Customer Reviews

Sex and the City

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(37)

 

 

Look. Seriously, now. If you like the show or the book even a little bit, you realllllly need to investigate books by Cynthia Heimel. Heimel was the original and she remains the best. She's smarter and funnier and a thousand times more interesting than Candace Bushnell or Carrie Bradshaw. Heimel is a little grittier than SATC. She's weak for shoes and designer clothes but she lives strictly in the real world. Please, please PLEASE read "Sex Tip For Girls" or "But Enough About You" or "If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet" if you want to see what Candace Bushnell is DESPERATELY TRYING to do! Try Heimel once. You'll never read Bushnell again. You're welcome!

Articles made short & sweet (or sour), quirky interest every week written by a columnist for the New York Observer. These in turn were collected & became a book sold in the women's cultural study, non-fiction section of the bookstore. One can see where the characters for the TV show were created but Sex & the City is not a novel, no thought out flowing plot, only the weekly articles Bushnell created for the amusement of New Yorkers about the how the other half lives. It's not that raunchy, not that pretty, it's pretty sad actually (for the people she writes about). The style is that of a columnist not a novelist, so don't expect the TV show only the basic elements for the show lie hidden within...

What a letdown this book turned out to be! It bears almost no resemblance to the TV series which I love so much. The writing is rambling and confusing, and the characters are very shallow and superficial--totally lacking in warmth, humanity, and credibility. The script writers were geniuses to make the TV series as good as it was, since Candace Bushnell gave them so little material to work with. Putting SJP on the cover as Carrie is deceptive advertising as far as I'm concerned.

Articles made short & sweet (or sour), quirky interest every week written by a columnist for the New York Observer. These in turn were collected & became a book sold in the women's cultural study, non-fiction section of the bookstore. One can see where the characters for the TV show were created but Sex & the City is not a novel, no thought out flowing plot, only the weekly articles Bushnell created for the amusement of New Yorkers about the how the other half lives. It's not that raunchy, not that pretty, it's pretty sad actually (for the people she writes about). The style is that of a columnist not a novelist, so don't expect the TV show only the basic elements for the show lie hidden within…

Despite the several warnings in reviews here about confusing the book with the HBO series, it's easy to confuse the two. After all, the typeface and star of the series is featured on the book's cover. Be aware, though, that the book is nothing like the series. The tone, like Bushnell's other fiction, is bitter and empty. The female characters have shallow lives--they are desperate to get or keep their looks, status, or money by any means possible. The friendships which are fundamental to the series are not part of this world. The male characters are no more interesting or realistic. Bushnell can write, but her characters are unrecognizable to me (thank God!) and her cynical point of view makes you feel sorry for her rather than feeling a connection.

Alright, so I love the series. I thought, hey the book should be awesome. I understand the book came out first, but I don't know how the show was "based on the book by Candace Bushnell" because it's not really. There are some stories similar.. Big calls her "Kid", but her friends are different, the characters are not the same at all, they don't even do the same things. Carrie is "some journalist". It was hard to read beacause there were so many names to remember, so many stories that weren't related, then it jumped to real life, past, present... everything. I got through half the book and i'm debating whether to continue. So far, it's awful. Stick to the show! Find a differeny author to get life and love advice from.

Not at all as witty, interesting or entertaining as the TV show. One of the few exceptions where the book actually isn't better.

This book lacks structure, and often makes no sense at all.
I love sex and the city, so clearly I had to read the book, I was disappointed.
I have read another book by Bushnell, and she really isn't all that good of a writer.
Sad.

With LoveXX

Bushnell has been hyped as "Edith Wharton with a Martini". If anyone actually believes this, then I am horrified at how low American literature has sunk. She's not even Jacqueline Suzann or Jackie Collins. These little vignettes are superficial, dull, and neither particularly intelligent nor particularly witty. Other reviewers are correct when they point out that the series was much smarter and funnier (at least, the first three seasons, anyway). It amazes me that this crap ever got published, and now Bushnell fancies herself a clever writer, so she has begun foisting other bombs on us as well (Trading Up and Four Blondes, both as dull and unimaginative as Sex and the City). She is an amateurish writer with painfully sophomoric "insights" who has benefitted from the hype of a great show based very loosely on her column (and I mean VERY loosely). As someone who lives in NYC, I can tell you that the people Bushnell reveres as the power players and "in" crowd are the (...) of many a joke in other social circles. Not everyone in this city worships superficiality and eternal adolescence. Don't waste your money!!

Being an avid fan of the series, I decided I had to have the book. What a disappointment. The characters are not even remotely similar to the series and all the witty reparatee is nowhere to be found. When I felt as though I couldn't read another word, I would think to myself, "go on, turn the page, you paid for this book...it's got to get better." It didn't and I took it in the short$$$. This was by far the worst book I've ever bought.