Re-Wind: Back Track on I Will Always Love You

I'm one of those people that tends to act like I have a personal relationship with their favourite characters, both in my favourite books and my favourite TV shows. Since I grew up reading Gossip Girl for most of my teenage life the Blair, Serena, Nate love triangle will always hold a special place in my heart. Knowing this is the final novel in the series is actually a little heartbreaking, and in some ways a parallel to the closing chapter of my own adolescence. In my last few posts I've been a bit nostalgic, maybe even overly so, but the truth be told is sometimes you need to look to the past, especially when you're trying to figure out where you're going. I credit Blair Waldorf for my undying love for Audrey Hepburn which at this point in my life surpasses my love and adoration for Blair. It's actually made me into the person I am today, it's the first series I really interacted with and now the final novel was in some ways self reflexive of the last four years of my own life. There are however a few things I'd like to say about the one I will truly always love. I'll forgive Cecily Von Ziegesar and her editor for their momentary lapse in judgement (i.e. the additional, need I say forced) Chuck & Blair story line, that had very little development because she stayed true to the thing that made the books compelling, the never ending love triangle between Blair, Serena and Nate. I may deny that I'm a romantic but when it comes to Nate and Blair, I'll always have a soft spot. It's true what they said when the TV series first started - Nate was always caught between the love of his life and the girl of his dreams, but who does he choose in the end, or for that matter who do Serena and Blair choose in the end: that you'll have to read to believe. You'll love it if you loved the book series, and if you haven't read the series yet, you should seriously think about it (but don't cheat and read just the last one, start from the beginning, it's way more interesting that way). You're nobody 'til your talked about. xoxo - Gossip Girl

The More Things Change...

The more they stay the same. Now that may sound like a cliche, and I'd ordinarily agree and never even think of using it in this post but in the case of the new and final chapter in the original Gossip Girl series it couldn't be closer to the truth. I finally ordered in online when to my dismay no one bought it for me for my birthday or for Christmas, Yes I am a twenty year old English major and this is technically a young adult/teenage read that my professors would probably be appalled that this made the cut so high on my reading list but meh! It's a guilty pleasure that I am not willing to give up. Seventy Seven pages into Cecily Von Ziegesar's brand new masterpiece, "I Will Always Love You" and I've been transported back to the days before the TV show, when I sat in my room and instead of watching TV and talking on the phone I was enraptured in the likes of "Would I Lie to You" "It Had to Be You" and "Nothing Can Keep Us Together". I was slightly apprehensive about picking up this book, after so many years, could Cecily be able to recapture the essence of the characters? After the It Girl and The Carlyles, would I be as in love with it, or have I matured too much. (Ha, that's a laugh) Turns out, I'm just as much of a kid now as I was 6 years ago when I opened my first Gossip Girl novel. I wish these books could live on forever and find it quite strange to compare it to the TV show when (except for the accurate depiction of Blair) everything else seems so far removed. Thankfully the images of the characters I'd created in my head all those years ago have remained unscathed by the small screen adaptation. To all avid Gossip Girl lovers alike: we may all have to grow up sometime but even if it's just for now pick it up and give Gossip Girl one last read. You know you'll love it xoxo.

Mercury in Retrograde

Interested in what goes on in the mind of a NYT Page Six Editor? The woman with the inside scoop on the hottest gossip in the city that never sleeps, Paula Froelich recently published her debut novel, Mercury in Retrograde. When Mercury falls into retrograde, all hell breaks loose for three New York women, in all the chaos and calamity this unlikely trio end up living in the same apartment building and become best friends. When Penelope Mercury burns her office to a crisp and projectile vomits all over her boss, things couldn't possibly get any worse. The fashionable socialite/editor Lena "Lipstick" Lippencrass, is served with a parental eviction notice, forcing her to pull herself up by her Jimmy Choo bootstraps. As for the workaholic/neurotic newly divorced Dana Gluck, when her (seemingly) picture perfect marriage, turns out to be anything but, she's got to learn that working 24/7 and (unneccessarily) attending Weight Watcher meetings isn't the remedy to getting over the depression that follows a failed marriage. The story that follows these three ladies as they're smacked back into orbit had me more than giggling in amusement in less than appropriate places (yes that was me on the train laughing while you were trying to sleep). I'll be waiting for Paula Froelich's next masterpiece.

