Lost in Manhattan

Littrell’s witty if scattered debut chronicles a 24-year-old woman’s move at the end of the millennium from Los Angeles to New York City, where she’s never been, and her attempt to start a life there. After Eve Foster loses her job and gets into a car accident with her boyfriend Pavlos, who lives in New York, he distances himself and reneges on his offer to let Eve stay with him, but she flies there anyway. Luckily, his brother swoops in and lets Eve crash with him and his girlfriend. As if this were a movie’s fantastical version of Manhattan, Eve manages to score a reasonably priced apartment in a doorman building, meets older men who are instantly enamored with her and do things like whisk her off to the Hamptons, and gets a gig as a personal assistant to a high-maintenance designer. She also reconnects with Jake, a handsome guy she knew in college. Littrell is a stand-up comedian, and there are plenty of acidic one-liners (at the airport terminal in Newark, she observes “huddles of ‘loved ones,’ all pathetic with their homecoming tears and welcome signs”), but she has less of a handle on plot and character development. For those hooked on the well-worn coming-to-N.Y.C. genre, this offers a breezy, easy fix. (Self-published)