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michellebookaddict's review against another edition
3.0
Liked this one more than the book Sex and the City.
toopunkrawk's review against another edition
5.0
Oh come on now, this is probably Candice Bushnell's best book. I loved every second of it.
readinginthegarden's review against another edition
2.0
I actually remember reading this years ago and going through the worst rated titles on goodreads the awful book springs back to my mind. I love sex in the city or sex and the city whatever universe your from, so I gave this a go. I picked it up in a charity shop so many years ago because of the author and it was just terrible, I mean I was really young but still I was young enough the realise how self absorbed these characters are and how dull this book was as well. Generally awful and so much body shaming and really bad ideals which could really harm a reader. It’s just trash.
shirisandler's review against another edition
1.0
See above. This book made me begin to hate Sex and the City. And I'm actually kind of embarrassed to have read it.
sunshine89's review against another edition
1.0
I didn't finish this book, which I can only say of two books.
kstadt110's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
perforatedpaige's review against another edition
3.0
Janey is selfish, but she is far from simple. Her mother is a French bitch and at some point, in Trading Up, the story goes into how she's more fucked up than we thought, that she was on a yacht with this Arab guy that basically paid her to have sex. I mean, hello? You have to be pretty damaged to be so detached, so divorced from yourself and whoever you used to be that you are actually okay with meaningless sex and getting paid for it. Janey has issues, a lot of them, and yes, as I said, she is selfish, but all of Bushnell's characters are complex, even if not directly. In this book, Janey tries to convince herself that she doesn't need a guy to live the life she wants (a glamorous one, with a house in the Hamptons in the summer) and she almost convinces herself that she is independent because she's going places, writing a script for some douche bag who pays for a summer house for her. She almost fools herself into thinking that she's something, that she has love, but then he shows up with his wife and Janey goes back to being the Janey that we got to know at first--she doesn't really show any emotion, she recedes into her selfish behaviors and fools herself into thinking that she might do something--anything--someday and be famous, rich. fabulous.
The second story is also complex. Winnie is a type A character and marries a man because she wants everything to be perfect in her life. And when he doesn't seem perfect, she can't handle it and he can't handle being criticized and at the end, he has sex with some chick that works with his wife and Winnie sleeps with a movie star, Tanner, because it's freeing. James thinks Winnie is joking when he tells her, probably because it's so out of character for her to do that and he's too much of a pussy to tell her that he fooled around with that other girl. So their relationship frailly goes on existing because neither one of them knows how to properly communicate with one another and it's just really sad. In the end, though, Winnie actually says something nice to James, about his work and it's like sleeping with other people might have actually fixed (or helped) their fucked up life. It's a story about types of people and control/power in relationships, which, any reader with sense could see is a very delicate thing to write about (well) and that the characters aren't boring at all. Maybe these people picked up this book expecting erotica on every other page and were sad to see that this book is both about love and about how love isn't enough or fades or can be really, really shitty at times.
The third story was really interesting, about a girl who becomes a princess after marrying some prince guy. Meaning that she has to deal with the media hounding her and in the beginning, she is horribly depressed. And can't leave the house, can't do anything because of how things are, how her life is. And her husband is bleakly absent. He keeps his emotions concealed and she is learning just how hard it is to be married to someone in the public eye. I think there's a lot more to this story than it at first seems and it was actually very interesting to read because she suffers from insane paranoia and possibly killed someone (and is friends with a complete psycho lady, but that character is a nice foil to help Cecelia (the princess) get over some of her issues).
The last story was decent, but not great. It was piece-y and felt like Bushnell was just throwing in old "Sex and the City" material because she had some extra lying around. It was sort of lame for that reason, but the ending was pretty great. She leaves England, sad that she has to leave a man behind who has just told her that he loves her. She thinks that the sensible thing to do is to go back to New York without him, leaving him behind, possibly missing her chance at a marriage, at love, etc.
The last bit that really was good in the book was this bit:
God, I was so fickle. I'd left Rory only two hours ago, and already I was thinking about another man.
What was it I wanted?
The story.
I wanted the story. I wanted the big, great, inspiring story about an unmarried career woman who goes to London on assignment and meets the man of her dreams and marries him. She gets the big ring and the big house and the adorable children, and she lives happily ever after. But stories are not reality, no matter how much we might wish them so.
And that's not so bad.
And then, because it would be too bad ass to end the book on that note, Bushnell has this character meet the love of her life on the flight back home. I was actually getting kind of excited about how it might end with an unmarried, single woman at the end, but oh, well. I'm glad there was that point of clarity sticking through at the end, though. I almost felt okay not ever getting married or whatever.
