Chic Lit. Plain and simple. A wildly improbable women-on-top-of-the-world fantasy. But like sneaking a sweet treat when no one is looking, it’s strangely enjoyable. Now I need to make myself a cosmo and go hang out with the Sex in the City ladies...

I came away on holiday with three books to read: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne, On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan and Burning Bright by Helen Dunmore. Of course, this did not stop my from buying a book at the airport (I am a serious bookshop junkie) and since I was going on holiday, I thought I would get something fairly trashy and easy. I opted for Candace Bushnell´s Lipstick Jungle seeing as I am enjoying the TV show. I have just finished it and I have to say I am pretty disappointed. Whilst I am all for reading about powerful women, succeeding and battling it out in a supposed man´s world, I was bitterly disappointed with the characterisation of these women who came across as entitled, whinging and unlikeable. The bleat of ´men get away with it, why can´t we´always sits uneasy with me - just because men do ´get away with it´(although there is an argument to say that these men are just as unlikable), does not mean that women should try too. And I don´t mean try to succeed, I mean try to screw people over or try to have affairs or try to blame others for their shortcomings etc. etc.

The main point of contention for me, though, was Bushnell´s rather heavy-handed prose. The art of leaving things to the reader´s imagination appears lost on her. She will explain every metaphor and ram every viewpoint down your throat so many times that it becomes tiresome. Whilst I really enjoyed the TV shows Sex and the City and Lipstick Jungle, which were both inspired by her writing, I think the credit for their respective (and, admittedly, varying) success belongs to people other than Bushnell herself.

Man patika. Izbaudīju autores uzdoto jautājumu jau "Sekss un lielpilsēta" grāmatās un sērijās - vai sieviete var būt ietekmīga, laimīga un atrast mīlestību? Atbilde, protams, ir jā, lai arī šeit visām trim draudzenēm ir jāpieņem dažādi lēmumi un jāizbauda arī savs rūgtums, pirms tikt pie laimes.
Katrā ziņā izklaidējos un izbaudīju grāmatu.

It is pure unadulterated fluff. Very obviously by Candace Bushnell. Much like Sex in the City had girl power and sex right up together described (or shown) in equal detail so with Lipstick Jungle. The ladies work in high power (or climbing high) jobs, one in magazine publishing, one in movie production, and up and coming fashion designer. They help each other as they can because they are friends and they are friends because they can’t threaten each other. Wendy the producer married a man who couldn’t live up to her potential and jumped off the career path to take care of their kids, and in typical houseparent status feels left out and “not appreciated” Eventually leaving the spouse for the money without the faked love. He honestly screwed himself as he had lost his youth and his wife was very giving in the bedroom to make up for her MIA status as parent. He also can’t find his soulmate unless she is a money bank as his tastes are very expensive.
The publishing tyrant, Nico is cheating on her sensible shoes husband to give her the spring in her step so she can step into her chauvinist bosses shoes. She has the most power but her sexless marriage has left her wondering about what she really wants. After a year of sex she realizes that stability is better than an orgasm, as those are just moments of pleasure and not necessary for happiness. She finds she loves the stable and not needy husband she has.
Victory the fashionista is the less well established character. This is her fall and rise story. It begins with fashion week where her spring line goes outside the normal game and puts her on the outs with the department stores. She goes soul searching and with back against the wall comes up with pants. Pants are the answer and she is back with such gusto she almost takes a brass ring of selling out her name for loads of money. When she breaks up with her billionaire boyfriend and busts up the deal in one month the climax occurs and she starts to understand her problems. Suddenly the movie is jumped ahead a few months and she is flying high with a new partner for the business and back in Business with her boyfriend.
They all end happily every after no bad things occur Wendy makes a smash movie. Victory makes a mint on a hat and Nico pays off the boy-toy. Silly summer fluff, with a generous helping of sex.

