Candace Bushnell’s TRADING UP & LIPSTICK JUNGLE

“Modern-day heroine Janey Wilcox is a lingerie model whose often exceeds her grasp, and whose new-found success has gone to her head. As we follow Janey’s adventures, Bushnell draws us into a seemingly glamorous world of $100,000 cars, hunky polo players and media moguls, Fifth Avenue apartments, and relationships whose hidden agendas are detectable only by the socially astute. But just as Janey enters this world of too much money and too few morals, unseen forces conspire to bring her down, forcing her to reconsider love and friendship --- and how far she’s really willing to go for her deams.”

“To everyone who’s anyone in New York, Victory Ford, Wendy Healy and Nico O’Neilly are riding high, the beautiful faces of success in the city. Victory is the hottest new designer on the block; Wendy is President pf Parador Pictures with a sure-fire hit in production and the three gorgeous children; and Nico is the editor of Bonfire magazine, the city’s style bible. To the outside world, they’ve hit their prime. The trouble is, from where Victory, Wendy and Nico are standing, things don’t look quite that way. Nico is fitting in guilty extra marital sex with an underwear model, Victory’s last collection bombed and Wendy’s twelve-year marriage to her metrosexual househusband is in freefall. Fierce, funny, and flawed, Candace Bushnell’s new heroines are also irresistible, and as she follows them through the minefield of work, love and life at the top she gives us a hugely entertaining lesson in the toughest town on the planet. Welcome to their world --- the Lipstick Jungle.”

The synopsis for each is written at the back of the book itself which I just copied word for word. Most of the time, when I do my bookworms, I share to my readers how it made me feel, the insights that I had and why I read it. I don’t really tell the story that much. The smart ones are just able to read between the lines and figure out from there if the book would be worth reading for them too or not.With this bookworm, at least you get to have a feel of what it is all about.

I enjoyed reading these two books because sometimes, I do crave for some imagination of what it would be like to have the lives of these glamorous and interesting characters whose lifestyles are so different from mine. I think we all feel like that at some points in our lives, that’s why celebrity shows can be so popular, coz they depict something which we, ordinary people, hope we could have too. That’s why I like authors like Danielle Steel & Sidney Sheldon. And for now, Candace Bushnell as well (who is also the brains behind Sex & the City). Both books display not only the seemingly perfect lives of her characters but the sad and ugly realities too. I guess, no matter how successful in life one can be, there’s always a trade off or sacrifices that have to be made along the way. The question now for me is, will I be willing to give up my comfortable life just to be on top of the world (e.g. as one of the future leaders of our company) like Bushnells’s characters? Hmmm... What a tough decision to make.I guess I’ll just stick with my MDP studies for now and see how it goes.