The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell

I listened to this one on CD driving to and from work every day.  I loved it!  It is the story of Carrie Bradshaw (of Sex and the City) when she was in high school.  Most of it is centered around boy drama, but it touches on her passion for writing and early struggles with that as well.

I loved all the stories and her drama with Donna Ladonna and her friends.  I even loved how they did the different voices of the characters.

Here is a synopsis fro the authors website:

The Carrie Diaries is the coming-of-age story of one of the most iconic characters of our generation.

Before Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw was a small town girl who knew she wanted more. She’s ready for real life to start, but first she must navigate her senior year of high school. Up until now, Carrie and her friends have been inseparable. Then Sebastian Kydd comes into the picture, and a friend’s betrayal makes her question everything.

With an unforgettable cast of characters, The Carrie Diaries is the story of how a regular girl learns to think for herself, and evolves into a sharp, insightful writer. Readers will learn about her family background, how she found her writing voice, and the indelible impression her early friendships and relationships left on her. Through adventures both audacious and poignant, we’ll see what brings Carrie to her beloved New York City, where her new life begins.

I think she has a follow-up book to this one called Summer and the City that I'm going to have to read now.

I've read all of Candace Bushnell's books and enjoyed them all so I highly recommend this one if you've read her other stuff and liked it.

I give this one 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

This is the second book in The Uglies series.  This one was really annoying to read at first because of all the “pretty talk”.  Basically the pretties talk like stupid 18-year old valley girls.  “Like this is totally pretty-making and the book has the Crims trying to stay totally bubbly.”   

In this book you get to see the world of the pretties.  And it isn’t all pretty.  Of course I couldn't help but thinking how I would love to wake up beautiful every day with my biggest coneren being what I was going to wear to the party that night.  And having a closet I could just order whatever I wanted out of!

I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll just say once you finish the first book you will have to read this one and once you finish this one, you’ll want to see what happens in the third one.

I give this one 4 out of 5 stars.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

It took me a few chapters to really get in to this book, but once I did I was hooked.  Uglies is the story of a world sometime in the future where on your 16^th birthday everyone gets plastic surgery to become a “pretty”.  When you are a teenager, before you turn 16 and have the surgery you are known as an ugly.  Everyone on their 16^th birthday gets to turn into a supermodel, move in to “new pretty town”, and go to lavish parties and just enjoy being fabulous.

The main character Tally is getting ready to turn 16, but she starts to discover some things no one ever talks about.  Things the people in charge want to keep a secret.  Tally makes friends with a girl named Shay and she introduces her to a whole new world outside of the pretties.  But Tally is torn because she has always wanted to be a pretty so she gets put in a very bad position and may have to betray her friend.

This is the first book of a trilogy.  I am currently on the last book and can’t wait to see how it ends for Tally and her friends.  If you enjoyed The Hunger Games, you would probably enjoy these too as they have very similar themes.

I give this one 4 out of 5 stars.