Reviews with content warning for Gaslighting - A Winter in New York

this was eh. definitely a foreigners idealized image of nyc in the winter which was fine i guess. lots of food moments and italian american-isms.

our main character Iris, is a chef from London, her mother has recently passed away and she’s escaped a manipulative ex boyfriend and now is living in NYC trying to live the dream. She’s found work at a noodle restaurant who’s owner is her gay male best friend 🙄 (what a tired trope) and she also lives in the building. After a series of events she ends up helping our leading man, Gio, an italian american restaurant owner, figure out his family’s lost gelato recipe which Iris happens to know.

first off it starts with a random chapter set on valentine’s day of Iris being rude to a random man (guess who this turns out to be) cause he took the last book at a bookstore.

The book then jump cuts to September’s San Genarro festival in Little Italy and doesn’t bring up this bookshop moment until wayyyy later at which point I literally thought it wasn’t coming back.

I also feel like there was a weird confusion around her parents and the love interest’s parents that left me thinking half of the book that this might turn out to be an incest plot 🙅🏼‍♀️🙅🏼‍♀️🙅🏼‍♀️ maybe i just wasn’t paying attention enough but Iris’s mother was in a band together with two men who were a guitarist and a drummer. Her mother also dated one of the guitarist’s brother, who is the restaurant owner and Gio’s uncle that he calls papa. For me it was unclear that Iris’s mother had the baby with the drummer not the guitarist, and that the guitarist is Gio’s dad. Very confusing tbh and I spent have the book in fear it was incest

Content Warnings

thebelovedreadingnook's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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jjha's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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readwritewander's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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keppers_jax's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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lovelymisanthrope's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I heard about this book through Book of the Month.
"A Winter in New York" follows Iris, a woman who is trying to get a second chance in New York City. Following the death of her mother, Iris decides to try to go to places that can help her to feel connected to her mom, and one of the first places she decides to go is a gelato place. This gelato place is famous in the city because they only serve one flavor, and only two members of the family know the recipe at any given time. Except, Iris has a copy of the recipe, and she was under strict instructions from her mother not to tell anyone about it. When Iris finally ventures to the gelato shop, she cannot believe that she finds a family that loves her, a man to fall in love with, and pieces of her mom that she did not know about.
When I started this book, I thought it was going to be a cozy, winter romance, but I do not think it truly is. I think this book is more about Iris's journey to discover things about herself and her mom, and there happens to be a romantic interest. If we took the romantic interactions out of the story, I believe we would still have the same book. That is a big reason I felt it was middle of the road, because I did not have the right expectation going into the novel.
I did not love Iris as a character. Her reasoning for why she is keeping the secrets she does, seems kind of loose to me. I think she could have told Gio about the recipe pretty soon after meeting him, and I think she could have told him about her abusive ex right away as well. She just seemed ridiculous in her logic.
Gio is an AMAZING guy, and I loved seeing him and his daughter together. He is such an admirable single father, and he is doing an amazing job at raising his daughter. I would love to see a novella with just the two of them.
This book was fine, but not what I expected.

Content Warnings

chimichannika's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes

4.5

A very emotional, touching, sweet, riveting, heartfelt tale of love— romantic, yes, but just as much about familial and platonic love, as well. A few moments stuck out to me as an, oh yes, this is a very white, cishet, British book (not just in terms of turns of phrase, but the sensibilities/mindset of the narration) and at first I was a bit concerned it was going to go for the whole

gay best friend

trope with

Bobby and Robin being her adorably in love gay neighbors, but they ended up being wonderfully three-dimensional characters and kind of the emotional bedrock of the book. I wish we could’ve gotten more on the noodles shop—what kind of noodles? Ramen? Udon? Pho? It’s never made clear, as all we really know about Bobby’s culture is his family name—Han—and that he owns a noodle shop franchise, and I wanted more info on them!

there’s also a weirdly phrased allusion to Bobby’s aunt in the very first chapter that took me out of the story and seemed vaguely derogatory and racist. Thankfully this seemed to be a one-off occurrence and the book is mostly unproblematic throughout. My other detractor was that the character repeatedly refers to the adage that

“blood is thicker than water” and with this book having both UK and US editors, I would’ve hoped someone would’ve caught that or at least had Iris learn the full phrase, which literally means the opposite of how she uses it in this book.

this isn’t nearly as upsetting as the weird racist comment at the start, but it still brought me out of the story each time it happened.

Apart from these things, though, it was still a riveting book that I didn’t want to put down— the depictions of the utter depth, acceptance, loyalty, and love that the Belotti family had for one another had me in tears at several points, as did the beautiful friendship bonds in the book, as well. This is my second of Josie’s books that I’ve read, the first being The Two Lives of Lydia Bird, and in both of them she manages to depict all of the complicated emotions surrounding grief so relatably and so well. The scene near the end of this book where

Iris felt at a good place emotionally to release her mother’s ashes

was so beautifully, emotionally, poignantly written, as was the love that was so blatantly evident between them, as well. I also particularly loved the line midway through the book that reads:

“..I’ve learned since losing my mother that there is always a missing piece at any festivity or celebration. Other things and other people do not fill in that space, the river simply flows around it.”

beautifully written. ♡

Another thing I particularly appreciated about this book was the characters’ choices and motivations— while I didn’t agree with some of the choices characters made, or like to think I would’ve done things differently, I didn’t have a clear answer for what the “right” or “best” solution would be in the situations in the book; there was no clear, easy resolution, and it not only made the characters and their choices more sympathetic, but also made them seem more realistic, too.

All in all a sweet, emotional, riveting book, and the only reason it’s getting a 4.5 instead of 5 from me is for the detractors mentioned at the start of my review. I’m also very happy to report that nothing except good things ever happens to the kitty, and he is very well loved and cared for throughout the entire book ♡ a brief heads up that this book contains depictions of abuse and escaping/surviving abuse that may be triggering to survivors, but also a note that the survivor gets her abuser-free, safe future at the end of the book ❣️ please be sure to check the trigger warnings on this book if this is something that may cause you distress while reading 🫶🏻

p. s. the music references in this book were fun to see (although the

“famous piano piece” being The Entertainer did give me a good chuckle!)

and I kept thinking throughout this book that this novel definitely deserves a spotify playlist with the songs mentioned in the book all compiled in it! maybe a fun fan project to undertake upon a reread sometime :)

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