Synopsis:

CW: drug addiction, death, grief, abortion

New York’s last bohemia—the glittering, decadent downtown club scene of the 1980s—is the setting for this brilliantly winning novel about a smart, vulnerable young woman taking a deep dive into her dark side, essential for fans of Sweetbitter, Fleabag, and books by Patti Smith.

New York, 1984: Twenty-two-year-old Phoebe Hayes is a young woman in search of excitement and adventure. But the recent death of her father has so devastated her that her mother wants her to remain home in Baltimore to recover. Phoebe wants to return to New York, not only to chase the glamorous life she so desperately craves but also to confront Ivan, the older man who painfully wronged her.

With her best friend Carmen, she escapes to the East Village, disappearing into an underworld haunted by artists, It Girls, and lost souls trying to party their pain away. Carmen juggles her junkie-poet boyfriend and a sexy painter while, as Astrid the Star Girl, Phoebe tells fortunes in a nightclub and plots her revenge on Ivan.

When the intoxicating brew of sex, drugs, and self-destruction leads Phoebe to betray her friend, Carmen disappears, and Phoebe begins an unstoppable descent into darkness. She may have a chance to save herself—and Carmen, if she can find her—but to do it she must face what’s hiding in the shadows she’s been running from—within her heart and in the dangerous midnight streets. 

A love letter to gritty 1980s New York City, Astrid Sees All is an irresistible, original novel about female friendship, sex and romance, and what it’s like to be a young woman searching for an identity. 

I couldn’t resist an invitation to read Astrid Sees All, a novel set in New York in the gritty 1980s club scene. It sounded atmospheric and eye-opening. And it was. But it was also much darker than I expected and devoid of much hope.  Normally, I don’t mind dark books, but I’ve been steering away from them for the past year. While I didn’t love this one, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t well-done—it just wasn’t the right book at the right time for me. But it’s not all negatives, there were things I enjoyed about this historical fiction novel.

Astrid Sees All has been compared to Fleabag, but Astrid lacks the humor and strong characters of Fleabag. I felt detached from the main character, Phoebe/Astrid. Especially for a novel written in first-person. And maybe that’s what the author intended, but I was always left wanting more of her internal thoughts and less of the play-by-play events of her life. 

“To me, a girl who felt smothered, neglect looked like freedom.“

Natalie Standiford, Astrid Sees All

It was a quick read, but not necessarily an easy one. And I kept reading wanting to know if Phoebe’s life ever turned around. There were some unexpected aspects toward the end that helped to wrap the novel up satisfactorily, but when I finished, I still didn’t feel like I knew Phoebe much better than when I’d started. I could respect what the author was doing—keeping the reader at arms length, much like Phoebe did with everyone—but I wanted a bit more.