Manhattan Dreaming by Anita Heiss

Manhattan Dreaming Reviews

• 
  Marianne

  3.5★s
  Manhattan Dreaming is a novel by Australian author and Wiradjuri woman, Anita Heiss. After a year with Canberra Cockatoos footballer Adam Fuller, Lauren Lucas is frustrated and less than happy with his attitude. Her best friend and colleague at the National Aboriginal Gallery, Libby keeps trying to convince her that Adam doesn’t deserve her, but it mostly falls in deaf ears.
  
  Libby can’t understand why Lauren, “gorgeous and vibrant and witty and sexy. You’ve got the best smile and every woman here at the gallery wishes she had your legs and your hair” who has “a CV of exhibitions that shows you can mix it with the best in the art world, you’re only one of a handful of First Nations Senior Curators in the country” would put up with a man who’s barely “articulate for a footballer”, treats her so poorly, is regularly seen with other women and is clearly a commitment-phobe.
  
  When her boss at the Gallery suggests she is the right person for the visiting curator fellowship available for a First Nations curator that the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian in New York City is offering, Libby and Lauren’s housemate, Bec decide to stage an intervention that involves favourite foods and NYC movies.
  
  Not much later, Lauren is bidding tearful goodbyes to friends and family, and discovering the friendly welcome New Yorkers offer visitors. In between her interesting days at the NMAI in Bowling Green, her new flatmates show her the town, and New York’s male population shows her what she’s been missing in the world of dating. But for too long, Lauren still has the romantic notion of reuniting with Adam at the top of the Empire State Building, Sleepless in Seattle style.
  
  Even though most readers will have predicted the romantic ending, it’s fun to watch Lauren being treated the way she deserves. Lauren’s job also allows Heiss to drop a feast of Aboriginal artist names, making her novel an unashamed promotion of Aboriginal culture. While originally published more than a decade ago, this edition has been updated to take place in 2023, and from the comments in earlier reviews, it’s an improvement.
  
  The novel does seem to be trying a bit too hard to be both a topical/relevant commentary on aboriginal art, and a light-hearted romance. Nonetheless, entertaining and enjoyable.
  This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Australia.
• 
  Beth_Adele

  She's been termed the Koori Bradshaw of Chick Lit, but Anita Heiss is all that and so much more.
  
  I have many issues regarding the labelling of women writers as "Chick Lit" and Women's Literature". (Best left out of a book review, however I want it on the record that I object to the undermining of women writers and their stories by a label that with one hand pretends to celebrate women, whilst with the other it denigrates and devalues women's stories.)
  
  Manhattan Dreaming is the story of a modern, successful, urban Indigenous woman who breaks all the moulds.
  Initially it's the story of Lauren Lucas and her journey of life, love and career and how all 3 conspire to find half way around the world doing just that. Living, loving and working at a job the leaves her inspired and fulfilled. But there's so much more to this than a modern day love story for the modern day woman.
  
  In these pages there's a deeper dialogue taking place.
  MD touches lightly on incarceration rates for Indigenous peoples (Lauren's brother Nick is in jail through out the story), addiction (very subtlety done. Lauren touches on the topic in a discussion with Wyatt, and the repeated statement that Lauren's only vice is cakes and sweets suggests her acknowledgement of how Indigenous people and their consumption habits involving alcohol and drugs are often viewed in combination with the high rates of addiction that plague Indigenous peoples), touched on lightly is also the concept of how often Indigenous peoples consciously change or moderate their behaviour to accommodate others and to consciously attempt to break down some of the stereotypes, (ie. Lauren's being on time or early for everything in an attempt to break the stereotype of 'Koori time". I giggled out loud at this one as it is something I consistently do for those very reasons).
  
  Other bigger issues touched on are Identity, I do love how even when describing characters physicality, Heiss doesn't tend to consign skin colouring to her Indigenous characters. (Because the reality is Indigenous Peoples have skin tones as varied as every other racial group) and the identity conversation is continued through brief allusions to questions of who and what is an Indigenous person.
  
  The notion of addiction is broached with Lauren's obsession with Adam. HIghlighting that addictions come in many forms and even intelligent women can make really dumb choices when our hearts are involved. I love how this part of the story line pushed Lauren's growth, with each new man in her life we see her emotional maturity increasing. None of the romance is gratuitous and I find that really refreshing.
  
