The Carrie Diaries [Hardcover]

Candace Bushnell (Author)

Book Description

Series: Carrie Diaries | Publication Date: April 27, 2010

The Carrie Diaries is the coming-of-age story of one of the most iconic characters of our generation.

Before Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw was a small-town girl who knew she wanted more. She's ready for real life to start, but first she must navigate her senior year of high school. Up until now, Carrie and her friends have been inseparable. Then Sebastian Kydd comes into the picture, and a friend's betrayal makes her question everything.

With an unforgettable cast of characters, The Carrie Diaries is the story of how a regular girl learns to think for herself and evolves into a sharp, insightful writer. Readers will learn about her family background, how she found her writing voice, and the indelible impression her early friendships and relationships left on her. Through adventures both audacious and poignant, we'll see what brings Carrie to her beloved New York City, where her new life begins.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up—In the 1980s, Carrie Bradshaw is the oldest of three girls who live with their widowed father. She is on the swim team, wants to attend a summer writing program in New York, has applied to Brown, and is the last of her girlfriends to still have her virginity. When the rakish Sebastian Kydd returns to town, all the girls in the school become distracted, but he seems to have his eye on Carrie, at least until her best friend begins to take notice of him. The action is lightweight: senior pranks are played, dates are prevalent, friendships are tested, and Carrie keeps letting boys run rampant over her. It takes most of the book for her to stand up for herself. This protagonist is clearly written to resemble her older self as portrayed in the TV series Sex and the City. She spends the novel questioning relationships; worrying about friendships; developing a funky, independent sense of fashion; flirting with boys while dating two at once; and having a gay male friend. The author is known for writing frivolous, adult chick-lit books and she does not stray from that style here. While toning down the antics that take place in her adult books, she still writes about partying, drinking, smoking (cigarettes and dope), sex, and shoplifting, making this book best suited to older teens looking for a diversion.—Geri Diorio, The Ridgefield Library, CT
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From Booklist

Before Manhattan and Manolos, who was Carrie Bradshaw? In her first novel for teens, Bushnell fills in her Sex and the City star's growing-up years with this chronicle of Carrie's senior year of high school in a small New England town. Bushnell maintains believable continuity of character in this teen version of her cultural icon, and fans will enjoy watching Carrie develop her familiar adult traits: her love of fashion, her wit, her writing ambitions, and her own brand of feminism. Once again, Carrie has three best friends, the alcohol flows freely, and sex is always on the conversation agenda, but here there's a lot more talk than action (Carrie is a virgin). There are love interests, of course: a gorgeous heartbreaker and a clean-cut college guy who kisses “like a man who thinks in straight lines.” As with the TV show, though, it's the book's friendships that teens may relate to most. Fans will love this (and only insiders will get the ending), but smart, vulnerable, questioning Carrie emerges as a likable, stand-alone character. Expect plenty of adult interest, too. Grades 9-12. --Gillian Engberg

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Balzer + Bray (April 27, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061728918
• ISBN-13: 978-0061728914
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (136 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #79,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Candace Bushnell is the critically acclaimed, international best-selling novelist whose first book, Sex and the City, published in 1996, was the basis for the HBO hit series. Bushnell captured the country's attention with Sex and the City by breaking down the bedroom doors of New York City's rich and beautiful to expose true contemporary stories of sex, love and relationships. The book introduced the nation to "modelizers," "toxic bachelors" and the women who are looking for Mr. Big as they glide in and out of a star-studded social scene. With Four Blondes (2000), Bushnell gave readers another uncensored look into the mating rituals of the Manhattan elite. In each of this book's four linked novellas, Bushnell uses wry humor and frank portrayals of love and lust to deliver clever, hilarious and socially relevant portraits of women in New York City. Four Blondes was a critical and commercial hit. And the successes of Sex and the City and Four Blondes created high demand for a new genre of fiction; the chick-lit phenomenon had begun. Bushnell's third novel, Trading Up (2003) is a wickedly funny social satire about a lingerie model whose reach exceeds her grasp and whose new-found celebrity has gone to her head. The book takes place in the months leading up to 9/11, and portrays an era of wearily decadent society in New York. A sharply observant, keenly funny comedy of manners Trading Up is Bushnell at her most sassy and entertaining; this novel caused the The New York Times to call Bushnell "the philosopher queen of a social scene." A movie of Trading Up is currently in production at Lifetime Television. In Lipstick Jungle (2005), her fourth novel, Bushnell explores assumptions about gender roles in family and career. The book follows three high-powered friends as they weather the ups and downs of lives lived at the top of their game. Salon called Bushnell's work "ahead of the curve" Once again, with Lipstick Jungle, Bushnell captured the paradigm of a new breed of career woman facing modern challenges and choices. Lipstick Jungle became the basis for the popular drama on NBC, currently in its second season, and starring Brooke Shields, Kim Raver, Lindsay Price and Andrew McCarthy. Bushnell serves as an executive producer on the show. Bushnell's new novel, One Fifth Avenue, is a modern-day story of old and new money, the always combustible mix that Edith Wharton mastered in her novels about New York's Gilded Age and that F. Scott Fitzgerald illuminated in his Jazz Age tales. Bushnell's New Yorkers suffer the same passions as those fictional Manhattanites from eras past: thirst for power, for social prominence, and for marriages that are successful-at least to the public eye. "Here are bloggers and bullies, misfits and misanthropes, dear hearts and black hearts, dogfights and catty squalls spun into a darkly humorous chick-lit saga," says Publisher's Weekly. Through her books and television series, Bushnell's work has influenced and defined two generations of women. She is the winner of the 2006 Matrix Award for books (other winners include Joan Didion and Amy Tan), and a recipient of the Albert Einstein Spirit of Achievement Award. Bushnell grew up in Connecticut and attended Rice University and New York University. She currently resides in Manhattan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ah! loved it!, May 2, 2010

