I had to let this one sit a few days before I was able to write a review because I wanted to make sure my own personal experience of NYC living, working, and existing (and specifically all of the on the LES) didn’t taint my review too much. But after a few days I realized that no matter what, my own personal experience was going to sit there and stare at me in the face. So, I guess read my review with this in mind… NYC is forever changing, but there are a lot of things that continue amidst the changes. I lived in NYC for over 10 years from the early 2000’s until I left in 2015, and “my” place was always the LES, where I worked and played, and at some point did live too. Astrid Sees All is set in the early 80’s, but the streets are still there, and the places mentioned in the book were still there when I lived there too (sadly I don’t think any of them are). 

Anyway! The book is set in 1980’s NYC, mainly on and around Avenue C in the East Village, including views on Tompkins Square Park, and also in a popular nightclub called Plutonium also located below 14th St. Phoebe, the main protagonist, has followed her college friend Carmen to NYC and is trying to figure out a life for herself when her father dies. After his funeral her mother tries to keep her in Baltimore, but she is determined to return to NYC, to Carmen, and to a new job of reading fortunes at Plutonium. Phoebe and Carmen score an apartment on Avenue C, and spend their days in the cafe where Carmen works, at the club, hanging out with friends and all of the random famous and not famous people who they rotate around, doing copious amounts of drugs, and looking after Atti, Carmen’s boyfriend who is a heroin addict. Phoebe makes money by reading fortunes via her collection of movie ticket stubs at the club (using the name Astrid), and doing everything she can to basically become Carmen. This lifestyle obviously leads to betrayal, friendships and relationships that fall apart, and a very random happening that kind of made me sigh. 

Astrid Sees All reads really well, and is difficult to put down once you get into it. However, Phoebe is absolutely not likeable at all in my opinion, and for the most part the main characters are all really one-sided. We have all had friendships that develop amidst times of our lives that were maybe not the best, but this friendship just doesn’t seem that believable. I actually preferred the more minor characters who, in my opinion, were more well developed than the main characters. And having actually lived the same type of life that Carmen and Phoebe live in the novel, it just didn’t dig deep enough into the actual feelings. The descriptions are great, and the locations, the famous people sightings, and the random people who are famous for no reason were all so accurate, but the characters just weren’t developed enough to do justice to all of the ins and outs of the lifestyle and the choices. Also the random event at the end was a “woah what the heck” moment for me, and I think the novel would have been better without it.

If you love reading about NYC and people living in the East Village in the 1980’s you will probably enjoy this though!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.