About this title: Written by a former Vogue staff writer, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA is about Andrea Sachs, a staffer at a trendy fashion magazine in Manhattan whose boss, the eponymous Prada-wearer, treats Andrea like a cross between a galley slave and a retarded child. As things get worse, Andrea must decide whether she will allow the devil to steal her soul--or find ...
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"Lauren Weisberger The Devil Wears Prada 2006, Anchor 432 pages Book bought in: Moab, Utah - USA
In this review, the book has not been compared to the movie; I wanted to review the book in itself.
As a horribly unfashionable person myself (at least, that's what I believe, as Prada does nothing for me and I can't for the life of me walk in heels, oh, and I like my hips), picking up The Devil Wears Prada with all of its fashion stereotypes meant indulging in a guilty pleasure.
Andy, a freshly graduated aspiring writer, ends up landing an unlikely job as junior assistent to Miranda Priestly, fashion editor and bitch extraordinaire. I say unlikely, because Andy doesn't care about fashion; she hopes one year as Miranda's assistant will open the doors to her future as a writer for The New Yorker, a magazine the polar opposite of Miranda's Runway magazine.
While taking on the most ridiculous tasks (from drycleaning to coffeeruns to more coffeeruns because the other coffee had slightly cooled off), Andy tries to keep herself afloat in the superficial pool that is the fashion industry according to Miranda, trying not to let everything take its toll on her personal life - though inevitably, Andy's carreer does wreak havoc in certain relationships.
Although Andy might have done herself a favour if she'd put up an 'Whatever, it's temporary, I'll just suck it up' attitude instead of allowing herself to rage on the inside, Miranda really is a foul woman and I sympathised with Andy.
I couldn't quite muster up any sympathy for her boyfriend Alex or her best friend Lily, as I found both of them to be the selfish ones, as opposed to Andy.
This book is satirical to the max, definitely what I longed for when I started the first page (re: fashion stereotypes), though I somehow feel cheated.
Here I was, a naive unfashionable person, and having finished this book I somehow seem to know a whole lot more about Prada and Manolo's than I really care for.
Weisberger, with her no-mercy descriptions of her various shallow characters, wants me to be repulsed by the fashion industry and its rather ridiculous standards, but in the meantime she is effectively trying to seduce me into admiring, and perhaps even desiring this pair of Jimmy Choo's. I remember completely drooling over eleborate descriptions of Andy's make-up case, sponsored by Runway. What? Why? That wasn't supposed to happen. This was supposed to be... satire, mocking the fear of eating three calories more, stuff like that.
...I feel dirty. Quite possibly, a little cheap too.
"I kept thinking *THIS WILL BE A GREAT MOVIE* but never a good book. I was really disappointed and on a side note ... when I DID watch the movie I was so disappointed because all I could think was * This would be a GREAT book."
"I picked this up because it was in the guest room at my aunt's beach house and it seemed like good "summer is here, I just finished finals, don't make me think" reading. I think I read it in about 3 hours, and I couldn't remember a single thing that happened to the main character once I was done.
In fact, if they hadn't come out with the movie (which I'm a big fan of, by the way), the book would have probably disappeared from my radar forever.
Nothing really happened in the book, which I objected to. It wasn't funny enough to be a straight-up comedy of errors, but the only semblance of a plot I could pick out had to do with the crazy, evil shenanigans of Anna Win--I mean, the editor Andie worked for.
I think the author could have given us much juicier inside-info about Anna, by the way. I know more about her from Page Six and industry gossip than I gleaned from this book...so come on, if you're going to write a novel the intellectual equivalent of a gossip rag, at least make it US Weekly and tell us something as opposed to making it In Touch Weekly and regurgitating what everyone already knows. Seriously...
PERFECT FOR: when your brain hurts and you want to read something mindless, yet you won't stoop so low as to read a book written by someone without a basic grasp of the English language. Also, if you live in Wyoming and want to know if the rumors you hear about that Anna Wintour lady are true (they are)."
"I finished The Devil Wear Prada last night. I had some trouble getting into the book, those first descriptions of Andrea's adventures before joining the magazine were really not that interesting to me. After she enters the magazine world I became more interested in her relationship with everyone else. Meaning I'm not that into fashion so some people might actually appreciate the fashion angle in this book more than me.
Andrea Sachs, a small-town girl fresh out of college, lands the job "a million girls would die for." Hired as the assistant to Miranda Priestly, the high-profile, fabulously successful editor of Runway magazine, Andrea finds herself in an office that shouts Prada! Armani! Versace! at every turn, a world populated by impossibly thin, heart-wrenchingly stylish women and beautiful men clad in fine-ribbed turtlenecks and tight leather pants that show off their lifelong dedication to the gym. With breathtaking ease, Miranda can turn each and every one of these hip sophisticates into a scared, whimpering child.
After Andrea starts working at the magazine she has to deal with her boss's impossible requests, rude manners and every hour calls. She feels compelled to try to answer every request because everyone tells her that after one year of putting up with Miranda Priestly she will be able to choose the job she wants.
As the action progresses Andrea is more and more into the Runway spirit, where everybody wears designers clothes, is sickly thin and lives in fear of the boss. Her relationship with Priestly's Senior Assistant Emily shows exactly that - either Emily is defending her boss and her rudeness or, when she is also a target, she is bad mouthing her in secret.
Although she becomes more of a Runway girl Andrea keeps herself focused on the real job she wants - to write for The New Yorker, and can't resist sometimes feeling superior to everyone else who works for the magazine. With that goal in mind she keeps accepting Miranda's demands thus hurting her relationship with family and friends. The climax come during a trip to Paris where Andrea is preparing to help Miranda organise a party even though her best friend is cometose in the hospital. Miranda makes one more impossible demand - to removate her daughter's passports in 3 hours - and Andrea finally tells her F*** ***.
That's the end of the job and she comes home to be with friends and family even if her relationship with her boyfriend is already damaged.
I thought this was a fun book to read after I made through those first pages because Miranda's rudeness and everyone else's reaction too it are actually really fun and make for some LOL moments. However once you close the book there's really nothing that stands out. As an example of chick lit I think it lacks some growth of the main character, in the end Andrea only learned to dress herself better and maybe to pay better attention to her family. But she already had her own set of values and principles at the beginning of the book. A C+."
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