Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way 'girls who write their pain on their bodies' scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a 'semifamous' local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her-who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves-Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she 'like-likes' but who had pined for Ellis instead. Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street.

14 & up)Īfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself. Fans of the franchise will want to learn more of Carrie’s coming-of-age experiences and will appreciate the sly wit that sometimes shines through-repartee at parties is occasionally priceless others might enjoy imagining themselves in Carrie’s freewheeling demi-adult world. In the semi-fantasy world of Bushnell’s New York, alcohol flows freely, no one ever gets carded and everyone is sexually active in short-lived relationships they love to discuss later. Since he’s apparently not less than 30, even a few characters in this sexually lively bit of fluff find the relationship a little sketchy. She falls headlong in love (or something that might resemble love) with jaded playwright Bernard, who implausibly convinces himself that Carrie’s a trifle older than her true age. When her rooming-house plans fall through, she instead moves in with the friend of a friend, fashionista Samantha-determinedly on the fast track to fame and fortune-and also meets Miranda, a fiery feminist.

Seventeen-year-old Carrie has moved to New York City in the summer before she’s slated to start at Brown University. She’s signed up to take a writing course. The sequel to The Carrie Diaries (2010) continues the mid-80s adventures of Carrie Bradshaw, before her appearance in Bushnell’s adult novels that led to the Sex and the City TV series and films.

Summer and the city candace bushnell