Well, after successfully avoiding this for over twenty years, believe it or not I had to read it for work.

This reads to me like dispatches from another universe. I am a professional woman in my 30s. I live in New York City. I barely intersect with the Bushnell dimension. This is not a judgment. I just don't understand it -- why is everyone so bitchy? How do they have the time and energy for all these parties? WHERE DO THEY GET THE MONEY? Even as an anthropological guide, this fails me. It provides no insight. It's just Carrie and Mr. Big getting in lots of tedious fights while on private planes to Aspen. Okay? Is this fun? Is this sexy?

I have somehow known without knowing for almost three decades that this was not my kind of book. I was right.

Ужасно разочарование! Нищо общо със сериала. В случая поздравления на сценаристите, че са сътворили блокбъстър от това нещо.

i was really wanting to love this book - i think because i know and have watched some of the series it’s very hard to read it. It’s not a comfortable read, i think it could have been better written considering it came before the series - it was too stop start and jumped from different stories too often. i love the characters but the book was not for me unfortunately :(

I've seen quite a few of the Sex and the City episodes and enjoyed them a lot, so I thought it would be cool to see where it all started from. I have to be honest - I think the television show is so much better - more fleshed out characters, better dialogue, more likeable characters and just a lot more depth period.
It's hard for me to get too interested in a book that is so very on the surface, where you never really get to know much about the characters or even the setting they are inhabiting.
There were some interesting sections, but all in all I wasn't that impressed. For anyone who is reading this book in the hopes of it being much like the tv series, beware - it's not even close. Perhaps people who never saw the series would like it better than I did.

This book was highly disappointing. I watch and love the show (and I'm looking forward to the movie) so I thought the book would be a sure bet. Turns out, the writers for the show are so much more smart, clever, and interesting that Bushnell could ever be. The Sex and the City book was just full of ridiculous characters in their thirties trying to be young again by going out every night to the "hottest" bar, doing ridiculous amounts of drugs like that's the only way to be cool, and it was terrible writing. I have no idea why they thought it would be a good television show. Even though I'm glad they made the transition. This book is awful. Never read it. Even if you're hooked on the show.

Let's get straight to the point. This is one of the worst books that I have ever read (as far as I can remember). The series is so much better than the book. I mean I'm not exactly a fan of the series, but I can say i like it...this feels a world apart from the series...and not in a good way.

The TV series was often witty, intelligent, funny, well scripted and acted. The book doesn't have anything in common with it. Everything that would sometimes annoy me about the series ( I said I'm not exactly a fan of it) paled away in comparison with this mess. That's it, the word I was looking for. A mess. This novel feels like a mess to me. It feels like walking in an apartmant inhabited by a bounch of teenage boys who had been living on pizza and past food for a month and have forgotten to take out the garbage, wash the dishes or do any cleaning whatsoever.

This book feels like a very very bad hangover. Like all those awkard moments from when you were a teenager that you just want to forget about and pray God nobody reminds you of them. Like a bitter end of some meaningless fight that left you feel exhausted. Like being forced to watch a soap opera you hate. Like pigeon poo on your new pair of shoes. That is what this book felt like to me.

What did I think of it? Well, in my personal view, it is unbelievably shallow, messy, badly constructed, lacking imagination and writing skill of even the most basic kind..it was a torture to read this one, I tell you. Hadn't I been a lot younger, I would have probably given up...but in my early tweenties I was a very patient reader and I would finish every book. These days I can't be bothered, if I absolutely hate some book I just leave it be and move to a new one. To whom I would recommend this book? I don't know. You might read it and end up liking it, I didn't. I quite strongly dislike it. If you're a big fan of the show and you want to read it for that purpuse, who am I to stop you?

I will say one thing. After reading this book, I respect the screen writers and crew of the TV series The Sex and the City. I don't know how they managed to turn this terrible book and into something pretty good. I was always sure that script writing takes a special effort and those guys have it!

"She's wearing a loose white shirt, it's like a white flag and it's driving Carrie crazy. Suddenly Carrie feels like a shark smelling blood. She fantasizes about killing the woman and eating her. It's terrifying how much she's enjoying the fantasy. (..) Carrie envisions tearing into the woman's soft, white flesh with her teeth."

literally the only interesting passage in this damn book it's a miracle the series is as good as it is given this was the source material

de makers van de serie hebben wel heel erg door hun vingers moeten kijken om van dit afgrijselijke boek zo'n geweldige serie te maken, ik vrees dat candace busnhell echt een vrouwenhater is

You can read my complete review right here: https://reviewswithsprinkles.com/2015...

OK, this book doesn't probably deserve even one star. Not from me, anyway. I know, I know - the book that inspired one of my favorite shows of all time is supposed to be completely different, a collection of column entries, a haphazard look at approximately a thousand characters' lives in the Big Apple, etc., etc., etc., blah, blah blah. As such, it might work for some. As such, it might be found funny by the most unsentimental and cynical audience. As for me, it just left me depressed. It left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. It left me with an aching heart for the human condition of love, relationships, and romance. This book literally drained me of happiness for the amount of time that it took me to read it. I did not find it in the least bit amusing nor clever in any way. I found it completely exhausting. And I am saying this after I objectively went into reading it, with no intention of comparing it to my beloved show. On its own, this book is as close to trash as it gets. If it wasn't for the masterpiece of a show that it apparently "inspired," it would have stayed in the trashcan. Even looking at the show and the novel separately, I just have one thing to say - the novel does NOT even come close to being (and does NOT even come close to HOPING to be) as good as the HBO show of the same name. Period.

This is certainly different from the series - and it's not just the mounds of cocaine and pounds of marijuana consumed by the main characters.

The selling point of the series has always been the friendships between the four characters. In this book, on the other hand, it's every girl for herself. The women are never supportive, and are usually backstabbing. Carrie is even more of a mess than she ever was in the TV show. Everyone seems utterly miserable.

Also? Allegedly this is uproariously funny, but I didn't laugh once while reading it.

Not sure how they got the TV series out of this book. The two seem very tangentially related.

I have been an avid "Sex in the City" series fan. It is one of my favorite shows, and one reason why I bought dvd boxed sets of each season. The TV show is so well written, with great characters and story lines which are very funny that it made me want to read the original book. What a terrible disapointment reading this has been to me.

The book is very hard to follow. I don't know how these vignettes ever became newspaper columns--they don't even hold up as short stories. The characters are nothing like those on the show. While I do appreciate the candid discussion of singleness, relationships, and sex, I found the ideas put forth by Bushnell weren't as developed or comprehensive as they could have been.

I would advise those of you who like the show to forget about reading the book. It will not help you one bit to gain more insight to the show's characters, nor is it a very amusing book. Those who like to read Bushnell as an author, might find the book entertaining on a disjointed, superficial level. Full of snippets of neurotic relationships and desperate sex, the book is one tale of failure after another. Whether or not the tales are true, the book highlights a bizarre kind of pathos in human relationships.

But I absolutely think the majority of fans of the show will be disapointed. The show is ripe with raunch and wit, along with characters we truly care about. This book is grim and dark, poorly written, and ripe with people I would never want to meet. What we have here is a rare example of the show being far better than the book. I never thought I would advocate TV over the written word, but in this case, turn on HBO.


More of Purplycookie’s Reviews @: http://www.goodreads.com/purplycookie


Book Details:

Title Sex and the City
Author Candace Bushnell
Reviewed By Purplycookie