Sep
17
2008
Yes, I just read the book Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist that was highly sexual but the thought of a Sex and the City spinoff in book written by Candace Bushnell for teens scares me. Jia, your thoughts?
What part of the YA market is she trying to hit? The kind that likes catty intrigue, bedhopping, and illicit drug and alcohol teenage shenanigans? Gossip Girl has the market cornered on that. While it's true there are lots of Gossip Girl clones, the one that always gets mentioned when talking about this particular YA subgenre is Gossip Girl. That series is the standard.
And another friend said to me
I think SATC worked well because it was about adult single women. You know, the whole "Life isn't over if you don't have the husband and babies by 29 sort of thing. You could still be 40 and be hot and wild if you wanted to be, and it also showed how difficult it was to find a decent guy once you WERE that age, and balancing career with boyfriend and everything.
To be honest, I don't see how that's going to cross over at all except for the 'racy' aspects of a loose girl in high school, and…yikes. Plus, whatever guy she ends up with is not going to be Big, and I think that will probably play in the back of readers' minds. Like, if you really like Ben or whoever she dates in the book and hooks up with, there's going to be a certain amount of 'disposableness' to him because you know she ends up with Big.
I love SATC, saw the movie in the theatre, can’t wait for it to hit DVD next week so I can see it again, but I think this is very weird.
They’d be better off having the TV series writers do it. The Candace Bushnell book isn’t much like the show in some important ways–first and foremost the four friends. The book lacks those close-knit friendships; it’s cynical from start to finish, whereas I doubt the HBO series would have lasted without the added sense of community.
I am also wondering how they can go about that. As I remember, the four main characters from the show did not meet until they were at least in their twenties. So they can’t have grown up together. But if you’re just trying to recreate SATC only give it younger characters and whatever… Gossip Girl has already done it. And if they’re trying to re-create something, I don’t know how great a cardboard copy would be.
Unless you’re going to be writing a book about Carrie or Mirandas YA kids, I don’t think its going to be any good.
The article says it’s going to be based on Carrie Bradshaw’s teen years, which is what makes the second quote Jane had in her post so relevant.
I thought they already made that series and it was called “Square Pegs”? :)