By 

Mar10e (NL) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Carrie Diaries (Hardcover)

While the criticism regarding the book not being in line with the show: yeah. But who cares? We all know that the original Sex and the City book had not much in common with series 2-6. And did we like series 2-6? Yes we did.
So, just read the book, because it's effing good!
Sneaked into the toilets to read the first chapter on my Kindle (hooray! Kindle!) and I got immediately hooked. Didn't want to go back to work, just wanted to read the rest.

What can I say...it's a high school story, with all the high school drama, very readable, Carrie-in-the-book truly is recognizable as Carrie-in-the-series/films, liked the characters. The story wasn't very 'high literature' of course, but it is so well written, that at no point the story or the characters are flat. Like the hint of feminism in it. The ending was marvelous and left me with goosebumps all over my arms.

Hope Bushnell will write another book starting where she left off with this one, I honestly do.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Back Story, May 18, 2010

By 

K. G. Buchanan "mystery maiden" (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Carrie Diaries (Kindle Edition)

I came to the SATC party just recently and have been enjoying the series on DVD. Having said that, I may not know everything there is to know about Carrie, but I think that from what I've seen...this book is totally believable. It took me some time to get into the story and I was frustrated with Carrie for caring about a boy who frankly is no Mr. Big. But, she's a senior in high school and this is what high school is like. You want a boyfriend to have a boyfriend, it isn't always the best thing for you. I felt that this book really takes off in the last fourth when Carrie leaves for New York. That was the point that I couldn't put it down. I am hoping for another book because I'd really like to see Carrie in NY with all the gals. I would say to people out there. If you love the series, this is a good book. It's true to the spirit of Carrie.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A good quick read, but NOT the SATC we know and love, May 21, 2011

By 

The Remarkable Redhead - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Carrie Diaries (Hardcover)

While I admit I didn't finish reading Candace Bushnell's original "Sex and the City" due to the fact that I found SJP's Carrie much more lovable than her original portrayal, I don't see many links between the Carrie of "The Carrie Diaries" and the Carrie of the TV series.

First of all, "The Carrie Diaries" has Carrie and her two younger sisters being raised by her father after her mother has passed away. In Season 4, I believe, Carrie's editor at Vogue (the one who surprised her in the Vogue Closet in his briefs) asks Carrie about her father and Carrie replies, "There's not much to tell...He skipped out on my mom and me when I was pretty young." She is then shown peeking at an antique photo of her and her father that she keeps in a copy of Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye."

Next, in Season 5, Carrie reunites with her high school boyfriend, Jeremy, who is seeking mental health treatment in Connecticut. "Jeremy" is no where to be found in "The Carrie Diaries."

In TCD, Carrie talks about cooking at home from Julia Child's cookbook to provide stability for her younger sister. I'm fairly certain Carrie never mentions siblings in the series. She also "stores sweaters in [her] oven," "Triscuits from the mid-80's," and "an old bottle of Kahlua, somewhere." She loves that Aiden and Big cook. That doesn't sound like someone who'd make coq au vin in high school, does it.

I don't buy the whole swim team/diving thing. I just don't. At the end of TCD, Carrie has been accepted to Brown and many of her classmates were heading for Ivy League schools. The valedictorian of my graduating class tried to get into Brown, and failed. Maybe it is massively different if you are the daughter of an alumnus, as the Carrie of TCD is purported to be. Aside from that, Carrie never specifically mentions her education in the TV series, but again, Brown?!

In one of the earlier seasons, Carrie is held up at gunpoint and robbed of her bag, jewelry, and Manolos. She says she's never been mugged before, but in TCD, her purse is lifted almost immediately upon arrival. Also, she contacts Samantha Jones, a cousin of a high school acquaintance who's in advertising, as a last resort after having her bag stolen. The second SATC movie states that she met Samantha while Samantha was bartending at CBGB. The second movie also has Miranda as the first of her three friends that she connects with.

There are many, many more inconsistencies that turned me off to the book. If you read it without expecting the HBO Carrie, it's a quick and easy read. I read it in a single afternoon.

I understand difference between the original book and the TV series/movies, but once the show and movies have gained such popularity, you'd think Ms. Bushnell would think to collaborate with the stories that people are most familiar with. I was disappointed.