If you purely looked at this book as a piece of historical fiction, it was at least interesting. I had never read about the New York City in 1977 and to say that it was chaos is an understatement. Once I actually learned how insane that year was for New York (Son of Sam serial killer, blackout + largest heatwave in history + unemployment at 12%), I was even more disappointed by how the plot failed to capture the unique historical context. I honestly remember so little about the romance and the main character - her friendships were dull, the “I’m so afraid of the serial killer” was annoying, and the domestic violence was just a lot to read about. The writing just tried too hard. Like I said, the only thing that redeemed this book for me was simply that I learned something historical.