Friday, January 20, 2012

Maybe the tv show is better?

I never got into Sex and the City. I've seen a few episodes here and there, and I saw the movie. But that's about it. I've never read anything Candace Bushnell has written. So when I was playing around on my library's ebook selection and saw that Lipstick Jungle was available immediately (a rarity, but this is neither the time nor the place), I decided to check it out. I'm always happy to read chick lit, particularly when avoiding reading something a bit heavier (in this case, I should be reading Middlemarch for my book club).

After reading it, I can't say that I feel I've been missing out. In reading some of the reviews, maybe it was the book; a lot of people seemed to find it worse than Bushnell's other books. Part of my problem is that it's a book about rich, powerful, attractive women. Those are not things that I can really relate to. (Other than being a woman.) And Bushnell clearly had a feminist agenda, which is fine, but man, it was incredibly heavy-handed. I don't know Bushnell's story at all, but she doesn't come across as someone who likes men. There were numerous occasions of the characters needing to hear things that could only come from their girlfriends and long rants about how women have to act like men and blah blah blah.

The main problem, though, was with the main characters. The book follows three best friends: Nico (runs a magazine), Victory (fashion designer), and Wendy (head of a movie company). They were basically the same character. I spent the book trying to figure out which story was Wendy's and which was Nico's. It didn't help that Bushnell tends to start chapters and sections of chapter establishing a scene without explicitly stating who's in it (or how much time has passed since the previous chapter/section). When the characters all have the same traits. just sticking someone in a room doesn't differentiate. Of course, even when she did say who it was, I kept getting mixed up. Is Wendy the one having the affair, and Nico the one with the slacker husband?

All in all, it doesn't make me want to run out and read another Bushnell book. If the characters are people I can't really relate to, I at least want their stories to be unique and compelling. This book was neither.

Monday, January 2, 2012

2011 in reivew: Theater

Parentheses indicate where I saw the show. 

The Carpetbagger's Children (Ford's)
Sunset Blvd. (Signature)
Jersey Boys (National tour)
Les Miserables (National tour) (...twice)
Liberty Smith (Ford's)
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Broadway)
Follies (Kennedy Center)
Side by Side by Sondheim (Signature)
Oklahoma! (Arena)
I Capture the Castle (Signature)
Guys & Dolls (Tour)
The Boy Detective Fails (Signature)
Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (Signature)
Parade (Ford's)
Hugh Jackman Back on Broadway (Broadway)
Hairspray (Signature)
A Christmas Carol (Ford's)
A Second Chance (Signature)
You, Nero (Arena)
Pride and Prejudice (Round House)
Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare)

Looking back, Parade was my favorite; Signature's Hairspray was fabulous as well, and of course I loved Les Mis. And I may still be swooning over Hugh Jackman. There aren't any I didn't enjoy; I'm so fortunate that I got to see so many shows last year.