Sex & the City

Rating:
Summary: Shallow characters, empty writing, tenuous plot
Review: I found this to be one of the silliest, most frivolous, and depressing books on life in Manhattan. The vignettes are disheartening, the characters are shallow on the surface (I shall not comment on their deeper reasons for being), the writing is haphazard and unconnected, and when a plot finally emerges it barely has the legs to make it to the book's welcome ending. Its clear that Ms. Bushnell is satirizing the book's main women characters. However, she would have done well to let us learn more about each one rather than the snippets of random conversation sprinkled throughout. The only character readers really get to know is Carrie (Ms. Bushnell's alter-ego?) who at times releases independent thoughts and glimmers of feeling. Mostly, however, Carrie just leads us on, tempting us that she will show some real emotion or tell us exactly what she's thinking. Unfortunately, she does not. With all Manhattan has to offer in terms of its people and possibilities, Ms. Bushnell has decided to focus on a loud but insignificant, dysfunctional, and minute slice of this great city.

Rating:
Summary: Edith Wharton in spike heels!
Review: Hubba, hubba, hubba!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Required reading for 30-something women looking for love
Review: Sex in the City is a marvelous tale of the urban search for lust and love. For all of us who have loved and been left, it's a satisfying story that examines that unhappy terrain, but ultimately ends on a hopeful, if not entirely optimistic, note.

Rating:
Summary: The only book to tell the truth about love in Manhattan.
Review: I am honored to be Candace Bushnell's editor and this book is a mere sliver of the treasures packed into her size 4 dress.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining yet dismal view of Manhattan mating rituals
Review: Funny, yes. Optomistic, no. Bushnell writes an entertaining editorial style narrative of her so-called friends but underneath it all I felt sorry for her; not what she intended, I'm sure. Manhattan is chic but is the misery of living there worth it? Ultimately, I felt relief that NYC was a city I adore visiting and not living. Good voyeuristic read at best.

Rating:
Summary: A "Sex" book without the sex! The 90's way!
Review: The primary attraction of this book is that the author looks quite foxy in the various publicity photos of her that her publicity agent has placed in the usual intellectual journals, such as Entertainment and People magazine. This book, advertised as a chronicle of the "mating habits of our cultural elite" involves precious little mating, and lots of hanging out at the Bowery Bar, looking fetching, and chatting with one's girlfriends and boyfriends about rich, beautiful and famously fatuous New Yorkers. In the main event, the aging bachelors and bachelorettes of NYC square off in a tag-team donnybrook of dating and mating, but the next morning when they wake up and look at their bed partners, the mutual attraction is tenuous at best

Rating:
Summary: I loved writing and researching this book.
Review: One word: titalating

Rating:
Summary: Edith Wharton with a martini my (...)
Review: 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!!

Rating:
Summary: THERE IS SOMETHING BETTER!
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: shafted
Review: Once again, I felt seemingly let down, not neccesarily by the book.. or the series.. but by both. I love the series.. I started watching the first season when I was 11 years old, with my dad. I watched it every Sunday, and when it came on again Monday. Now I'm watching it on TBS. I couldn't believe how long it took me to get around to reading the book, but I did, and I was suprised at the amount of differences. If you loved the series as much as I did, then I would only recommend the book if you wont feel shafted by all of the differences. The story is told from a different character other than Carrie, and it not only focuses on the lives of the 4 women, but lives of women in New York in general. The character's descriptions and personalities are almost completely different, and one of the only recognizable points between the book at series is the subject matter, sarcasm, wit, and intelligence. It was a quick read, and enjoyable just different, so if you have an open mind then I'd say you could go all for it.