I think the best thing that can be taken away from reading Bushnell is that she is, in fact, trying to honestly chronicle how shitty it feels to run around looking for love, looking for sex, looking for a non-jerk and having that ever-persistent feeling, that, in the end, you might not have your best friend waking up next to you every morning. She does a very good job at looking at women, at society and talking candidly about what's going on. I agree with the aforementioned comment about Bushnell being the twenty-first century's Jane Austen and I applaud her for at least TRYING to be honest and not just writing cheesy bodice-ripping stories that ladies read to get off on love and sex or whatever. I like reading real stuff because people aren't characters and at least Bushnell is paying dues to the fact that people (and relationships, love, etc) are complicated and not easily unwound in a happy-go-lucky type of book where the girl just falls in love (like we knew she would and expected she would).
The second story is also complex. Winnie is a type A character and marries a man because she wants everything to be perfect in her life. And when he doesn't seem perfect, she can't handle it and he can't handle being criticized and at the end, he has sex with some chick that works with his wife and Winnie sleeps with a movie star, Tanner, because it's freeing. James thinks Winnie is joking when he tells her, probably because it's so out of character for her to do that and he's too much of a pussy to tell her that he fooled around with that other girl. So their relationship frailly goes on existing because neither one of them knows how to properly communicate with one another and it's just really sad. In the end, though, Winnie actually says something nice to James, about his work and it's like sleeping with other people might have actually fixed (or helped) their fucked up life. It's a story about types of people and control/power in relationships, which, any reader with sense could see is a very delicate thing to write about (well) and that the characters aren't boring at all. Maybe these people picked up this book expecting erotica on every other page and were sad to see that this book is both about love and about how love isn't enough or fades or can be really, really shitty at times.
The third story was really interesting, about a girl who becomes a princess after marrying some prince guy. Meaning that she has to deal with the media hounding her and in the beginning, she is horribly depressed. And can't leave the house, can't do anything because of how things are, how her life is. And her husband is bleakly absent. He keeps his emotions concealed and she is learning just how hard it is to be married to someone in the public eye. I think there's a lot more to this story than it at first seems and it was actually very interesting to read because she suffers from insane paranoia and possibly killed someone (and is friends with a complete psycho lady, but that character is a nice foil to help Cecelia (the princess) get over some of her issues).
The last story was decent, but not great. It was piece-y and felt like Bushnell was just throwing in old "Sex and the City" material because she had some extra lying around. It was sort of lame for that reason, but the ending was pretty great. She leaves England, sad that she has to leave a man behind who has just told her that he loves her. She thinks that the sensible thing to do is to go back to New York without him, leaving him behind, possibly missing her chance at a marriage, at love, etc.
The last bit that really was good in the book was this bit:
God, I was so fickle. I'd left Rory only two hours ago, and already I was thinking about another man.
What was it I wanted?
The story.
I wanted the story. I wanted the big, great, inspiring story about an unmarried career woman who goes to London on assignment and meets the man of her dreams and marries him. She gets the big ring and the big house and the adorable children, and she lives happily ever after. But stories are not reality, no matter how much we might wish them so.
And that's not so bad.
And then, because it would be too bad ass to end the book on that note, Bushnell has this character meet the love of her life on the flight back home. I was actually getting kind of excited about how it might end with an unmarried, single woman at the end, but oh, well. I'm glad there was that point of clarity sticking through at the end, though. I almost felt okay not ever getting married or whatever.
I think the best thing that can be taken away from reading Bushnell is that she is, in fact, trying to honestly chronicle how shitty it feels to run around looking for love, looking for sex, looking for a non-jerk and having that ever-persistent feeling, that, in the end, you might not have your best friend waking up next to you every morning. She does a very good job at looking at women, at society and talking candidly about what's going on. I agree with the aforementioned comment about Bushnell being the twenty-first century's Jane Austen and I applaud her for at least TRYING to be honest and not just writing cheesy bodice-ripping stories that ladies read to get off on love and sex or whatever. I like reading real stuff because people aren't characters and at least Bushnell is paying dues to the fact that people (and relationships, love, etc) are complicated and not easily unwound in a happy-go-lucky type of book where the girl just falls in love (like we knew she would and expected she would).
kylemarie's review against another edition
1.0
I can honestly say that I despised every character in this book, possibly aside from the writer, but her story was so short it was hard to tell. I know this is just chick lit, but it is poorly written chick lit. A character should be someone we are interested in, whether we care about them or hate them, we WANT to know what will happen to them. Maybe it’s even someone we relate to. Either way, we have a vested interest. I had none of that with this book. There were also times that I became frustrated with Bushnell’s writing style. The conversations were often clunky or awkward, and during Winnie and James’ section, every other sentence was a parenthesized remark (kind of like how my paragraph about them went).
My full, detailed review: https://kylethebibliophile.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/review-4-blondes/
My full, detailed review: https://kylethebibliophile.wordpress.com/2011/08/21/review-4-blondes/
cassiekel104's review against another edition
1.0
Personally this book wasnt to my taste. It bored me to tears, I had to force my way through it. I have not read sex and the city by the same author yet, although I enjoyed the tv series and movie. I think that may be why I was so dissapointed. I was hoping for the same wit and humor but instead it was crass and debauched.