  Cultural appropriation takes centre stage, Ms. Heiss's knowledge of the art world, especially Indigenous artists and their work is well researched and the shout out she gives to Indigenous artists (of all mediums) in her novels is nothing short of fantastic. (Check them out if you can. You won't regret it) I loved the questions she and colleagues touch on in regards to exhibits of Indigenous culture and the colonialist lens they are sometimes viewed from. (Does a bowl belong as an artefact or as an art work? Why are so many exhibits so male orientated? Viewing Indigenous peoples through a Western lens erases women and children from the culture, because Western culture has always had so little regard for women and children. )
  
  But the thing I loved most about Manhattan Dreaming is that there are no less than 3 strong Indigenous women to act as voices and role models for Indigenous women. The Tiddahood taking pride of place. (Which all ties into connection to country and kin which is at the heart of Indigenous peoples culture everywhere) Australian Literature has a lack of modern urbanised female Indigenous voices. Anita Heiss fills that void with a story that is full of heart, humour and wit.
  
  The story is much more light hearted than I paint in my unravelling. But there's a reason these books are so important to me. They talk about the issues that my people face in every day snippets. Casually and conversationally, Heiss doesn't shy away from touching on the political. But she does so in a way that brings the reader in, that doesn't alienate them. Living in Canberra, being an ex-Goulburn boarding school girl, the Australian setting is one that I identified with strongly. (Which helps to endear a book to a reader) It also made me want to experience Lauren's Manhattan. And I think I may just have a literary crush on Wyatt.
• 
  K.

  Also reviewed
  on my Youtube channel.
  
  First things first, chick lit isn't really my thing. I read it from time to time, but usually only the Janet Evanovich-y stuff where you can kind of convince yourself that it's actually a crime novel with occasional chick lit moments. So take all my opinions on this book with a grain of salt. Where this book is concerned, there was stuff that was 4 star worthy, and stuff that was 2 star worthy. Let's start with the good, shall we?
  
  The diversity in this book is FABULOUS. I mean, how often do you see diverse characters in a leading role in chick lit? Almost never, at least in my experience. The main character, Lauren, is Wiradjuri and is a senior curator at the age of 30. Her best friend is also Aboriginal. Her colleagues in Canberra are Aboriginal. Her flatmate in New York is Aboriginal and works for the UN helping First Nations communities around the world. Her colleagues in New York are all (or mostly??) Native American, because she's working at the NMAI. All the artists and community groups she deals with while developing exhibitions are Indigenous. In short, it's amazing. Basically, the only white character of any significance is Lauren's douchebag boyfriend, Adam, who's a rugby player. So from a diversity perspective, seeing true-to-life Indigenous characters from a wide range of communities around the world? YES. 10/10 would recommend.
  
  I also really loved the section of the book that was set in Canberra. Having lived in Canberra for several years while working in the museum sector, I feel like Heiss really nailed that. Especially the discussions of public servants, and ESPECIALLY her assessment of Mooseheads: "No-one's going to Mooseheads. It's dodgy and full of bogans". The lead time on exhibitions did seem incredibly short to me, but I'm willing to let it slide because Lauren's working with art collections rather than social history collections, so installation isn't NEARLY as complicated. But really, that's a niggling thing that's probably only annoying to those who've spent time developing museum exhibitions...
  
  So all of that was excellent, and I really enjoyed it.
  
  Onto the stuff that was 2 star territory for me. Lauren makes some truly terrible decisions in the course of the story. Girl. Adam is scum who doesn't want to be seen in public with you. All your friends hate him. He never contacts you unless he wants sex. STOP STALKING HIM ON MYSPACE HE ISN'T EVEN REMOTELY A CATCH. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE A ROMANTIC RENDEZVOUS ON TOP OF THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING. NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN.
  
  There were a few things that felt a little repetitive, and the most obvious of these was the continued mentions of how men in New York are really flirty and full of compliments and they just come straight out and say it if they're interested in you. And yes, when Lauren first arrived in New York, it made total sense to mention it, because it's true: guys in the US tend to be far more forward. But to STILL be mentioning it on every second page when she's been in New York nearly a year? Please stop. We get it.
  
  I wasn't a huge fan of the ending. It was totally predictable to everyone except Lauren, and if she'd stopped making assumptions and actually used her words, then maybe the ending would have come around like six months earlier than it did and we would have been spared like 50 pages of Adam douchebaggery. Sigh.
  
