I haven't read anything else by Bushnell, but I like the few episodes of Sex & the City that I've seen. Lipstick Jungle, though, was an excruciating read—almost a chore to pick it up every time. I hope it's a better television show than book, but I'm still not likely to watch. I had a hard time identifying with the shallow, power-hungry characters. And there were too many impossibilities for me to suspend disbelief.

In this book women can be just as idiotic about money, sex, love, friendship, and family as some men can. There are a few redeeming bits, like older women who help out the younger ones. The characters are overtly feminist, but the story doesn't give me that warm feeling of sisterhood I can get from other books that aren't so in-your-face about the monetary success of a few select female individuals.

While the book doesn't succeed for me as feminist art, I have to hand it to Bushnell for doing a good bit of feminist commerce. She must be at least as successful money-wise as Dan Brown.

I liked this book, but I like Candace Bushnell. Some of the members of our club didn't like the book at all and felt that Bushnell was too hard on men. Me? I liked the way she portrayed the men in her book. I liked the characters, especially Victory Ford. Some felt the characters were completely unrelatable but I didn't find that to be the case. Of course I can't relate from a wealth and power standpoint, but I did relate to the struggle to achieve and climb in a man's world.

As for recommending, I would recommend the read. Of the five who read the book, only two of us liked it and enjoyed it, one found it easy to read but didn't really care for it and two struggled to read it at all because they disliked it so much.

I think part of the problem was that some felt the book would be like the Sex and the City HBO series, but Bushnell's writing is not like the HBO series. Personally, I didn't like her Sex and the City book. It was totally different from the series. The writers at HBO made the series what it was, not Bushnell. She was there to provide input and direction, but the book is not the TV series.

So for Lipstick Jungle, perhaps there was an unrealistic
expectation from our club members.
I'm still a Bushnell fan and will read Trading Up next...and anything else that she puts out.

This book had no depth, no character development and we didn't connect with the characters at all. In fact many of us felt we couldn't keep them straight simply because we didn't care about them. It's the same basic story of sex and the city, been there, done that.....boring...