The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell
Copyright 2010
Published by HarperCollins Publishers
389 pages

The tag line on the front cover of Candace Bushnell’s book The Carrie Diaries is “Meet Carrie before Sex and The City.”  Immediately, I recognize this fictional novel as connected to Carrie Bradshaw, a fictional character at the helm of a popular primetime television show on HBO (now in syndication on other networks) and two R-rated major motion pictures which chronicle Carrie & friends’ adventures following the series finale.

Clearly, the television series and two movies are geared toward adults and market to the adult audience. But somewhere in the middle of the syndication and motion picture debuts, I had a number of high school girls in my youth group FLIPPING OUT about how great they thought the show was and how they couldn’t wait to see the movie.  I had never (and still have never) watched the show or the movies. But when I saw this book advertised, I was extremely curious to see how PG or PG-13 The Carrie Diaries might be, assuming books I find in the “Young Readers” section of a major national bookstore are PG or PG-13.

The plot follows Carrie through her senior year of high school in New Jersey circa 1987.  She has not found her beloved New York City yet.  She’s deciding which college to attend.  She is the oldest of three sisters in a one-parent household.  Carrie’s dad is parenting the three girls as her mom passed away two years before the book begins.

So far, no major problems.  However, I did not have to read very far into the book to find some questionable plot twists – Carrie worries about the fact that she’s the only virgin among her clan of four best girlfriends; Carrie trying to manipulate a situation to change the fact that she’s the only virgin left among her four friends; Carrie and one of her best friends fighting over the same; Carrie and family going to bail her youngest sister out of jail because of anger issues in her youngest sister’s life…

I was disappointed.  The book is not really a PG version, nor even a PG-13 version, of Sex and The City.  I would not recommend this book as an alternative to teenage girls.  The author, Candace Bushnell, is a great storyteller. She definitely knows how to create realistic situations and allow the reader to find the plot believable. The situations the senior-in-high-school version of Carrie Bradshaw faces, however, are not necessarily representative of what all single females face during their senior year.  And the choices Carrie makes are not necessarily the same choices I would want a twelfth grade female seeking to honor the Lord to make.  I do not recommend the book.

We WILL find a fiction book that is acceptable for our teenage girls to read!  And we will definitely keep you posted when we find an author we feel confident in recommending.

Ree Reinhardt is a youth worker at First Baptist Church, McKinney, Texas, and has worked with and ministered to teenagers for almost 11 years.  She graduated with a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Georgia and a Masters of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.  Ree has served in a variety of positions within the local church: volunteer youth worker, summer youth intern, full-time youth intern, part-time youth minister, full-time girls' minister, van driver, meal preparer, trash taker-outer, etc.  She currently serves with SAGE's event team and contributes to SAGE's online resources.