The New York Woman in Me

Since I finished 4 Blondes, another Candace Bushnell book I've been left to reflect on the type of woman I am and the type of woman I'll become. Though this book is very low on my list of books I'd suggest anyone read I find that Bushnell's knack for telling it like it is, and saying the things we're not supposed to say has forced me yet again to confront myself. When I read Lipstick Jungle I'd decided that between the ages of 30 and 40 I wanted to be the kind of woman that was at the top of her career, just like Nico, Wendy, and Victory and that I'd do anything to get there. Now I've found the trick, after reading through another tale about New York women I'm confronted with the aftermath. It would seem that although I've spent the better part of the last couple years denying want of marriage and family that I am just as Bushnell writes her characters and quite possibly an all true New York woman (whether or not I was born there). When I've reached the top of my career I'm going to have spent too many nights in my empty apartment and I'm going to want that dream life that I've tried so hard to avoid wanting. I'm going to want to get married and have adorable childen, even if its not what I say I want right now. In their youth New York women love their independence, the belief that their career is what matters and the notion that they don't need anyone else, I can say that that's me now. But in a couple of decades, the other woman, the woman that I don't recognize, the one that wants a family life: husband and child(ren)- I may become her.

Lip service #6

I opened this book thinking I'd start the summer off with a bit of meaningless, frivolous reading, and instead I was confronted with a future image of myself that is lets just say, not what I want. Reading for identification I suppose is my weakness, I constantly see facets of myself in the books that I read that entrance me and keep me wholly consumed in the lives of the characters in the books. I cringe when they cringe, I feel what they feel, and it's become somewhat unavoidable. Today I read something that hit home so hard it was startling, so my lip service of the day is:

Lip Service #6: I'm blessed and cursed with "a heart that invites people without permission, holds them in a special place she never had any say in and then yearns for them to remain there longer than they plan" - (Cecilia Ahern, If You Could See me Now)

It's why I tend to gravitate to the idea of never letting my heart see the light of day. But it's also something that has brought so much joy and happiness into my life, maybe the things I can't control are the best things a control freak like me can ever hope for, and maybe just maybe I should find solace in not having a stranglehold on that as I do on everything else.

The Contemporary Goddess of All things Sex, Love and New York

After finishing One Fifth Avenue, the 4th Candace Bushnell book I've read to date I have to say if she wasn't my favourite author for writing my favourite book Lipstick Jungle (and Sex and the City) she is now. Maybe it's the way her description of New York Society makes you feel like an insider or the sheer philosophy of her writing but I can't help but love her. In this installment of the brilliant author's published works she takes on the task of describing the women of New York, this time not through the eyes of a bunch of gal pals learning the ins and outs of life in the Big City, but through the eyes of the Beautiful, Historical, Co-op landmark she describes as One Fifth Avenue. She explores the mixing of Old and New people, money, and society. The women of One Fifth prove to be none other than interesting, with one woman not ready to admit she's out of her prime and who's still grasping at straws to make it as somebody in New York society, and a little twenty two year old twit who tries to inveigle her way into the lives of the residents of One Fifth Avenue only to find out selling your body in one form or another only leads to more pain than pleasure. The way Bushnell captures the very soul of New York in her books makes me think that if I could live in any place written by anyone I'd want it to be New York as told by Candace Bushnell. She is truly the Contemporary Goddess of all things Sex, Love and New York.

Women's Murder Club: Another Good Show Gone

but the great books remain

After finding out that the Women’s Murder Club television series based on the James Patterson novels was cancelled in its first season I went into remission. To mend my broken heart I went to my local bookstore and picked up 1st to Die, the first book in the Women’s Murder Club series, and as much as I loved the TV series I love the books ten times more. I’m now on the fourth book, entitled 4th of July and I could not recommend a more thrilling series. Patterson has created a set of page turning, mind blowing, and tear wrenching novels that I’ve become heavily addicted to. The series is progressively getting better and better and I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do when I finish the series. If you’re looking for a good series to read this one is as good as it gets, so head to the bookstore and I’d advise picking up at least the first two because you’ll want to go straight into the next one after you’ve finished reading the first. There are seven books in all, try and finish them before me!

