Book Review: Chase by Jill Knapp Zitron

Title: Chase
Author: Jill Knapp Zitron
Published: August 28, 2013
Publisher: Sunflower Press
Pages: 212
Source: e-book (from NetGalley)

The question that 23-year old Amalia Hastings desperately wants the answer to is: What happens to men when they move to Manhattan? Life in the new city gives Amalia a ride she is not expecting. As she tries to find her way on the little island that never sleeps, she discovers she has a harder time navigating through love then she does the streets of Greenwich Village and finds herself truly lost in the complex world of men. “I just want you to be happy” is one of Amalia’s least favorite phrases in the English language. She thought she had everything she needed to be so-called “happy” – a gorgeous apartment in Manhattan, a top-notch education at NYU, a group of trusted friends and Nicholas, a boyfriend who she believes is her soul-mate, but it isn’t enough. The cold, lonely city causes Amalia and her girlfriends to seek refuge in the opposite sex. Stumbling through her relationships, Amalia encounters Michael, an inconsistent friend-with-benefits. After all, the only thing consistent about New York is its beauty. After getting terribly lost searching for love in all the wrong places, Amalia embarks on a journey to find her strength, which leads her to detox from all things men. She quickly realizes that solely chasing love closes her off to all of the other good things life has to offer. Now she must decide – what is worth the chase?

Chase is a good book, it became my escape from too much YA and dystopian. It’s a kind of book where you will feel relax while reading it, the story just flows and it was like talking to you. I like how it is written and I like its concept. Love life is a big deal here, they kept chasing it but in the end they realized that there are things that are worth waiting. This book will teach you things that you’ve learned before but you have to be reminded. 

Amalia Hastings lives in New York, it’s where she began searching for herself and for love. At first things are fine, even her relationship with her boyfriend but things kept changing and on her birthday it gets worse. She has reasons, reasons that her boyfriend can’t accept. Another thing is she’s in love with someone too, but despite that she never acknowledges it, she still choose her boyfriend because they already have a long relationship. But as things turned upside down, friends are there to help her, but also to take advantage of her situation. 

As I’ve said I like this book, though I just wish there’s more to it, I mean like what will happen to her after achieving her dream? What will happen when she go back to New York? So many questions left unanswered and I want to know what will happen next (book two is coming?).

 “A strong person should be able to speak up if something is bothering them, not placate the person they’re with because they’re afraid to say the wrong thing“

 “Don’t close yourself off from something that could be good because you get too lost in focusing on other things. You might not want it right now, but you don’t want to wake up a few months from now and realize you gave up a good thing”

My Rating

Jill Knapp-Zitron, a native New Yorker, is the author of the Chase series (New Adult/ Women's Fiction) and a former adjunct professor of Psychology at her Alma Mater Kean University. A regular contributor to the Huffington Post, Knapp-Zitron reports on entertainment, relationships and the differences between city and suburban lifestyles. She received a Masters in Psychology from the New School For Social Research in Manhattan, and taught figure skating for over a decade. She currently lives in North Carolina with her husband.