If you’ve seen the hit HBO series or any of the movies, this is the book that started it all.
“Enter a world where the sometimes shocking and often hilarious mating habits of the privileged are exposed by a true insider. In essays drawn from her witty and sometimes brutally candid column in the New York Observer, Candace Bushnell introduces us to the young and beautiful who travel in packs from parties to bars to clubs. Meet “Carrie,” the quintessential young writer looking for love in all the wrong places…”Mr. Big,” the business tycoon who drifts from one relationship to another…”Samantha Jones,” the fortyish, successful, “testosterone woman” who uses sex like a man…not to mention “Psycho Moms,” “Bicycle Boys,” “International Crazy Girls,” and the rest of the New Yorkers who have inspired one of the most watched TV series of our time.”
By the description of this book, you’d expect to see some of the stories that are shown in the TV show in the book. However, this book fell short of every expectation I had for it.
The book focuses on the characters in the show, but portrays these women as social climbing, non-intelligent women. Bushnell is wrapped up in herself on a level I have rarely seen. There was basically no plot or anything exciting for me to even finish the book, but my love for the show. I don’t know how the writers for show pulled it off, but I’m glad that brought a new life to the characters and made them women. If I were to have read the book before I heard of the show, without a doubt I would have never watched the show. The book isn’t even semi-cute to read like other chic-lit books are. Everything about the book was awful. The characters, writing, plot, everything.
The women in the book go out every night to be seen, take the latest drugs and try to be “somebodies.” There is a vast difference between the depth in the show and the depth in the series, like a kiddie pool compared to an ocean. In the show, there is growth and a realistic perception of different levels of success for women. Obviously not everyone will have glamorous lives like Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha, but the writers of the show bring a certain wit, charm and entertainment that Bushnell could never have thought about bringing in to this book.
I also liked how the show dealt with the Carrie and Big relationship. In the book, Carrie is psychotic in an un-relatable and unrealistic way. In the show it shows the progress of how she gets over him — or not, depending on how you look at it. The ending of the book has a very different ending than in the show. I’m not sure which ending I like better because one I wanted to happen and the other is more realistic. There’s also a certain character in the book who has a lesbian scene that didn’t make it onto the show.
All in all, my love for the show can’t let me give this book a good review. Don’t waste your time with this book, just watch the series instead. You’re not missing out on anything that comes from the novel. I give it one out of five stars.
