CW: eating disorders and fat shaming (so much weight shaming in general)

**I will be including some quotes directly from the book, so please be advised as they will include some of that content warning.

I'm just so confused and appalled by what I just read. I don't understand what Candace Bushnell was trying to say? The back of the book claims, "She chronicles the lives of four beautiful women [...] as they face turning points in which each must choose between her passions." I don't know what book they read to make that blurb, but what I read was a heap of self-absorbed drivel that relied heavily on stereotypes. I thought the first story was terrible but then the second and third one had me debating which was the worst. The fourth story just seemed like a last minute add-on (it's the shortest and least detailed). If the Sex and the City book is anything like this, it amazes me both that it was published AND that it was made into one of the most well-known television series of all time.

Also, Candace Bushnell takes every opportunity to weight shame. Everyone is too fat and too thin all at once and there is just constant attention brought to how women look in these stories. I just don't understand what point Bushnell is trying to make. I don't doubt that vapid and self-absorbed women exist in the world, but why tell these stories? I just don't get it. This book doesn't feel like it has a point. I don't like any of the characters, but their unlikeability feels like it has nothing to say. I'm fine with unlikeable characters. I just want there to be a point. On top of that, the writing is terrible. There's no sense of movement in the narrative and it's awkward trying to follow exactly what the characters are doing at any given point.

I'm going to include some quotes now just to illustrate the strangeness and awkwardness of the story, and also to bring to light some of the stereotyping and weight shaming. (Heed the content warning, please.)

"Janey, who had a fat belly and fat thighs, was never able to distinguish herself. At fourteen, when she got her period, her mother said, 'Janey, you must be careful with boys. Boys like to take advantage of girls who are not pretty because boys know the girl is desperate for attention.'" p. 25

"Winnie still considers it part of her job to be the good-looking one in the relationship. Being good-looking is part of mastering the world. It is part of being perfect. (It is not about being beautiful. Beautiful women are self-indulgent. Beautiful women are stupid because they don't have to try.) She is five-seven and weighs 125 pounds. If she let herself go, let her body reach its natural weight, she'd probably weigh between 130 and 135 pounds. But she won't let herself go. (It's about control.) ... If she is two pounds overweight, she takes care of it. Taking care of herself is part of being a nice girl." p. 91

"I take off all my clothes and step on the scale; Weight, 117.5 pounds. Percentage fat, 13. GOOD. I've lost a quarter of a pound from the morning." p. 143

What is shocking to me is that this is from three different stories, which are about three different women. Why is there so much emphasis on this? None of the women seem happy. They all seem trapped and sad. Please just stay away from this book.

Reading the other reviews of this book, it's very clear that a lot of readers do not realize this is satire. It's strange that this point would baffle them as it's very clear in the first two stories that this is meant to be a comic-tongue-in-cheek look at the lives of the upper-upper class.

I read this around two decades ago when it first came out. Returning to it now, its just as good as I remember. I might even be underrating it with 4 stars, but the last story just doesn't click for me. Too fairy-tale while the rest of the book is hard-biting satire.

Reseña completa en Books FD

4 Rubias ha sido una de las peores novelas que he leído, no la recomiendo, a menos que
quieran ejercitar su brazo para lanzarlo lo más lejos posible de uno. Personajes pobres,
mal perfilados, tontos, vacíos, estúpidos, frívolos… con una narración muy dispareja en
los cuatro relatos y sin una trama real. Muy muy, muy, muy mala lectura.

I was sooo disappointed! I love Sex and the City and thought I would love Candace's books. This is the one and only I have ever read... so maybe her other books are better? But I'm scared to read another to find out! I passed this on to my sister because I finished it at her house, but with a warning. Of the four stories in this book, the last two were the ... least bad! I advised she just skip the first two all together.

Awful! I think it was supposed to be funny, but it was just sad! Everyone is this book is an a-hole.

Not only was this book soulless and shallow but it wasn't even entertaining on the basic "chick lit" level. If you must read Candace Bushnell, go for Lipstick Jungle.

Garbage. That's all that needs to be said.

I read the first story, then tried and DNFed the other three.

The first story was about a selfish and shallow woman who spent each of her summers at the Hamptons in a different rich guy's house. I kept hoping the story would arrive at some kind of a message or she would be taught a lesson, but no. Neither happened.

The second story was about a married couple, and it could have been a pair of interesting character studies, but the constant use of comments in parentheses drove me mad and I just couldn't go on.

The third story was a woman's diary. I'm sure that the author intentionally made her sound completely unbearable, but again, I just couldn't go on.

The fourth story was about a woman from New York trying her luck on the London marriage market. It was full of prejudice about British people, and I had just lost interest by this point.

To sum it up, I found nothing of the insight or the flawed but likable characters of Sex and the City. Everyone was shallow and annoying. What a disappointment.

Cleaning out my house and having a stack of unread books, I decided to read a few of them before giving away. This one was interesting in a strange way. The first section was written in such a way that I had no idea whether the protagonist was in current day or remembering a prior year. It was a bit off putting and the main character seemed to have no redeeming qualities. Hard to get into that one. When I read the next section, I realized it was totally unconnected to the first section, which was weird, but I kept reading. The middle of the book was different but enjoyable for the most part. The last section was bizarre...obviously pulled from Sex in The City but hard to connect with the protagonist in any way. It was rushed like the author had thrown that section in as an afterthought. The writing style seems more suited for television than reading. It was a strange book, but overall I enjoyed it, I suppose because it was so different from most things I read.

I purposefully didn't rate this book, because it's the worst book I have EVER read. I only finished it on principle. Awful, awful, awful. In fact, when I go to Barnes & Noble, I actually consider placing a note on the shelf that holds this book, warning people! (Updated to one star 15 years later, so it'll show up on the star ratings)

I like watching Sex and the City, a funny and interesting television show about four female friends and their love lives in the city. This book, however, is dreadful. I had a hard time getting through it. The characters and stories are not funny nor are they in any way interesting. You don't care about the characters, but almost sort of want them to wander into city traffic and get run over. Luckily I borrowed this from the library and didn't actually squander any of my hard-earned money on it.

I thought this would be a flirty and fun book, but it turned out to be very abrasive and abrubt. The book blurb revealed that the author would chronicle the lives of four women, but I didn't realize that meant the book consisted of four mini stories. None of the characters are written in a way that allowed me to relate to or sympathize with them -- quite frankly the women were classless, disturbed, and frustrating in many ways. Since the book was divided into these mini stories, it felt like each was rushed, and none of the endings were at all satisfying. I kept reading in hopes of something that would "draw howls of recognition", but that never came. Each story became shorter until the last woman was left with a mere 33 pages.