Old Carrie Bradshaw Meets New in 'The Carrie Diaries'

By Jo Piazza Posted May 4th 2010 04:00PM

Have you ever watched 'Sex and the City' and thought about how you and Carrie Bradshaw would totally have been BFF if only you had met in high school? Well, now you can meet the 17-year-old Carrie in Candace Bushnell's new young adult novel, 'The Carrie Diaries.' But this Carrie is a little different from the one we fell in love with on TV and the big screen. Bushnell doesn't bother sticking to some plot points from the television show -- a point that is obvious only to the nit-pickiest 'SATC' fans. Like your friends here at PopEater. Let's take a quick peek, after the jump.

In 'The Carrie Diaries,' Carrie is a virgin until her senior year of high school. But recall that the TV Carrie once told Charlotte that she lost her virginity in the eleventh grade in Seth Bateman's smelly rec room on the ping pong table. (Editor's note: Oh, the glamor of high school!)

Teenage Carrie is quite the gourmand, spending a whole day making coq au vin for friends. "I've recently discovered that cooking is a great way to distract yourself from your problems while providing a sense of accomplishment," young Carrie explains.

It's a skill she must have lost when she moved to Manhattan, since we know she used her oven as storage space for shoes and clothes by the time she reached thirty.

Teenage Carrie lives with her widowed father and two younger sisters (yup, sisters!), but in the show she wondered if maybe she was screwed up about men because her dad walked out on her and her mother.

And whatever happened to her old high school boyfriend Jeremy? The one played by David Duchovny on TV, who comes back into the picture because he is taking a "break" from life in the local funny farm? In the book, we learn about two high school boyfriends, Sam the Stoner and Doug, who was on the basketball team and tried to pressure Carrie into sex. We also meet the heart-breaker Sebastian and a love-struck college boy, George. But no signs of Jeremy.

But despite all these little differences, this young lady is most definitely the Carrie Bradshaw we have all come to cherish. And the "Carrie-isms" are strong throughout the story, if a bit tweaked for the tween set. For example, her observation that "there ought to be a law that says every time a boy kisses a girl, he has to call within three days." Definitely not the way Mr. Big's Carrie would say it.

She later scolds a girlfriend who just had sex in the woods for the first time -- "You could have got a stick in your butt." Nope, not quite the way you would hear it from the mouth of the grown-up Carrie Bradshaw.

The young Carrie is different from the more polished, glossy onscreen character played by Sarah Jessica Parker. But she's just as lovable, whether she did it in Seth Bateman's smelly rec room or not.

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Tags: candace bushnell, sarah jessica parker, sex and the city

Comments

(4)

Tuesday 04 May

By teemac

Vote down Vote up Report this

The writer of this article must remember that the television show was just based on the book "Sex and the City", not an exact replica. In fact, the book's character of Big is somewhat different on the show too.

By your neighborhood librarian

Call me pouty, but I just finished it and I'd have liked more fluff. More clothes, more humor. Carrie and I are just about the same age - I remember 1981 - and this book to me was too much Juice Newton and not enough Pat Benatar.

Friday 07 May

By Lulupeters

Haven't read it yet, but I must say I'm already disappointed by the inaccuracies with the stories from her past presented in the show...

Wednesday 12 May

By Karly Perkins

I read this book in two days !!, I loved every single page of it, I simply couldnt get enough of it. At times it literally made me laugh out loud, I found myself even talking about it to my friends on several occations. Its a must read, the only gripe i have about it is the ending was so unusually weird if someone understands it better please tell me? otherwise it was great :)

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