Rating: 
Summary: Fun, Probably Would Have Been Better on the Beach
Review: My wife, who has read Sex and the City and Four Blondes, and I (who have not, but have seen some episodes of the Sex and the City TV show) read this book out loud together. Trading Up seems to be made for this. It is plot driven and not particularly written at a high grade level, so it is easy to follow when you're not doing the reading.Janey is a Victoria's Secret model, a repeat character from Four Blondes. She now has money and status enough to befriend a true New York socialite named Mimi. But Janey wants more. She wants to be taken seriously as something more than a model, she wants true love, she wants to secure her status, and she wants to escape her past, which is vaguely described as less-than-savory at the beginning. Janey falls in love (or at least lust) at first sight with a foreign polo player named Zizi, who seems attracted to her, but does not start up a relationship with her. Troubles ensue with Zizi, her husband who she marries on a whim because she convinces herself that she loves a movie producer who is madly in love (or at least lust) with her, and her past. The book jacket blurb compares Bushnell's writing in this book to Edith Wharton or Jane Austen. While the plot is owes much to Wharton and Austen, something Bushnell does without making it seem pretentious, of course the writing cannot match these great authors or even many of the medium ones to follow. Still, the book is fun and easy to read. I recommend this book as light reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Fun!
Review: Trading Up tells the story of Janey Wilcox, an ambitious blonde who has finally made her mark on the fashion industry by becoming a Victoria's Secret model. Now that she's semi-famous, she thinks she can leave behind the world of sleeping with rich men to get ahead, but her reputation precedes her and she still doesn't get the respect she thinks she deserves. Not about to give up, Janey finds herself a high-class best friend and decides to marry a rich older man who just happens to be an executive at a movie company. But Janey still isn't satisfied...she'll do anything it takes, including stabbing her 'friends' in the back and lying to her husband, to get what she wants.
Despite these flaws, Trading Up is still a fun, raunchy book that makes you happy you're not rich and famous (and really, doesn't there need to be more things out there that make you glad you're not rich and famous?) Even if you've never read any Jackie Collins books or watched Sex and the City, you should give Trading Up a read. After reading about the despicable Janey Wilcox, you'll feel better about yourself if nothing else. I purchased this book through Amazon.com right after another great purchase, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez, about an unlucky writer addicted to the personals. Both are fun, recommended books. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Let's raise the bar of women's fiction
Review: 1 star to counteract the 2 obvious promotional online reviews at the very beginning, no doubt written by the book's publishing/editorial staff.
Rating:
Summary: I loved it despite its flaws
Review: I think that Trading Up is a great additional to the chick-lit genre. It's a nice change of pace to read one in which the main character is a glamourous model instead of ordinary and always trying to lose weight. This is different from other chick-lit books in that the average reader will most likely not be able to relate to the characters or setting in the book at all, and she certainly won't LIKE them. You will NOT like Janey Wilcox, and you will not wish that she was your best friend. Despite her looks and fame, you will actually feel sorry for her and the other characters in this book because they're completely miserable, rather vile people. A college professor of a writing course told me once to never tell your story through the eyes of a character who is delusional, because it's extremely hard to make it work. I think that Bushnell partly pulled it off. At times I wasn't sure what I was supposed to believe. In some cases (the first one that comes to mind is one of the scenarios when Bushnell is first describing how Janey believes that Zizi is interested in her) I didn't know what to believe--that Janey is correct and Zizi is really interested in her, or that Janey is simply being her usual ego-centric self and Zizi couldn't care less about her. As the story continues, and I began to realize more and more how distorted Janey's perception was, it became easier for me to understand what Bushnell was doing. The other critiques I have about this book are that is that I found it to be occasionally melodramatic and the dialogue to be a little soap-operaish (the same reasons I can't stand romance novels). Despite that, this is the most page-turning book I've read in a long time, and every day I stayed up until the early hours of the morning to read just a little more. It's juicy, scandalous and exciting, and I felt like I really was getting an insider's view into the lives of the New York society elite. I loved it and now I can't wait for Bushnell's next one.
Rating: 
Summary: Great read, but will there by another book?
Review: I really enjoyed this book and could not put it down until I had finished 500+ pages of it. There is so much truth in the book about men/women/money/power struggle. I wanted to give it 5 stars, but the ending was not what I expected. The author seemed to run out of steam in the last 20 pages. What happens to Seldon, Mimi, Zizi and George and of course, Janey. Hopefully the author will write a third book very soon.
Rating:
Summary: A Fast, Fun Read
Review: TRADING UP (Bushnell, Candace) is very similar to both STORY OF MY LIFE (McInerey, Jay) and MY FRACTURED LIFE (Travolta, Rikki Lee). One of the best books I've read this year.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing....
Review: I love a good chick lit read as much as the next person, but I was very dissapointed in this book. This is my first Candace Bushnell book and I think it will be my last. The primary characters were highly unlikeable, and not that this is a requirement for me, but if you are going to make the characters so repellant, you at least need to have a compelling plot and the clever dialogue to make up for it. This book lacked both. By the last 100 pages I just kept wishing it would end....the story was dragging on and ultimately I didn't really care what happened to Janey or her boring sidekicks. For clever writing about a shallow protagonist, try Gigi Levangie Grazer's "Maneater"...written by the wife of movie mogul Brian Grazer. You get an insider's perspective with a far more ascerbic wit.
Rating:
Summary: I LOVED IT!!!!
Review: I was reading some reviews of this book, i hate to write my own. I really enjoyed reading this book. I think the main character Janey is fun to read about. Sometimes you hate her and sometimes you feel sorry for her, mixed emotions, but she made the book interesting.
This is a fun book to read, if your one of those people who look for some kind of deep philosophical meaning, not gonna find it. That's why they call it fiction. I enjoyed it because I was able to escape from reality into the life of Janey. I didn't want to put the book down and I wish it wasn't over, I just want to keep reading about her.
This was in continuation from the first story in 4 Blondes, the previous book by Candace Bushnell, I hope she writes more books about the other characters that were in that book as she did with Janey Wilcox. Left me hanging and wanting more.
Rating:
Summary: clever and fun
Review: Lighten up reviewers! Trading up is a highly entertaining and well written novel. I read it standing up while stirring pasta. It is an improvement over Four Blondes, her previous novel. The protagonist of a novel needn't be a highly moral heroine to make a book terrific. All you Sex in the City fans out there, buy this book and enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Janey Is Shallow, Conceited, and Annoying!
Review: The main character in Ms. Bushnell's story "Trading Up" is one of the most annoying character's that I've read in a long time. I liked her somewhat in the story "4 Blondes" but she is shallow, and very selfish. I found this a difficult book to enjoy since the main character was such a snot and the nasty way she used people and treated people that were close to her, never mind how she treated and used people that were simply in her way also became rather tedious. I found that although the overall story about improving ones life through social connections could have been fun this one just really fell short of the mark. IF on the other hand you like shallow, self involved characters then this is the book for you.
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