  So yeah. It averaged out at three stars because as much as I adored seeing a ton of Indigenous characters at the forefront of a story, the chick lit side of things was kind of a let down.
  
• 
  Sue Gerhardt Griffiths

  Set in Canberra and New York and at the time of Obama’s inauguration.
  Well, ok, if I had of read this in 2010 when this book was published I too would have been jumping for joy right alongside the characters, after all most of us, yep, me included, were guilty of being excited that an African American was about to be president… the world was going to be a better place, right? Wrong! We weren’t to know how scandalous the Obama administration was going to be. (Thank God for Trump!) (But sadly, his great work was undone by an administration that doesn’t bear thinking about.)
  
  Here we are in 2021, and reading about the central character drooling over Obama certainly took the shine off a fun and pleasant story.
  
  Lauren, a senior curator working for the National Aboriginal Gallery in Canberra, is offered the opportunity of a lifetime to live in New York and work at the Smithsonian Institute. Lauren for the most part was a great character only when she obsessed over her douchebag ex-boyfriend, I found her a little irritating. Lauren is well liked by her friends and by the people she worked with at NMAI - National Museum of the American Indian. I would have preferred more discussion about art between Lauren and her co-workers and less talk about politics, on the plus side the author didn’t probe into politics too deeply.
  
  POPSUGAR Reading Challenge 2021: #22 - A book by an indigenous author
• 
  Jo

  I did not particularly enjoy this book. While the plot and story were pretty good, I found the main character irritating much of the time, the dialogue clunky, and the ending both entirely predictable and too rushed when it happened.
• 
  BTB

  The book was just ok. Standard chick lit, but the ending was so terrible it just ruined the whole thing.
• 
  Kerri

  🗽
  I enjoyed the book itself, but not the audio experience. To be clear, I didn't think the narrator did a poor job (although the Boston accent felt... not very good) but this is the second romance book I've actively disliked listening to, and I think it's just not a genre I can listen to-- I need to read it. There's a few reasons, but the main one seems to pitch. The voices are quite high, and as the characters talk to each other they get higher and higher, quickly giving me a headache. I also find the characters much more annoying than I think I would if I were reading the same thing. I'm not sure why, but it's a useful thing to have confirmed with this book (after my mixed feelings about "The Stand-In" by Lily Chu for some similar reasons) .
  
  The story was nice and I will read more Anita Heiss. Her writing was appealing and this rather familiar love story had a nice depth to it that was refreshing.
• 
  Maureen

  What a great romance full of best friends, experiences in a new country, and great men...along with one not-so-great man. Lauren is offered an opportunity to leave Canberra for a 12-month fellowship in Manhattan. Who wouldn't love that? It really spoke to me as I was sent by my DC company to work in our Perth, AU office for several months. Like Lauren, I wasn't sure I wanted to go and basically went due to peer pressure and the thought of people mocking me for the rest of my life if I didn't pursue this. Lauren had similar, but completely reverse, experiences as I did regarding the size of coffee cups and populations, among other things. I had such a smile on my face as she acclimated. The work she does as a curator was fascinating to read about and although she was frustrating me in the "relationship" department for far too long, there's a very romantic and happy ending for her.
  
  Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.
• 
  Ali

  I am not a romance reader, but I picked this up because of my general love for Heiss and my interest in the gallery world of Canberra. I liked all the non-romance bits - especially the changing world of cultural museums and galleries, with all the attendant problems that are being faced. I also like the celebration of Indigenous art. But ultimately, this is a romance (with a particularly predictable romance plot, along with implausible ending).
• 
  Yolande

  NAIDOC reads:
  Let's start with the things I liked about Manhattan Dreaming-- learning about Aboriginal artists and that Australia has the National Aboriginal Gallery; an Koori protagonist in a romance; the discussion of cakes.
  
  Things I did not enjoy-- Lauren and Adam's relationship. Lauren is a successful, intelligent, cultured art curator who thinks she is in love with a rugby player despite his very public infidelities and directly stating he doesn't want anything more than sex. I found her attachment to him to be annoying and pathetic, especially when she moves to New York and he makes it abundantly clear he is not m missing her. The fact she continues to cling to her infatuation with him after receiving positive attention from New York men and after being in a real relationship with a man who respected her and wanted to be seen in public with her just seemed stupid and contrived to me. I feel like most women of Lauren's intelligence and purported confidence, with that kind of time and distance, would have moved on.
  
