Book Review: The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell

The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Publish Date: April 27, 2010

Hardcover, 400 pages

My Review:
Okay, I am going to confess that I have never read Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell, but I have watched the first two seasons of the show.  Having said that, I'm not sure how Carrie really is in the books, but I know I felt that Carrie was very Carrie from the show in The Carrie Diaries, just a younger version.  She is just a fashion conscious, quirky, average high schooler.  I loved the look at her senior year that this book covers and I look forward to further installments in this series.

In this book Carrie is like most middle-of-the-road high school students.  She's smart and funny, has good friends, but she's not in the top clique at school nor does she want to be.  She wants to be true to herself and she wants to have a boyfriend.  I felt like she learned some things about herself in this book, but some of the things were tough to learn.  The book felt very realistic in covering teen issues and was a lot of fun to see the 80s in a young adult book instead of current times.  Maybe that is why I felt I could relate so well.  But I don't think that factor will turn off young adults from reading this book either because the issues covered are typical for teenagers in any generation.  Reading about Carrie just makes it fun.

It was fun to picture a younger Sarah Jessica Parker while I read this book and I could totally see her as this character.  Ms. Bushnell does a great job developing a younger Carrie and showing how things that happen in her high school life will shape her as she grows older.

It moves along quickly and is a highly entertaining read.  I wanted to kick Carrie sometimes, but in the end she comes through, she just has to learn some lessons.  So if you are a Sex and the City fan I think this is a must-read.  If you are not, I think this is a great introduction to Carrie Bradshaw.  All-in-all, this is a highly entertaining book that I read over two days while working out and even people talking loudly near me could not break my concentration while reading this book.  I can't wait for more of younger Carrie.

My Rating:  4.25/5.0

About the Book:
Before Carrie Bradshaw hit the big time in the City, she was a regular girl growing up in the suburbs of Connecticut. How did she turn into one of the most-read social observers of our generation?

The Carrie Diaries opens up in Carrie's senior year of high school. She and her best friends -- Walt, Lali, Maggie, and the Mouse -- are inseparable, amid the sea of Jens, Jocks and Jets. And then Sebastian Kydd comes into the picture. Sebastian is a bad boy-older, intriguing, and unpredictable. Carrie falls into the relationship that she was always supposed to have in high school-until a friend's betrayal makes her question everything. With her high school days coming to a close, Carrie will realize it's finally time to go after everything she ever wanted.

Rabid fans of Sex and the City will love seeing Carrie Bradshaw evolve from a regular girl into a sharp, insightful writer. They'll learn about her family background -- how she found her writing voice, and the indelible impression her early friendships and relationships left on her. We'll see what brings Carrie to her beloved New York City, where the next Carrie Diaries book will take place.

About the Author (from Goodreads.com):
Candace Bushnell is the critically acclaimed, international best-selling novelist whose first book, Sex and the City, was the basis for the HBO hit series and subsequent blockbuster movie. Her fourth novel, Lipstick Jungle became a popular television series on NBC. Bushnell’s novels include Four Blondes (2000), Trading Up (2003), Lipstick Jungle (2005), and her most recent bestseller, One Fifth Avenue (2008). 

Bushnell grew up in Glastonbury, Ct, and moved to New York City at age 19. She attended Rice University and New York University, and began her professional career at 19 when she wrote a children’s book for Simon & Schuster. 

Throughout her twenties, Bushnell developed her trademark style as a freelancer, writing darkly humorous pieces about women, relationships and dating for Mademoiselle, Self Magazine, and Esquire. In 1990, she wrote a column that would become a precursor for Sex and the City, called "The Human Cartoon", a fictional serial published in Hamptons Magazine. She began writing for the New York Observer in 1993; in November of 1994 she created the column Sex and the City, which ran in the New York Observer for two years. The column was bought as a book in 1995, and sold to HBO as a series in 1996. 

Recently, she hosted a radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio, called Sex, Success, and Sensibility, which aired from October 2006 to October 2008. She is currently at work on two young adult novels, The Carrie Diaries, which will explore the life of Carrie Bradshaw during in her teenage years in New York. 

Through her books and television series, Bushnell’s work has influenced and defined two generations of women. She is the winner of the 2006 Matrix Award for books (other winners include Joan Didion and Amy Tan), and a recipient of the Albert Einstein Spirit of Achievement Award. She currently resides in Manhattan

FTC Information: I checked this book out from my wonderful local library for my reading pleasure.  I have Amazon links on my review pages but I do not make any money from these because of NC laws.  I put them solely for people to check out the books on a retail site.