The Carrie Diaries

April 12, 2010
This polished prequel to Sex and the City
reveals the ample drama that filled Carrie Bradshaw’s life before her move to Manhattan. With wit and insight, Carrie chronicles her emotionally charged senior year at a small Connecticut high school. While her friends’ lives seem to be falling into place—especially on the dating and sex fronts—Carrie has just been rejected by a summer writing seminar in New York City, and laments, “I have nothing figured out at all.” She falls hard for a slick underachiever who eventually leaves her for one of her best friends, while her widower father grapples with single parenthood, made tougher by Carrie’s rebellious youngest sister’s antics. Readers should be amused by some of the period details (Carrie’s 18-year-old friends can drink legally), though they don’t weigh heavily on the story, making the early 1980s setting feel almost incidental. Similarly, there’s little that shouts, “This
is the Carrie Bradshaw you know and love,” as opposed to any other thoughtful teenager slowly coming into her own. But readers should enjoy witnessing Carrie’s burgeoning independence and confidence as a writer. Ages 14–up.

July 1, 2010
The Sex and the City author's first YA book chronicling Carrie Bradshaw's high school years is unsurprising but not disappointing. The protagonist is sassy, smart, fashionable, and distinctly "Carrie" in her teenage aspirations, relationships, and experiences. The volume is pitched for older teens who crave the edgy glamour that made Bushnell famous.

(Copyright 2010 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

May 15, 2010
Grades 9-12 Before Manhattan and Manolos, who was Carrie Bradshaw? In her first novel for teens, Bushnell fills in her Sex and the City stars growing-up years with this chronicle of Carries senior year of high school in a small New England town. Bushnell maintains believable continuity of character in this teen version of her cultural icon, and fans will enjoy watching Carrie develop her familiar adult traits: her love of fashion, her wit, her writing ambitions, and her own brand of feminism. Once again, Carrie has three best friends, the alcohol flows freely, and sex is always on the conversation agenda, but here theres a lot more talk than action (Carrie is a virgin). There are love interests, of course: a gorgeous heartbreaker and a clean-cut college guy who kisses like a man who thinks in straight lines. As with the TV show, though, its the books friendships that teens may relate to most. Fans will love this (and only insiders will get the ending), but smart, vulnerable, questioning Carrie emerges as a likable, stand-alone character. Expect plenty of adult interest, too.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)