2 Reviews : The Carrie Diaries and Summer and the City by Candace Bushnell

Posted by Kay on November 16, 2012 1:21 pm in 2.5 stars reads, 3 stars reads | 5 comments

I’ve never read Sex and the City. I’ve watched most of the episodes – some of them even twice (I blame insomnia). Yet I have never read the book that inspired the series. Listening to the audiobooks of  Carrie’s younger years was then a strange experience, as the only Carrie I knew was from the TV show. While there were definite differences, I enjoyed it enough to listen to both audiobooks.

The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell
Length : 9h48
Narrator : Sarah Drew
Genre : YA, fiction
Series : The Carrie Diaries, Book 1
My Rating : 2,5/5

Back before her days in New York, Carrie was simply a small town girl. Living with her sister and her father, still haunted by the loss of her mother, Carrie only wishes to have an awesome senior year. But when love, gossip and secrets get in the way, Carrie starts to question all she had planned for in her life.

Of the two novels, The Carrie Diaries was definitely the one that felt the most like any regular contemporary YA novel. Carrie, in her younger years, is as charming and insecure as any other teen girls. Family is not always easy, and nor are her relationships with friends and would-be boyfriends. Her relationship with Sebastian is a huge part of the story, but more importantly, we also see Carrie at the start of her writing career. This part was, for me, as close as it could get to TV-Carrie, even though as a whole, the story shared very little resemblance with the show. And I kind of missed it.

* * *

Summer in the City by Candace Bushnell
Length : 10h28
Narrator : Jenna Lamia
Genre : YA, fiction
Series : The Carrie Diaries, Book 2
My Rating : 3/5

A summer writing class in New York; could it get any better for wannabe writer Carrie? Apparently, yes; the summer has barely started, and she is already being swept off her feet by some gorgeous (and older!) man. The city is full of surprises, and as she falls more and more in love with both her boyfriend and her writing, Carrie is led to question what she wants out of life – and how.

Summer in the City was definitely closer to the Sex and the City I have come to somewhat like over the years. The buzz of the city, Carrie’s new friendships and pace of life, even her love life has hints of what she’ll become a few years from there. I enjoyed book two much more, even though I had a bit of a hard time getting used to the change of audio narrator. Both did an okay job, but the difference was obvious enough.

A fun part of this second book is getting to meet Samantha and Miranda as young women. As I said, I had never read the original Sex and the City book, but if I use the TV show as a reference, I would say their personalities were close enough to what I had seen. I loved how they interact with each other, and while some of their open discussions about love and sexuality had a bit of an educational feel, they really reminded me of how close the girls were on the show. I only wish Charlotte was more present in the novel. Maybe, if there is ever a third book, we’ll see her there?

As for Carrie’s romantic life in this novel, it was a tad predictable, as well as uncomfortable at times. Which, now that I think of it, seems to summarize most of Carrie’s love life in the years to come!

It’s hard for me to recommend or not the books : I had fun reading them, but I can’t compare them to the original book, and they sure are different from the show (especially the first book). For me, without being bad or completely boring, they definitely lacked something. I’d say, go with your guts on these ones!