by Nikki Gotianse-Tan
Candice Bushnell created one of the most popular fictional fashion icons of this generation in Carrie Bradshaw. But more than just what she wore in the popular TV series courtesy of style savant Patricia Field, Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie grew on us like a fabulous girlfriend whose triumphs and tribulations we knew like the back of our hands. After six seasons of the show, many reruns and two movies later, it seems that we still can’t get enough of this small-town girl whose adventures in New York we religiously followed and whose quirky style we unabashedly worshipped. At least I can’t. So when I came across Bushnell’s ne w book, The Carrie Diaries, I knew I had to pick it up. I figured that since I managed to sit through SATC 2 which I personally think should have been left alone, I could pore over 389 pages to find out how Bushnell fashions Carrie in her teens and describes her roots. These were details that the show’s episodes never revealed or delved into. We didn’t even catch a glimpse of a distant relative much less have some relevant Bradshaw family history of to hold onto. In this first book of a series chronicling Carrie’s coming of age, Bushnell spares her readers no detail and in the brisk, first person voice of our heroine before her now infamous Sex and The City days.
The book transports readers back to the 1980s to Carrie’s small New England hometown where she is a high school senior. We see her now as a teen that is part of a family unit, the eldest of three girls and her widowed father. In the midst of her teenage escapades with her group of friends, she is dealing with all sorts of crossroads questions such as where she is going to college and if she gets in the summer writing program in New York. She is really just a regular teenager with practice for the swim team after school and sibling problems at home. And before Mr. Big, there was Sebastian Kydd. Although Carrie’s life back then reeked of Middle America normalcy, it is her naturally larger-than-life persona and inquisitiveness that takes the story somewhere different. Her thoughts on relationships with the people around her shows us that she had the innate knack for reading into human emotions and telling it like she saw it. This she does without judgment, even if faced with a guy friend proclaiming his sexual preference for the school quarterback or her best friend admitting to cheating on her boyfriend. Her openness and up-for-anything motto is probably why so many doors for experience were open to her, even back then. This is a girl who never turned her back on life. She didn’t let her age or inexperience keep her from venturing into even the seediest bars in town or the rowdiest parties. It hardly made her a misfit. It just showed that she always marched to the beat of her generation and did what everyone else was doing.
Despite savoring her youth, it seemed that Carrie had also already made a promise to herself etched in stone that she wanted more than small town life. Her thoughts were always on New York, which was her escape route and promise land. This is something that made even the queen bees at her school take notice of her as she came to be branded as the brainy girl who thought she was better than everyone else. Unintentional as it was, this would cause Carrie some bewilderment but she remained undeterred from her big dreams on the whole. Just as it had allowed people to take notice of her unique voice as a columnist in the New York Star, her wit and intelligence allowed her to carve a distinctive niche in the Castlebury High hierarchy.
Although she always had a good head on her shoulders, reason fell on deaf ears when it came to plunging head-on when it came to love. Especially when the boy in question was sought-after, rakish and stood out from the rest of the pack with big talk about Europe and boarding school. And even if the debonair Sebastian Kydd was obviously cheating on her or intentionally rude, she always gave him the benefit of the doubt. Albeit a more juvenile version of her relationship with Mr. Big, her relationship with Sebastian begs the comparison even if just for her preference in men.
The great thing about reading the prose of the book is that it still feels like the Carrie we always knew. There is a clear bridge between who she was and who she evolved into in New York and this continuity makes the exploits of this teenage Carrie believable and valuable to fans of the series. In this girl who back then would already don powder blue tartan skirts, strips of rawhide around her head and other finds from the neighborhood vintage store, she is already a young dead ringer of the woman who had a penchant for exorbitantly expensive designer shoes and out-of-this-world ensembles.
In truth, it is hardly a meaty memoir. It is a book with a simple plot but with a larger-than-life character. This is a woman we sunk our heels into the Dubai sands for. For a glimpse at her humble beginnings, we should gladly pay homage by lacing up our old sneakers for her teenage exploits. This book definitely shows that where Carrie goes, we should definitely follow.
