Reading Level: Adult
This is the third book I've read by acclaimed author Candace Bushnell, and I am
so relieved that it is better than the last one, "4 Blondes," even while it takes
Janey Wilcox, one of the characters out of that book's limited vignette format,
and gives her a back story, a husband, and a promising future. While not as
complex or intricately woven as Bushnell's "One Fifth Avenue," 'Trading Up" is a
delightfully juicy read that has me rooting for the main female character to
succeed, while secretly despising her for her cunning and ruthlessness in
constantly "trading up" from her current lifestyle to something even more
glamorous.
In this book, the character Janey Wilcox comes into her own, going from being
the summer party girl she was in "4 Blondes," to a successful Victoria's Secret
model who lands a big fish spouse and her own summer house in the Hamptons
(her dream, not mine). However, this book goes into depth about her past, and
how she became the girl with a reputation for being easy but not cheap. We see
her origins as a young girl with a disapproving family being led into a life of sex
for money when she falls on hard times while trying to make it as a model in
Paris. She ends up as prey to a wealthy foreigner on his yacht, and in moments
of retrospection, she sees that as the turning point of her story. She is a
character I as the reader love to hate, even while gleaning from her cliched back
story why she was so starved for status and approval. Yet through her
unblinkingly honest description, Bushnell doesn't quite allow her readers to
forgive Janey her ability to coldly use everyone, from her girlfriends to her sister
and husband through her countless lovers, as the author takes us deep into her
mental processes, so we can see truly why she does what she does.
Still, this is a story of triumph over adversity, as Janey finds her checkered past
revealed and herself reviled by the people she formerly called friends. However,
we have to cheer when, with an almost superhuman resilience, she moves from
NYC (where she has become persona non grata) to Hollywood, California, where
she reinvents herself, pulling her reputation (and her love life) from the ashes of
scandal, just when we think she has no place left to turn and no one left who
could possibly love her.
While all Bushnell's stories smack of adolescent girls' fantasy adventures that
propel them from a dull, middle-class existence to the heights of New York
society, Bushnell does it better than other writers of this genre, and at least gives
her readers the benefit of her clear and sometimes even poetic writing style. Her
protagonist in this novel, Janey Wilcox, is ambition personified, and Bushnell's
description of her riveting roller coaster ride of a life is what makes this book such
a perfectly thrilling summertime read.
Submitted by Gerti