  I also disdain the trope in romance novels of the mistaken assumption as the obstacle to love. To me suggests a lack of maturity on behalf of the character, and should therefore be relegated to YA romance. I prefer my romance plots to focus on the push and pull of new love, with weightier hurdles, over the couple getting together in the final pages.
  
  In short, I'm glad this book exists but I would not recommend it to romance lovers.
• 
  Antje

  One of the more disappointing books I have read in a long time. I should have trusted my gut in judging books by their cover. I'd never have given this book a second glace by the cover alone (which would have been a good thing!) but I saw the author in a talk and was interested, bought the book, got bored of it straight away but hoped until the end that there would be a redeeming feature. Sadly, there wasn't. It's all telling and no showing. It's didactic (read: condescending) in its distrust of the reader's imagination and intelligence and in its insistence on making the reader understand that the protagonist is Aboriginal, sexy, and fabulous with an MA (get over it!!). Stylistically, it's repetitive with indistinct voices, stock character exchanges, and cringingly cliched phrases and plotting. One star for the effort of actually sitting down and hacking out the pages. No more.
• 
  Mandy

  An interesting take on chick lit.
  
  I couldn't work out whether I liked the book - or the main character - for the first half. She's obsessed with a guy who is clearly a player, then heads off to New York and expects every man in the Big Apple to be a 'gentleman'.
  
  "Double standards!" was my first thought; my second was that most women have been totally guilty of the same inconsistency at some time or another. In fact, while the lead character's behaviour makes you cringe at times, it also makes you want to apologise to all the friends you ignored when they told you certain guys were losers (because they were!).
  
  The ending was a bit of a rapid wrap up and no surprise, but it was an entertaining read.
  
• 
  Lauredhel

  3-3.5 stars. I enjoyed most of this book. At times the infodumping and dialogue felt a little clunky, but I could mostly excuse that because the main character's a museum geek, so it wasn't necessarily completely out of character. Unfortunately, she was also irritatingly clueless.
  
  I'm planning on reading the next book, but I'm hoping there will be less diet talk in it. This is my one biggest annoyance with the chick lit genre. We definitely need diet-free chick lit...
• 
  Shokufeh شکوفه Kavani کاوانی

  The great Australian version of Sex and the city.....I actually went to the book launch.
• 
  Cathy

  Loved it! Made me think nostalgically about things from Australia and long to go to New York even more!
• 
  Lauren Taylor

  Could not handle the main character!
• 
  Michelle

  Loved this story I could imagine the characters - actually I think I know these people! Great work - please write more
• 
  Fikontong

  Loved it love - Anita!
• 
  Robyn Philip

  A very quick read. Chick lit. Lots of shopping.
• 
  Oanh

  Fun read.
• 
  Len

  I'll be honest: I didn't mind this. It's 'chick lit', but so what! I view Manhattan Dreaming with the same thought that I have towards The Apartment: predictable, but fun.
• 
  Rhiannon

  So bad that I can't even read her other books I bought. Waste of time.
• 
  Francesca

  Lots of great art/culture background so it gets an star because I finished. I saw the twist coming from half a planet away (Goulburn?), AND it's crowbarred in with so much High Aughties SATC Problematic*, that the cringe factor haunts me. I think only that fix-it romance from a few years ago is a worse book than this.
  
  The acknowledgements thank a bunch of Americans who definitely didn't actually read it. I feel embarrassed for the author and offer this free American advice:
  
  1. Find/replace us character dialogue knickers/panties (NOT pants), "she'll be right" / "it's fine," "mate" / "dude" or "man," any Manhattan server not entirely mystified and passive aggressively giving you shit/spit for teehee attempting to order toast soldiers at brunch. Not A Thing.
  
  2. New Yorkers being SO! FRIENDLY! lol no, girl. Not even to Aussies. Maybe in Chicago. 90 percent of the supposed flirting, as described, is straight-up harassment. Sorry 'bout that toxic masculinity y'all have been steeped in.
  
  3. Related to 2. "Never date waiters" and a two-page anti-tipping diatribe. Anti-colonialist characters (DYK there's a Starbucks at Gitmo!) go off with your classism, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  
  But let's get to the big issue.
  
