Review: The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell

Plot

In The Carrie Diaries Candace Bushnell shows us the world of Carrie Bradshaw pre-New York and pre-Samantha, Miranda and Samantha.  At the beginning of the novel, Carrie’s only purpose for senior year is to fulfil her dreams of becoming a writer.  However, as always in YA novels, senior year never turns out as is expected.  When Carrie is rejected from a prestigious New York writing school everything changes.  What’s more, as well as trying to rebuild her dreams, Carrie must try and maintain her relationship with Castlebury High’s new boy Sebastian, maintain her friendships with Maggie, Roberta (‘The Mouse’), Walt and Lali and  hold her family together.

Good points

What I loved more than anything about this book was not only Bushnell’s protagonist transformation of ‘TV Carrie’ to ‘YA literature Carrie’ but also ‘adult Carrie’ to ‘teen Carrie.’  I can’t say anything more than that ‘teen Carrie’ was just very… Carrie.  She over analyses everything, she’s very intense and she can be incredibly selfish while being the most committed and loyal friend at the same time (which I think is the thing that all SATC fans love about her).  I am a huge of fan of SATC – the movies and the shows – and I loved learning all about Carrie’s life at high school prior to her life in New York that we are so familiar with on screen.

Putting Sex and the City to one side, it would have been very easy for me to have a biased opinion on the book since I love the show so much, but I did genuinely feel that it was a good YA novel.  It was very realistic in terms of the issues that teens face.  It was honest and straightforward; there was no beating around the bush which is all too common in YA novels.

Bad points

Even though, understandably, it is called The Carrie Diaries (so it was always going to be slightly lacking in structure), overall, I thought that it did lack direction and focus.  Furthermore, I love looking into the lives of Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte, just as much as Carrie’s, in SATC, so I would have liked to have seen more attention given to the other characters.

Summary

In general, this was an excellent novel.  Carrie’s character is translated onto paper perfectly and reading about how she grows into the SATC Carrie SATC, who we know so well, was an absolute treat.  The only negatives were the lack of direction throughout and the lack of coverage of other characters.

Rating = 4 stars.

Additional Points

There is a sequel which I plan to take out of the library very soon.

Also, if you’ve never seen SATC don’t be put off.  It is very like the show in terms of the aspects of the plot – for example, Carrie meets a mysterious guy who can be a bit of a jerk but is so charming she just can’t resist.  But it’s still an enjoyable and accessible novel for those who haven’t had the pleasure of watching the show.  Who knows, you might get hooked!