Maybe I waited too long to read this, but I just thought it was depressing. The only thing I got out of this story is the elaborate effort involved in landing a corporate millionare. This is desperate snobbery abounding.

“As long as you're neurotic and crazy, he's great. But once he solves all your problems, he becomes the problem.”
― Candace Bushnell, Sex and the City



Believe it or not this is not a bad book. It is even funny in some parts.

The book is nothing at all like the show in case you don't know. the book is strictly about Carrie.

Well..there are other characters including Mr. Big but none of the other three women.

There are all different stories in here mostly about the dating scene. So these are my honest thoughts:

Want to stop WANTING to date? Read this book. Honestly I never wanted to have another date again after reading this. That does not mean it is not presented realistically..it (kind of) is. But so clinically! Man, it just made me want to eat a quart of ice cream and curl up with my cats.

There is a very clinical almost emotionless aspect to the whole book. But for whatever reason..I kept reading. And some chapters were entertaining as anything. I loved Peter screaming about how all women really want is Alec Baldwin. This is worth a read just for that.

Sadly I read another book by same author after this and disliked it. But this is a light and fun read..perfect beach reading and will even amuse you at times.

Oh my god, if you buy this book because you love the show and you want to read about a group of friends navigating the struggles of friendship and dating in New York City - STOP. PUT THE BOOK DOWN. BACK AWAY SLOWLY. This book is nothing like the tv show and will only make you regret the money and time you spent on it. Go read the 'Something Borrowed' series and thank me later.

The show is way much better then this enormously confusing book. Usually I do not quite, but I just couldn't with this... I'm gonna stick with the show.

Honestly not worth the read. Perhaps my perception is skewed because I watched the show first, but this “novel” has no plot and I found myself zoning out while reading.

"Сексът и градът" е от книгите, които много исках да прочета.

Като изявен фен на телевизионният сериал имах огромното желание да се потопя в книжната история, да погледна по друг начин на героите. Направих го и съжалявам!
За мен това е най-слабата книга, която съм чел до този момент!

В книгата са нахвърляни истории на различни хора и нашите любими герои от сериала почти не присъстват в текста.

"Readers! If you pick this book to read...then treat it as a book to read. It is not a serial. Nor is this Chic Lit material. What it is is a very mature and advanced version of relationships, people, women, sexuality...what I enjoyed about this book was the way it was disconnected from emotions...but revealed emotions ultimately. Candace Bushnell has put in a lot of thought in developing a variety of characters from Mr Big to Mr Marvelous...her style is unique, imaginative yet with all the elements of reality. I wouldn't rate this as a favorite, but would rate it as a book to be read...if you want to understand the politics of men and women, sexuality and more importantly life in a busy city...the book does not have the famous 'Carrie' as we would like it to be when you watch the serial. The serial I feel is for the masses....the book for those who are interested in life...READ IT for sure...Ignore the comparisons between the serial and the book...if you are looking for a descriptive of the serial..then read the script of the serial.....not the book!!

Atta girl Candace Bushnell....rare is a work of art like your's appreciated in today's world..."

Denne bog var som en af de psykomødre, som handlingsteksten beskriver, bare uden forkælelse. Den kvalte mig ganske enkelt langsomt.
Den var kedelig og den var slet ikke sjov og spøjs og sprængfyldt med lækkerheder omkring newyorkerlivet eller spøjse og sjove kærlighedshistorier. Den var: blah. Bluergh.
Skrivestilen var kedelig og jeg gabte mig nærmest igennem bogen. Personerne var intetsigende, de var et stort bundt af pivskide og de var ganske enkelt: kedelige.
Jeg kan slet ikke se hvordan denne bog kan være "bogen bag tv-serien", for jeg finder tv-serien hylende morsom, hammer fræk og spændende. Den er fyldt med lækkerier og det er en serie jeg kan se igen og igen og igen! Tanken om at skulle læse denne bog igen gør mig helt skidt.. Bare det at hive bogen frem fra reolen (hvorfor har jeg den overhovedet stadig på reolen?), gjorde mig ilde til mode..
Jeg er så skuffet og når jeg nu tænker tilbage på min læseoplevelse, så synes jeg endda at de to stjerner jeg oprindeligt havde givet den, er for gavmildt og jeg er forundret over, at jeg overhovedet fik den færdiglæst.

