I love Sex and the City the TV show that used to be on HBO. I have the complete series and have watched it probably a dozen times, along with the two movies.
You can imagine my excitement at finally being able to read the book the show was based off of. It was an incredible let down.
“Sex and the City” by Candace Bushnell was published in 1996. Before it became a book or TV series, it was a column in the New York Observer. It was a based on a woman and her friend’s experiences with relationships. Many of them are entertaining and some horrifying, but are all based around the universal question, “why are we still single?”
As in the show, the book gives an insider look of what women talk about when grouped together. The crude humor and explicit details may not be for everyone, but couldn’t be more accurate.
If you’ve ever had that group of girlfriends that talk about everything, you can relate to “Sex and the City.”
Candace Bushnell chose columns and turned them into a book, just as Carrie did in the show. There were some things from the book that transferred over to the show, but ultimately it was a completely different story.
If I had never seen the show and had no previous knowledge of what I was expecting, I’m sure the book would’ve been great. However, I was very disappointed in it while reading. So much so, I practically had to force myself to finish it.
Also, I’m thinking the book was maybe the basis for just the first season, and I was expecting the overall story.
I was expecting the characters to be the same. Their names, jobs, relationships, etc., and follow the story lines of the show. After all, the show was based on the book, right?
Except many of the characters in the book and the show do not correlate at all. Knowing the show, it was difficult for me to try to understand who the people were in the book. I knew the names from the show, but not having them play the same characters from book was irritating.
There were very few parts of the book that matched the stories of the show. Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda are all mentioned in the book, but not as the main characters per say. It follows Carrie’s story more than the others, but even that is different. The book hardly has those four as friends, where in the show they couldn’t be closer.
Mr. Big is in the book, along with some other characters like Stanford Blatch, Skipper Johnson, Barkley, models and “modelizers,” Stanford’s model client (but has a different name in the book), etc. I also recognized some of the places they went.
Many of the opening quotes of the show were taken from the book, and common statements were present in both you could recognize from different episodes.
Aside from the main group of girls not being really close or connected in the book, my biggest problem was Carrie. She was the one terrorizing the relationship with Mr. Big, whereas the show made Big look like the “bad guy.” She was doing drugs and basically just partied nonstop. The show stated she “used to be a party girl,” and the book really portrays her that way.
The consistent factor throughout the whole thing was Carrie and Mr. Big’s story. It did follow them, but nothing like it did in the show. The differences from my expectations and background knowledge were very upsetting.
Ultimately, if you love “Sex and the City” the show, do not read the book. It will just upset and frustrate you. If you’ve never seen the show, then you may enjoy the book. The writing is not the best I’ve read, but the stories are still entertaining.