My spoiler-free review:

The beginning of this book is rough and really made me question all the glowing reviews. Between too much constant detail (what everyone looks like/is wearing/is eating, what floor her office is on, etc) and smacking you in the face with the “foreshadowing”— even the would-be clever nods come across as obvious— I almost gave up, I won’t lie. But the concept intrigued me and was well-handled when it could have been an instant mess, so I soldiered on. And it ended up worth it, the second half wildly improves. Honestly I just wish I could edit the whole thing, because the potential for it to be truly great is there, it just needs a few dozen less drops of obvious brand names and the eye of an actual New Yorker.

EDIT: I’m dropping this from 3 stars to 2, cause frankly I just read The Dead Romantics and it’s so shockingly better and doesn’t suffer from 90% of my complaints with this one.