  *The final OTP is supposed to be a gay man, because... sooooo many homophobic stereotypes of gay men, like, middle school or tween level. Turns out he's not ����🙄🙄 and no readers are at all shocked. Complete, and deeply troubling, disservice to the indigenous education factor. Anyhoo, this includes:
  
  -Wears a ring on his middle right finger ???bbq?????
  -Likes art stuff
  -Dresses well
  -Holds a conversation
  -Can keep it in his pants around her (they're coworkers but ok)
  
  Zero of the several other men she thinks are gay (and there's a cringe sentence about gaydar, plus some sus throwaways about lesbians in Canberra), are. This is neeeeeever handled. There are no actual gay characters. In NYC. Or Lesberra. Explains a lot. Meanwhile a whole-ass paragraph about sperm donors and gay families - because one of these dudes HAS A KID. Much wasted ink on Liking Art. And laydiezz be shopping. And yeah, it's set in 08 so Obama gets elected THEN they later go drinking at Trump Tower (ah, if we only knew), but that is just the times, like the MySpace, and the Adam as a character existing at all. The blatant, overarching, homophobia, though. Woof. I hope to hell Heiss has evolved. Trying a more recent book next.
• 
  Louise ♡✨✿

  4.25⭐
  Love seeing a romance by an Australian First Nations author - SO hard to find! Can't wait to read more Anita Heiss and hopefully one day soon a plethora of romances by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors are available.
  
  This story follows Lauren, a proud Wiradjuri wow woman and working as a top art curator for the National Aboriginal Gallery in Canberra. She is also hopelessly in love with a professional rugby league player, Adam. She knows he is the one, but every other weekend paper there is a picture of another girl (or two) on his arm.
  
  Then her boss offers her a chance of a lifetime - a fellowship in New York at the Smithsonian. Lauren is torn, can she leave her friends, her family, her country... Adam? Follow Lauren as she makes her choice and her whirlwind romances along the way.
  
  I believe the lower rating was due to three factors: the amount of references to the 2010s when it was written, I liked to think of it as a "historical" romance so I wasn't put off by references to MySpace etc; the ending was a little rushed - could have gone on for one more chapter but that style was popular when it was written; Lauren can be slightly insufferable as it takes her a long time to get over an ex - but I liked that it made her human.
  
  There were parts of this book that were a 3 and parts that were a 5, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the audiobook narrators take. I need to buy a physical copy so I can lend it to all my romance loving friends.
  
  P.s. the ending rounds off a bit in the second book in the same universe - Paris Dreaming which gives a glimpse into the future Lauren's of romance
• 
  Serene Conneeley

  This was a sweet, fun, light-hearted read, with some laugh-out-loud moments, and depth as well. It’s a love letter to art, to artists, and to First Nations creatives worldwide, as well as to Canberra, Goulburn and New York, and to friendship, and discovering what you want in a relationship by going through what you *don’t*…
  I started reading the paperback, bought when I saw Anita speak at the Sydney Writers Festival earlier this year, but switched to audiobook cos that’s the only way I’ve been managing to squeeze in much reading of late. And it’s narrated by my fave narrator, Tamala Shelton, which was a joy (and a stretch - lots of American accents, and several male voices too)… Just DON’T listen to the sample of the Paris Dreaming audiobook, the other in the series, as it has the BIGGEST spoiler for this book in the first minute 😭 It was the ending I’d hoped for, I just really wish I hadn’t known beforehand…
  
• 
  Melissa Woods

  Well, what a way be introduced to Anita Heiss writing. This is the first book I’ve read, and it didn’t disappoint.
  
  Lauren, who is a First Nations person, has an amazing job in the arts. She also has great friends and she believes she has a great partner in life in Adam.
  
  But after disappoints by Adam, where Lauren feels she isn’t good enough, her boss offers a chance of a lifetime to go to New York and work.
  
  Lauren fits in well with others expats and begins her job and new life. She is happy to inform newcomers of her circle about her life and the diversity of the Indigenous people of Australia and their mobs.
  
  No matter how she many times she decides on no relationships, she still falls a man. However, things don’t always go to plan.
  
  A fabulous story of how family, friends, beliefs and interests can all be in twined into life no matter the place you go.
  
  Thanks to #NetGalley for an early review of this book.