At first glance, Annie Wang's The People's Republic of Desire is the Chinese woman's Sex and the City, or at least that is what I thought it was going to be. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was much more than just women talking about the latest fashions, orgasms, clubbing, and men. It is more of a study of the modern woman living in the new China. Since China joined the WTO and began opening its markets to more foreign companies, the Chinese have become just as obsessed with labels as we are in the US. At times I had to remind myself that the story was taking place in Beijing and not New York.

Niuniu is like many modern Chinese women. She is a returnee, after spending seven years living in the States gaining her undergraduate and master's degrees in journalism. She decides to go back to China to heal after her heart is broken. Upon her return she is greeted with a reverse culture shock. The China she has come back to is not the China she had left. Women are wearing the latest fashions of Paris and Milan. Starbucks has become the status symbol, and foreign cars like Mercedes Benz and Cadillacs rule the roads. Even her childhood friends' lives are different. In a culture where a woman's success is marked by how well she marries, many of her friends are still single. Lulu is a successful editor for a leading fashion magazine and has had three abortions because her lover is married. Beibei is the CEO of her own entertainment company and takes on many lovers. CC is Oxford-educated but insecure about her English boyfriend's flirting with other women. They navigate the tricky world of being independent women in Beijing.

Wang's writing style is fluid and she is sympathetic toward her characters. She does a masterly job of crafting a story about how this group of women tries to figure out how they fit into the new China and at the same time explores China's own growing pains. It is a brilliant cultural study of life in urban China. I don't think this is the China that Chairman Mao had in mind. Each chapter is almost like its own essay dealing with a new topic, touching on infidelity, family, friends, insecurities, the gap between the rich and poor, and even SARS, but all seamlessly coming together to tell a coherent story. Keeping in the style of her main character Niuniu's profession, she writes in the style of a journalist looking for a story, doing interviews and writing the outcome. In the end, Niuniu finds what she has been looking for and the reader is left with a lush novel filled with descriptions of a world that is very different from own.

The People's Republic of Desire is a great read for the Candace Bushnell fans out there. The women could easily be Carrie Bradshaw walking New York City's streets instead of Beijing's. It is well worth taking a Saturday afternoon off and sitting outside with a Cosmo and relaxing with this book.