En tanke kører gennem mit hoved: hvad er det folk ser i denne bog, som jeg ikke kan se? Hvordan har folk kunnet læse denne bog og tænke: "Den her! Den vil kunne skabe en vildt populær og millionindbringende serie, der vil få kvinder verden over til at sukke!"? Jeg kan ikke se det.. Jeg kan ikke forstå det og det ærgrer mig virkelig.. Jeg bryder mig ikke om, ikke at kunne lide bøger, men denne her var simpelthen bare... Suk!

“Carrie took all their pictures from Jamaica (how happy they looked, just discovering each other), and cut out the ones of Mr. Big smoking his cigar. She thought about what it was like sleeping with him, how she would sleep curled around his back. She wanted to take the pictures and glue them to a piece of construction paper and write “Portrait of Mr. Big with His Cigar,” across the top and then, “I miss you,” with lots of kisses at the bottom. She stared at the pictures for a long time. And then she did nothing.”

I was expecting this book to be fun. Instead, it was strangely depressing. And I'm pleasantly surprised.
Plenty of people seem to have hated this book. But I gotta say I really liked it. I liked a lot of things about it.
I liked the cynical view of Manhattan and its dating landscape. Well, at least for the very limited social class it depicted. It really worked as a somber portrait of a city that, much like its people, was glamorous and extravagant on the outside, but completely hollow inside, with an emptiness that seemed to take up all the space.
I loved the writing style. There was a sort of detached, subtle quality to it that just accentuated the themes of the book. It contained a sense of helplessness, a distance from its characters, which worked well with the fact that these are are real people, living their real lives.
I found it really interesting how the author slowly became less and less present in her own book and turned into little more than an omniscient narrator by the end, while the book started containing more of an overarching story and less autoconclusive chapters with specific anecdotes and reflections.
I liked the characters. Yes, they weren't as defined and their personalities weren't as clearly outlined as their counterparts in the show. But honestly, did you expect something different? The show is a comedy. This is about real people.
And yes, it was problematic. But I enjoyed every second of it. It impartially showcased the opinions of its characters, which were... Questionable, to say the least. Just read the chapter on threesomes and you'll understand. And that's the reason why it works as a portrait of its setting and time. I think there's value in that. I think we could all take something from it.
My favourite chapters were chapters 10 and 11 (downtown babes meet old Greenwich gals & babes flee land of wives for night of topless fun); chapter 14 (portrait of a bulgy underwear model: the Bone pops out of his giant billboard); chapter 22 (bone and the white mink: Carrie's Christmas Carol); chapter 24 (Aspen); and chapter 25 (the last chapter). Oh my god, these titles are long.

So yeah. If you're looking for a fun book, this might not be it. But I think there's something really great about it.

There are dozens and dozens of reviews on here in which it is stated that while the reader enjoyed the series immensely, the book comes up lacking. I always hated the series and just wrote it down to one of those things that makes men and women different. I am consistent, because I hate the book for the same reasons that I found the series to be repugnant at almost every turn.

When you get down to it, neither the show nor the series has much at all to do with sex—that was just a catchy title. What both are really about is lifestyle porn, as if people with money somehow experience sex in a different manner than people who work in a restaurant in Iowa. I think she is saying that rich people can just hire people to have sex for them.

Even when we visit a sex club there is no sex. And a sex club? Eww. I have way too much respect for my cock to go near a place like that.

