Rating: 
Summary: Boring!
Review: I was very disappointed in this book. There was little to no plot. The main character, Janey, was unlikeable. I just wanted her to shut up and go away. A waste of time!
Rating: 
Summary: unbelievably bad
Review: This book is bad in every way possible. Story, characters, beginning, ending. Just a total waste of time and money. I wouldn't recommend this book to my worst enemy. I cannot recall being this disappointed by any other recent book I have read in the past few years. Don't be tempted. I promise you will regret your investment.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun!!
Review: I loved this book. Sure it was shallow and no great work of literature, but if you are at the airport and looking for some form of escape, this is the book for you. If you're a good looking woman who has ever used your looks to get something--this book will send a chill down your spine when you see yourself in the main character.
Rating: 
Summary: I liked it. So sue me.
Review: I thought what the author did was pretty genius. She took a completely unlikeable heroine, and had you rooting for her by the end. IT was very Bell Jar, in the sense that this heroine is "not all there" but it was a fun read, and a sick look at a society where the men are rated on their bank accounts, and women by their looks. How American can you get?
Rating:
Summary: Men are from Mars, Janey is from Alpha Centauri . . .
Review: This is the first of Bushnell's books I've read, . . . which is perhaps just as well, considering the maelstrom of divergent opinions her work seems to stir up. New York is a strange world, and life there is as alien as on Saturn sometimes -- even to most of the city's inhabitants. After more than a decade of impecunious struggling to establish herself as an actress/model (indeed, as anything she can make a living at while making the splash in society she thinks is her due), the stunningly gorgeous Janey Wilcox finally has landed a contract with Victoria's Secret. Suddenly, New York is her oyster, she has some money, she has influential and wealthy friends, she's being pursued by middle-aged men with serious money. She has problems, though, like her habit of interpreting the world in a self-reassuring way, and assuming sycophants (or those who want her body) are telling her the truth and not handing her a line. The plot -- which follows Janey's progression into and through a mistake-marriage and her side adventures along the way -- is too complicated to try to detail here. But I will say that Bushnell is devastating in depicting the way the Fifth Avenue/Park Avenue Axis works and the sort of assertively self-centered people who inhabit it. The thing is, however dislikable they often might be, the characters she creates are not simple caricatures. They have reasons for being the way they are and behaving the way they do, the result of which generally is that they are both more understandable and more believable, even to those of us who will never approach within a light-year of the circles in which they move.
Rating:
Summary: Is there a plot to this book?????
Review: I was VERY disapointed by this book. I could not even finish it. I didn't care about the character or her sad stupid story.
Shame on me for reading as much as I did.
Rating:
Summary: Waste of Money
Review: Don't waste your money. This book has no worth. The characters have no redeeming qualities. The writing is poor (actually it's high schoolish). I can't believe the names she came up with for her characters (Dodo, Zizi... give me a break!)
Rating:
Summary: A window to the stupidities of the rich and powerful
Review: A well written book about unpleasant characters.
We find no safe haven in loyalty, kindness and honesty in Trading Up, nor do we meet any decent women. Bushnell describes a world of raw bitterness, revenge, avarice and spite. I would have liked to see Selden Rose build some backbone, take Janey by the neck and squeeze. By the time one comes to the last page, one feels both envious and morally superior! Not a very pleasant feeling! Gisela Gasper Fitzgerald, author of ADOPTION: An Open, Semi-Open or Closed Practice?
Rating:
Summary: Shallow but Good
Review: If you like the shallowness of TV's Sex in the City, the books Bright Lights Big City and My Fractured Life, and any of the Julia Roberts or Cameron Diaz movies you'll love this book.
Rating:
Summary: Shallow book about shallow characters.
Review: SLOW, uninteresting writing about people that are impossible to care about. If this is really NYC Wanna Be High Society...they can have it, just don't make us read it. WOULD NOT RECOMMEND.
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