I am a long time fan of Sex and the City. I used to stay home from school and watch it for hours (okay I finally admitted where I was to all of my high school teachers!). And I've always seen myself as a Carrie so when I saw that Candace Bushnell had written a book about Carrie before Sex and the City (i.e. high school Carrie Bradshaw) I knew it would be the perfect summer book for me. I have never actually read Sex and the City or any other books by Candace Bushnell, so The Carrie Diaries was actually my first taste of her writing style. I'll be honest, I've read better, but it certainly wasn't the worst writing I've ever read. So now, to answer the question everyone wants to hear, what was Carrie Bradshaw like in high school?
The book picks up right at the beginning of Carrie's senior year. She's from a small town and lives with her two younger sisters and her dad. Her mom has sadly died* and her sister Dorrit is having some serious issues with coping. She has begun to steal, dye her hair, and basically cause quite a ruckus in the Bradshaw house. Carrie has her own problems to deal with. She didn't get into the summer writing program at the New School and while she was busy working on that all summer it seems that all of her friends have started having sex, including her smart, quiet best friend The Mouse. Carrie goes into panic mode, and that is when the new kid comes to town. His name is Sebastian Kydd and he is all kinds of trouble, which of course means every girl in school wants him. Carrie knows she does not want him though, because they met once as little kids and he didn't find her uber feminist comments amusing. At least, she's pretty sure she doesn't want him.
Carrie's dad is an extremely intelligent man who wants nothing more than his daughter to go to Brown. Carrie is, well, alright with this and when they visit the school Carrie meets the older (and personally I think more awesome) George. George is a student at Brown who has taken a wild interest in Carrie, but Carrie (true to form- I'm an Aiden fan) has zero interest in him because she is blinded by Sebastian. So this is how Carrie's senior year is shaping up. And as senior years go, it sounds about right.
I really had no quibbles with this book. The writing was what I expected, although not great. Carrie's character made sense as the younger version of Carrie Bradshaw. There were several storylines and they were mostly finished by the end of the book. Basically this was a fairly mindless, brainless book that was perfect to start my summer off with. I would suggest it to any Carrie Bradshaw fan. This book earned a C.
*Anyone who has watched the show as religiously as I have knows this is not the case on the show, because on the show she has a deadbeat dad. That's not to say that Bushnell's image of Carrie Bradshaw (which I understand is an alternative name for herself) is not less important than the interpretation of her in the show, but it's something I couldn't help but notice.
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