...A Lipstick Jungle

So in the event that you didn't get my subtle hints nudging you to the bookstore to get the Lipstick Jungle novel by Candace Bushnell I feel compelled to express how much I adore it. I couldn't put it down, and it may have been the sheer nerve of the women, or the fact that I myself want to be Nico O’Neilly (tv character, Nico Reilly), but this book is good. My mother always said ambition is a wonderful thing, it may be the only thing she told me that I took to heart so I take it seriously. If you didn’t already love Candace Bushnell for being the brains behind the entire idea for Sex and the City you will after reading this. It’s smart, sexy and empowering, everything I perceive its author to be. The three main characters Nico, Wendy and Victory have the kind of ambition that can’t ever be extinguished, and I happen to love them for it. Bushnell takes the old Spice Girls mantra “girl power” corporate with successful women whose ambition makes you believe that they can succeed in anything.

Good Etiquette is Improper Etiquette

Bad Girls Really Do Have the Best Manners...
Time to brush up on your etiquette ladies, well not so much clean it up as get it dirty. I’ve just returned from my mini vacation to Jamaica, and while I was there I took a little time in between the goings on and brushed up on my reading. Now at first glance I thought the book I’d chosen would be a little raunchy and nothing to write home about, but for those of us who use our vivid imaginations when we read, this book is as graphic as pornography. I thought its two hundred and sixty pages would be a bit of light reading; they were anything but. Heavily doused with sexual innuendo and raw sexuality this book is not for the faint of heart or the conservative. It’s called Improper Etiquette by Janice Maynard and its three separate stories about three women who stumble upon a lovers’ guidebook written in 1949 on how to snag-a-man, by Miss Matilda, they find that the more things change the more they stay the same. We may all think that a book written in 1949 about female etiquette must be totally outdated and have no relevance to us, the women of today, but Miss Matilda shows us just how wrong we are. I found the book amusing, and exciting; it was deliciously sexy and a very guilty pleasure. It was indeed one naughty handbook, especially Miss Matilda’s theories on alternative uses for saran wrap.

It's A Jungle Out There...

For those of you who love Sex and the City and are anticipating its premiere onto the big screen.

Candace Bushnell, the author of the book that inspired the show that has been dubbed a woman’s bible on how to get through relationships and life, has a new show that premiered February this year called Lipstick Jungle. The show revolves around three of the most powerful women in New York City, Nico Reilly the Editor-In-Chief of Bonfire Magazine, Wendy Healy the President of Parador Pictures, and last but definitely not least Victory Ford Top Fashion Designer. The show is mature, sexy, intriguing and bold and with one of its main characters being a top fashion designer it’s full of the passion for fashion that runs through the veins of every fashionista. The show has Bushnell’s signature pop of feminism, and is a must-see for every woman that is determined to climb the corporate ladder and do it in style.
As these three women battle to advance their careers, maintain their love lives and keep their place on top in New York City while juggling scandalous affairs, squabbles between best friends, power struggles and more, they give us a feminist critique of the corporate world and life at its fiercest. Starring Brooke Shields as Wendy, Kim Raver as Nico, and Lindsay Price as Victory the show, like each of its leading ladies is an undeniable knockout. With the tagline “It’s a Jungle out there. Dress appropriately” you could just about idolize these three self-made women who serve as inspirations to the women of today.
Bushnell’s infusion of money, sex, power and fashion is a sweet delight, and I’m brimming with excitement for season two in the fall, catch it on Wednesdays on NBC or Thursdays on A-Channel at 10/9 c. If you haven’t seen it already you need to, so whether you want to buy the season one dvd set, stream the show online, buy it on itunes or wait for those inevitable summer reruns this is the kind of television that you can’t miss. If you happen to get bored with the constant flux of reruns as the summer heat sizzles and summer television fizzles pick up the book, it’s a serious page-turner. What’s not to love about a show that combines Movies, Magazines and Fashion?