If you are one of the many young women shamelessly addicted to NBC's new novel-based drama Lipstick Jungle, then your love for the original novel by Candace Bushnell is bound to be a significant amount stronger.
Bushnell's latest novel, which debuted on the bestsellers list, was recently made into a top-watched television show this winter, much like her most well-known novel, Sex and the City. While this feminist-driven novel pursues a similar track to that of Sex and the City, instead of focusing on the ever-changing lives of four single women, Jungle centers on the expanding careers and diminishing love lives of three of New York's most powerful and admirable business tycoons.
While Sex and the City urged readers to embrace the single life with confidence and courage, Bushnell's message to readers in Jungle heralds more on following your dreams and taking risks. Instead of urging readers to enjoy their sexuality with utter self-confidence, this work of fiction focuses on career aspirations, hard work, accomplishment and power as the secrets to attracting the opposite sex's unwavering love. "It's a jungle out there," Bushnell writes.
The novel, which includes three separate storylines, is centered on the trials and tribulations of three best friends -- who also happen to be the three most powerful women in NYC -- Victory Ford, Nico O'Neilly and Wendy Healy. These women, all of whom are connected by their ambition for success, see each other through countless successes and failures in both life and love.
Victory Ford is a well-known fashion designer who opens the novel while at the top of her game. While Victory feels her new collection is bound to be a success, she shortly discovers her vision is something the fashion world is not ready to accept. Depressed and beaten, she is determined to regain her status as an elite designer with the help and encouragement of her two best friends.
Although this novel is not as sex-and-party-driven as her last, Bushnell still writes about pleasant meals with the girls in Manhattan eateries, the possibility of true love and, of course, fabulous fashions. She also takes a turn at two topics wearily too familiar to many women: living in a world that consistently gives men the upper hand and striving to balance work, family and love.
Whether it be from the runways of New York and Paris or the sleek style of a Manhattan boardroom, this page-turning novel and its strong leading women are sure to leave you feeling inspired, determined, and ready to take your chances out there in the jungle.
Grade: A-
