Did Carole Radziwill’s book “The Widow’s Guide to Sex & Dating” influence Sex and the City‘s spinoff, And Just Like That …? Some fans think so and perhaps even Radziwill sees some similarities too.
Years after being widowed, Radziwill wrote her first novel about dating and sex after her character, Claire Byrne’s husband dies in a peculiar way. She then has to navigate endless dating minefields and awkward coaching from her friends. Radziwill’s book and the new Sex and the City series have some similarities – which are not lost on Radziwill.
Similarities between ‘Widow’s Guide’ and ‘And Just Like That …’
Some stand-out similarities between the book and the series include how both Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City and And Just Like That … and Claire from the book are both authors who write about sex. However, the series shows Carrie, who forged her career writing about sex, now uncomfortable with contemporary discussions about the subject. Both the book and the series are set in New York City too.
Another similarity is both Carrie and Claire’s husbands die a sudden and unexpected death. Claire’s husband, Charles is killed when a massive sculpture crushes him on the streets of New York. Carrie’s husband, John James Preston (Mr. Big) has a heart attack and dies after riding his Peloton bike. Both Charles Byrne and Mr. Big are affluent men who are a few years older than their wives.
And while the book paints Byrne as not a faithful husband, viewers don’t get enough time to delve into Big and Carrie’s full relationship that transpired over the past decade.
Carole Radziwill said she also wrote about renting a casket in her book
Carrie struggles over funeral arrangements, ultimately having her husband cremated but then dealing with the casket aspect for the funeral. Radziwill tweeted about how she wrote about the concept of renting a casket in her book. “FYI….Whoever needs to hear this…it is illegal to rent a casket for a cremation. Renting a casket is not a thing,” she tweeted.
She then ended up sparring with fans who disagreed. Radziwill added, “I know this, about renting a coffin, because it happened to me in real life and I wrote an entire chapter about it in my novel, Widows Guide.”
Carole Radziwill is not Carrie Bradshaw, but some fans note the similiarities between her book and the HBO series
Fans have compared Radziwill to Carrie Bradshaw in the past. “Watching #RHONYC catch up – I feel like @CaroleRadziwill tries to be Carrie from SATC – she even quotes her… why would she try to be Carrie when she gets to be Carole,” a fan tweeted in 2020. “Mind you, I definitely have a love/hate relationship going on here.”
Radziwill replied, “Lol. I’m just me, a writer who lives in the west village and wears good outfits. I’ve been me since before Carrie Bradshaw. I’ve been me so long that I knew the real (not tv version) Carrie. Her name is Candace Bushnell.”
And while Radziwill said she’s not Carrie Bradshaw a fan recently pointed out that And Just Like That … has many similarities to Radziwill’s book. “Watching @AndJustLikeThat and Carries story is very similar to @CaroleRadziwill second book. Which Darren Starr was supposed to make into it’s own show. Coincidence?” the fan tweeted.
Radziwll only replied with “Hmmm.” But other fans saw the similarities too. “I thought the same when I watched it. I’ve seen similar happen before with people I know who had scripts rejected, then the same idea has popped up in a tv show a few years later. Maybe coincidence, but if not then it really takes the p!ss.,” one person wrote.
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