This was the exact allure of the Shades of Grey phenomena. It appealed to women who don’t really even understand what sex is. You don’t need whips and chains to have an orgasm; all you need is someone you are attracted to and nothing else, and I mean nothing else. You don’t need a leather mask, or a torture chamber, and you definitely don’t need a sex club. All of those things are for sexless people who can’t get it up, or whatever the female equivalent is.

I got news, folks. Sex is the same for everyone, and what the women in the series were looking for wasn’t sex, it was status which is an entirely different thing, in case you didn’t already know. You don’t have to be rich to get your rocks off.

Sex takes a far back seat to status in SATC. If you disagree with this then why is every person referred to by their high-status profession?

An English journalist came to New York
Tim was forty-two, an investment banker
there's Parker, thirty-two, a novelist
Skipper Johnson, an entertainment lawyer
Barkley, twenty-five, was an artist
Robert, forty-two, an editor

Then we saw the manager, Bob, a burly, bearded man in a plaid shirt and jeans who looked like he should have been managing a Pets 'R' Us
Obviously, having a real job is really not OK with this woman because she uses a normal job as a hateful sort of insult. "Fuck you, you store clerk!"

He comes from a wealthy manufacturing family
Sarah, a filmmaker who used to be a model
Maeve, a poet who is half Irish.
Britta, a tall, rangy brunette who works as a photo rep
Jerry, thirty-nine, a corporate lawyer
George, thirty-seven, an investment banker

I think my point has been made and I stopped at page 37. In none of these cases is their profession germane to anything in the story. They did the same thing in the TV series. It was like they were out shooting big game. She could have just as easily put a price tag on each person: Tom, $750,000 a year, etc. Or told us the size of the dude’s cock: Walter, five inches and narrow.

There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of women like this in the city. We all know lots of them, and we all agree they're great. They travel, they pay taxes, they'll spend four hundred dollars on a pair of Manolo Blahnik strappy sandals

I have no fucking idea what a “Manolo Blahnik” is, but over-priced footwear does not make a person interesting, or great, it just makes you a fucking consumer. There is nothing, nothing at all interesting about being a consumer.

I recall one especially repulsive episode in the show where protagonist loses a pair of shoes which cost her $500. This was, what, 15 years ago, at least, and $500 was (still is) a hell of a lot of money. She could have flown to Buenos Aires and done something truly interesting, but instead she bought shoes. What a fucking idjit!

New Yorker, seid ihr in Ordnung?

Vor kurzem habe ich die Serie geschaut und da schon an manchen Stellen gedacht: "Puh, die reden den ganzen Tag nur über Männer und wirken so abhängig von Liebe und Sex, das ist doch nicht normal". Und trotz ihrer Schwachstellen kommt die Serie ganz charmant daher. (Ich sag's, wie es ist, weil es Miranda gibt). Jedenfalls dachte ich, dass es eine gute Idee sei, das Buch mal zu lesen.
Ja, und dann kam das Buch.
Soll das jetzt Satire sein? Wenn, ist sie bei mir mal so gar nicht angekommen. Ich finde es mehr als bedenklich, dass erwachsene Frauen ständig besoffen sind und sich gegenseitig ausstechen wollen. Dazu noch diese Übersexualisierung und das ständige Gerede der männlichen Figuren, mit 16-Jährigen Models schlafen zu wollen. (Dabei entspricht das traurigerweise in manchen Männer-Hirnen sicher noch der Realität.)
Das einzige Kapitel, über das ich ein bisschen schmunzeln musste, war das über Eltern.

War für mich ne ziemliche Zeitverschwendung.

I think I read this right after the show first started on HBO. The book is nowhere near as entertaining as the show...it doesn't have the 4-girlfriends-on-the-town approach that the show takes; instead, it just focuses on some caricature of a stupid New York-type that I hate: the ones who live here like it's LA with bad weather.

If I had read this before I watched any of the episodes, I never would have turned on the show.