'Trading Up' by Candace Bushnell
Helen Lee - 27 June, 2004
It took me a few months to get a copy of Candace Bushnell's Trading Up, after many many trips to the bookstore and many experiences picking up the book and studying it... then leaving with another book in hand. I finally bit the bullet and brought it. Mind you it was off EBay for half the recommended retail price, but that is not the point. The point is that I read it. So now what do I think of it?
Well firstly I find out (after I finished the book) that the main character in Trading Up, Janey Wilcox, was actually introduced in Bushnell's previous book, Four Blondes, which I also haven't read (but at least now own). So note to all of you who haven't read Four Blondes, maybe it might be productive and even helpful to read Four Blondes.
Why? Because if you read a tiny 1/4 of Four Blondes, you would have realised how annoying and self centred Janey is, and yours truly would have saved myself the time and not read Trading Up.
So what is Trading Up about? Well Janey is the main character, an underwear model who used to be a washed up model/whore around town, until being signed by Victoria's Secret. She thinks she's the bees knees, with money and men at her disposal. The story takes us on a journey around New York's social scene - who to know, what to wear, where to be seen, etc. But nothing is ever enough for Janey, who is made to believe she has it all. Or so we the readers are suppose to think. She makes friends with rich socialites, tries to use their husbands, uses her own sister Patty as a form of pity, eventually gets married to a poor soul that is a tad blinded by her apparent beauty and brains.
This is a book with not much in the way of a story, but a book of clichés, from the classic "women are dumb" to the "rich men can get whatever they want, especially from women". And Janey's favourite lipstick colour "Pussy Pink", what can we even say about that? At first it made me cringe at the crass sexual reference and how it probably suited Janey down to the T, but now it makes me want to go through the book and destroy all evidence that it ever was printed. Is sexual references of that nature really necessary? And would any major skin care and make up label ever call a lipstick Pussy Pink?
To say this book was a bit of a mess is an understatement, it goes off on a lot of different tangents, and keeping track of what happens when is a bit of an ask. Did I mention it is a really loooonnng read?
 The characters never really 'grew', instead I grew to loath Janey. I'm sure Candace Bushnell meant well with this story, though the story line is at times witty, trying to make a gold digger and seemingly brainless "model" the main character with a heart (buried deep, and probably only used for the sole purpose to keep her alive and not feel anything but her own self inflicted pity for herself), was not entirely the best of moves. I found Janey's shallowness annoying, and very little sympathy was achieved from myself because Janey never seems to learn from her past mistakes, she was quite happy to just blame things on everyone else.
I'm glad that I'm finished with the book, and it's going back on to EBay, because it's definitely a book I never want to read again.
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