Oli hyvä kirja eikä ollut ainakaan tylsä. Riitti menoa ja meininkiä jokaisella perheellä. Ja niin kuin tapana on niin BC-kirjat lähtee kiertään joten tää kirja jää odottamaan seuraavaa lukijaa :)

Candace Bushnell's writing leaves so much to be desired. I've tried and tried, and it's just not worth the effort anymore. How they managed to turn one of her sad books into a multi-million dollar franchise is beyond me.

How I Came To Read This Book: I spotted it at Superstore and snagged it.

The Plot: Instead of four single sirens in NYC, Bushnell writes about three power players who are learning the 'glass ceiling' of yesteryear still has an impact on their lives. Victory is a fashion designer plagued by financial woes - that could be easily solved by compromising her own values. Wendy is trying to balance her intense work pressure with her intense home pressure care of her stay-at-home husband. Nico is stuck in two games (love and work respectively) where she is trying to kill without being killed.

The Good & The Bad: This was definitely Bushnell's best book to date that I've read. The characters were a helluva lot more likable and well-defined, the world of NYC wasn't *just* a cycle of disposable relationship stories (although love is a factor here), and the plot overall was just a lot more dynamic. Things happened! Characters grew! Although this may sound like basic novel accomplishments, they are big ones for Bushnell. I'm not sure the book transfers over to a series so far - I have a hunch the show is more about clothes/men a la SATC, but the book was a good job on Bushnell's part.

The Bottom Line: Bushnell's Best.

Anything Memorable?: Nope.

50-Book Challenge?: Book #7 in 2007

Don't understand the vicious reviews on here. It wasn't that bad. If it had been about a hundred pages shorter, I would've given it another star.

I usually don't read stuff like this, and I've never been a fan of the Sex and the City TV show, which was based on a column by Candace Bushnell--but I thought I'd give her writing a try. I found this book pretty witty and readable. Just too long. I really didn't like how it wrapped up, and I'll probably completely forget I read this by tomorrow. But I doubt Bushnell has any pretensions that she's a white lady James Baldwin or Dostoevsky or something. I do agree with one reviewer on here who noted that the three main characters are basically the same character just put in different situations. There's not much to differentiate between them other than their jobs and names.

I'm not sure if I want to give anything else by Bushnell a try, but I enjoyed this enough to never say never.

2.5 ⭐ Pese a las malas críticas he decidido leerlo igual, y la verdad es que no me arrepiento. Es cierto que no es una obra maestra, pero es entretenido y las historias de cada protagonista acaban enganchando. En definitiva, sí que lo recomiendo si no tienes nada mejor que leer!!

This book is marketed as more mature Sex and the City. I didn't like Sex and the City book but because I had already bought few books from the author, I thought I may as well read them.

Lipstick Jungle doesn't fare much better than Sex and the City. In this book, the characters are in their forties and they are all successful in their own rights. This could have been a great book at empowering women and telling their stories in their forties and saying that you don't need no man to feel accomplished and powerful and successful and complete and happy but it tells a completely different story.

All the characters had no depth and no character development from the start to end. They were all too obsessed with image, money and glamour which isn't a bad thing but the way this was written made them sound like whining, selfish and immature characters who are out for themselves only. I mean I have read other books with selfish and immature characters and actually enjoyed those but this I was not able to enjoy.

I was going to rate it 1 star but then thought that the writing wasn't that bad so I am going with 2 stars. I just wish it had a better plot or better characters.

2 stars

Es un retrato honesto, aunque algo superficial, de las contradicciones de las mujeres modernas: el deseo de éxito, amor y libertad, pero también el peso de las expectativas y las inseguridades. No profundiza demasiado, pero captura bien esa dualidad entre lo que se muestra al mundo y lo que se siente en privado.

I just didn’t get it. To me it was about 3 wildly successful career women who were very unlikable and while they said they weren’t bitches they were, and while they said they were not only successful but also good mothers, they were in fact terrible mothers. Was just a weird book to me. Well written tho.