J'adore New York by Isabelle LaFleche

4 Star

When Catherine Lambert, a fashionable Parisian lawyer, receives a transfer offer from her New York office, she jumps at the chance to move to the land of fashion and love. Initially thrilled, Catherine soon discovers a world of office politics, lecherous clients, billable hours, malicious secretaries and impossible ambition and finds herself swimming in work rather than the glamour she was expecting.  When Jeffrey Richardson, a rich and powerful client, takes an interest in her, Catherine finds all the glamour she was expecting, but soon it all comes crashing down with an unexpected request that forces her to question the career she worked so hard to build.

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Lydia - 4 Star

J'adore New York is a fast paced, entertaining debut about moving to New York, not to escape, but as a career move and is full of office politics, ambition, fashion and love. This novel provides a glimpse into the harsh realities New York lawyers face and this novel had enough substance to transform it into a notch above typical chick lit surrounding a move to New York.

The short scenes made this novel fly and I felt gave it an authentic feel of the fast paced life of a lawyer. I loved that this story focused on Catherine's work instead of her searching for love and fashion, although the both were still prominent in the novel. I found the twist on moving to a new city as a career move refreshing and loved that the heroine was French which was also a nice change of pace.

I loved Catherine, and although couldn't completely relate to her, I could understand her motivations and confusion surrounding her new life and desire to remain true to herself throughout the turmoil.  I adored her assistant, Rikash, who brought a flamboyant and humourous element to this novel and laughed at every scene he was in. I felt all the characters were well drawn and couldn't wait to see how Catherine's trials and tribulations at the office would turn out.

This novel didn't go overboard on detail to the point that I got bogged down and bored. It was just the opposite and LaFleche's ability to make legalese readable with technical terms turned into easy to understand English made this novel much more interesting to read. 

I found J'adore New York a highly entertaining debut and can't wait to see what Isabelle Lafleche has in store for us next!

Kathryn -4 Star

I loved the detail and focus around Catherine’s job in this novel- there were many different faces to portray to the reader by having the novel set so heavily in the law office and Lafleche made sure we knew who everyone was so that the story flowed without any confusion.   I found myself very glad I wasn’t trying to climb any corporate law ladders to partnership in this lifetime- I think I would have found it a lot less satisfying that Catherine to be working so many long hours and I found a new respect for my lawyer friends!

 I liked though that Catherine, despite trying to become partner, still found herself interested in a relationship with a client as well as trying to have a social life with girlfriends.  It was a struggle to find any time for socialising but it made her human to me that the desire was there to get out of the office.  It’s also interesting to note that we are given the impression that Catherine is a well-dressed, chic lawyer from Paris which would lead the reader to believe that she would be quite a lot more confident than most- in reality the author creates a real vulnerability sometimes to contrast this well dressed exterior.  Her assistant was a great addition and I liked that she had to decide whose side he was really on, hers or the bosses (which added to her vulnerability as she didn’t know if she could trust anyone at all) - he helped to add some laughs to the story too.  

Throughout the novel there are random injections of French phrases or single words- I thought I would find them irritating and pretentious but they actually did add to the story for me.  It reminded me that Catherine was French (although she was actually working in English in New York) and newly deposited in a new city and I appreciated the refresher on some forgotten French swear words.

I liked J’adore New York and while the basic story was perhaps a bit predictable Lafleche made her characters unique enough that it is a memorable novel.

Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for our review copy. All opinions are our own.

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