forget about her awful ex. 
New Yorker Finn is in love with his best friend's girlfriend. 
They might be perfect together, but in a city of eight million people, will they ever find each other?

**Contains Spoilers**

This is what I would call a pallet cleanser kind of book. The type of book you read in between two hefty novels. It clears your mind of the last book you read so that you can focus more easily when you pick up the next novel and enter into another book world. 

I was browsing the isles of a bookshop when I came across this and Keris Stainton's other book (Emma Hearts LA) and just knew I had to read them. One of the main reasons I picked up this book is because the main character and her best friend share mine and my older sister's names, Jessie and Emma.

At first, I really struggled to get into this book and I couldn't seem to concentrate on the story, my mind kept wondering off to other places. I think it was because I'm used to reading more challenging books. The books I usually read are YA so they're aimed at more mature readers whereas this seems to be aimed at teens. 

As the storyline developed, I managed to get more into the plot. I felt however, that the whole story could have been developed more. To me, it seemed very basic, like the writer had hit all the skeletal plot points but there was nothing there to give it body. There were hardly any detailed descriptions about where the characters were which made it quite hard to picture in my mind. 

The characters are likeable enough and the main characters, Jessie and Finn, have quite interesting back stories but it felt like only the basic key features about their appearance had been described. The writer did describe a few times what some of the characters were wearing but it wasn't in detail. This is one of the main reasons why I think this book is more suitable for a teen than a young adult.

Overall, I'd give this book 3 stars because the storyline was quite interesting even though I struggled to get into it. The characters were interesting enough to keep the little attention I did have. I would definitely recommend this book to teenagers because I feel like that was the authors target market. 

Rating:- ★★★

Happy Reading

:)

xx