Carrie Pilby (Bel Powley) is a 19-year old genius, a year out of Harvard, four years ahead of her peers, living in New York City. Burdened with an overactive moral compass and self-consciously aware of her uncommon intellect, in a city full of people she considers oversexed, deceitful hypocrites, Carrie finds herself isolated, friendless, dateless and unemployed.
To coax Carrie out of her shell, her psychiatrist, Dr. Petrov (Nathan
Lane), makes a list of goals she is to achieve between Thanksgiving and
the end of the year: 1. Go on a date. 2. Make a friend. 3. Spend New
Year’s Eve with someone. 4. Get a pet. 5. Do something you loved as a
child. 6. Read favorite book. At first Carrie resists, but when her
goal-oriented prodigy brain kicks in, she embraces the task with a
vengeance. She has the time, anyway. Her father, (Gabriel Byrne), who
has always joined her for the holidays in New York, isn’t coming this
year.
As she tackles each item on the list, Carrie begins to make new
friends: Tara (Vanessa Bayer) and Doug (Desmin Borges) at the law office
where she works the graveyard shift proofreading legal briefs in a job
reluctantly arranged by her dad; Cy (William Moseley), her
didgeridoo-playing neighbor who, like Carrie, is also a prodigy; and the
confused, engaged Matt (Jason Ritter), who thinks he might find clarity
about his pending nuptials in the arms of another woman. As Carrie gets
to know them, she learns that they are not one-dimensional stereotypes
but living, breathing, complex human beings. Carrie begins to understand
that humans, like books, can’t be judged by their “covers”. Set against
the backdrop of decked-out-for-the-holidays New York City, Carrie
evolves into the compassionate person she never knew she wanted to be.
“I was a single girl living in Hoboken, New Jersey,” said Lissner,
“which is right across the river from New York City. I was in the city a
lot, doing typical single girl in the city things, when it occurred to
me that the next story I wanted to tell was about a girl who was very,
very smart but not socially aware - someone young who sees things in
black and white because she doesn’t have life experience and as such,
judges people a little more harshly.”
“Carrie Pilby” was noted in several reviews as one of the smarter and
more original novels in the genre, with Neil Genzlinger of The New York
Times labeling it "hilarious". It proved successful, selling more than
50,000 copies. After the chick lit market became saturated, Harlequin
stopped publishing novels under the Red Dress Ink imprint in 2009 but
selected “Carrie Pilby” to be re-published in 2010 as one of the first
books in the new Harlequin Teen line. The title has continued to grow
internationally every year since 2010 and is now available in France
(2nd printing), Germany, Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Australia, Poland,
Indonesia, Italy and the UK.
“I could tell right away the women involved, the director Susan Johnson
and the producers, were so passionate and had so many great ideas” said
author Caren Lissner. “Susan was very inclusive. She really allowed me
to see into the process, and to read every draft and offer notes,”
Lissner says.
“The book has an extremely loyal and broad fan base of men and women,
ages 18-80,” said director Susan Johnson. Caren Lissner: “I get a lot of
emails from women who love the book, but also men. They always start
their emails with “Well I know I’m not your demographic but I happened
to see the book in a bookstore and I really liked it’, or ‘I saw it at
my ex-girlfriend’s house’ or ‘I saw it on my girlfriend’s bookshelf and
I’m not giving it back to her’. Johnson adds, ““The scope of the “Carrie
Pilby” audience intrigues me. Clearly people are relating to this story
in a big way, and hopefully we got it right for those people who, like
me, really love Caren’s beautiful novel.”
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