I was surprised when I learned the author was a young woman as the book seemed to have been written by someone who was older and bitter.
I almost didn't make it through the first four chapters, but the book started hitting its stride about the fifth. I generally enjoy books of reflection on life but this character was in her predicament if you will because of her own vanity. The book tries to be a love letter to New York neighborhoods as well as the changes in this woman's life as perceptions of what a woman's place in life has become.

It's as though without R. H. Macy's and never the less formal Macy's, Lillian has lost her identity as have the neighborhoods she walks New Years Eve. Using the walk of the city to go over her life events could have been bittersweet but I found that Lillian was just bitter.