The trials and tribulations of four New York women’s love lives, friendships, and careers have kept readers and viewers engrossed for decades. My own first encounter with the attention-demanding nature of their stories is still a vivid memory — when a roommate turned on an episode of the Sex and the City series, I was drawn immediately to the scandalizing soundbites about sex, love, fashion, and womanhood in the Big Apple that I overheard. Carrie Bradshaw, Charlotte York, Samantha Jones, and Miranda Hobbes have been the stars of ten years of TV across two series, as well as two movies. Now, as what appears to be their final spinoff, And Just Like That…, comes to a close after four years and three seasons, we can’t help but think back to where they were first brought to our attention.
Before the silver screen, Carrie and her friends first took form in a New York newspaper column written by Candace Bushnell. In an attempt to conceal the intimate particulars of her life from family members, Bushnell adapted her stories to belong to the semi-autobiographical character Carrie Bradshaw, a choice that unknowingly also created a pop culture icon. Since Bushnell’s column, several other written volumes on Carrie and her best friends have been published. For any Sex and the City or And Just Like That… viewers still hungry for delicious drama and fierce female friendships without new TV episodes airing, the following books might satisfy that appetite.
Sex and The City by Candace Bushnell
Bushnell began her column in The New York Observer in 1994 and kept it up until 1996. The closing door on her newspaper writing also marked an opening into new kinds of publications, as an anthology of the column’s popular stories titled Sex and the City was released that same year. This collection of Bushnell’s pieces reveals the continued movement towards Carrie Bradshaw as an independent character, with her earlier, first-person writing a less prominent aspect of the book. The 1996 Sex and the City also allows readers insight into earlier versions of Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha that are now ingrained in pop culture, as their professions and friendships in this first novel are markedly different from later media.
The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell
The years between Bushnell’s first book and The Carrie Diaries, published in 2010, saw the explosion of Sex and the City’s popularity. The HBO TV adaptation premiered in 1998, starring Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie, alongside Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis as Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte, respectively, and was rated among the top comedies even in its first season. With success and attention only growing, Bushnell provided fans with a whole new set of prequel storylines to devour in The Carrie Diaries. Taking us out of New York and back a few decades, Bushnell paints a picture of Carrie’s smaller-scale high school life in Connecticut. Though some glamour and high fashion might be missing, the signature Bradshaw drama and romance are still present in spades. Carrie’s teenage adventures were also brought to TV in their own adaptation, running for two seasons before cancellation in 2014.
Summer and the City by Candace Bushnell
Summer and the City arrived in 2011 hot on the heels of The Carrie Diaries. Like the short window of time between publications, the story itself begins soon after the conclusion of Bushnell’s second novel as Carrie makes her way to Manhattan to find her footing in the city. Other familiar faces from the first anthology including Samantha and Charlotte also show their face again in Summer and the City, though this time as a budding fashionista and dedicated New York University student. As a fledgling adult, Carrie navigates encounters from the scandal of a relationship with an older man to a thrilling taste of her career dreams in a writing class. As usual, humor and cleverness keep readers turning pages to watch a young girl from Connecticut evolve into the Carrie Bradshaw we recognize — one most likely with a cigarette in hand, strutting down the street in Manolo Blahniks to match an outfit somehow both intensely zany and utterly fashionable.
Candace Bushnell’s books allow readers a look into both how the characters emerged and evolved, both in real life and their own fictional histories. In the wake of what appears as the final screen adaptation of her stories, it’s easy to appreciate the sharp wit, jaunty humor, and faithful representations of both fabulous and frightening aspects of single life in the city that started it all.
Learn more about what has made Sex and the City such a sensation here!
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