The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada
by Lauren Weisberger

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Book Summary Information

Author: Lauren Weisberger
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-05-30
ISBN: 0307275558
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Anchor

Book Reviews of The Devil Wears Prada

Book Review: You can't teach an old barracuda new tricks...
Summary: 5 Stars

After reading the champion tome, "The Devil Wears Prada" I think a more apt title may be "The BARRACUDA Wears Prada" because that is just what Miranda Priestly is!

What makes this book so good you may be thinking? Miranda Priestly. She is so funny, and over-the-top. And Andrea has the patience of a saint. She stays on board with this witch, day in and day out because she has some delusional impression that Miranda Priestly can either "make or break her career!"

Miranda Priestly is a terribly pretentious fashion maven that makes Madonna, Joan Crawford, and Karl Lagerfield look like chop-shop amateurs compared to her! Miranda takes great joy in badmouthing, belittling, and rudely ordering her staff around. Mostly though, her assistants Andrea and Emily take the brunt of her abuse.

Andrea is a sweet young college grad from CT suburbia that gladly accepts her first job at "Runway" magazine in urban NY. This is the job that "a million girls would die to have." Andrea often wonders who these "million girls" are and why they would want her job because it's certainly not all it's cracked up to be. Her official title is "2nd assistant to Miranda Priestly" but that is just a fancy title for slave. Sure Andrea gets nice cloths and works with lots of famous models and goes to cool parties. But her boss is a modern-day Freddie Krueger in stylish pumps!

Miranda is so nasty, and condescending. When she barks out her extremely unreasonable orders (such as getting an advanced copy of the new "Harry Potter" book!) it is apparent that she has no care or concern because she never shows any dignity or gratitude towards her assistants. And Andrea can never ask Miranda to kindly repeat one her demands;...because Miranda considers questions from her staff to be one of the seven deadly sins...it's just as bad as wearing a polyester Wal-Mart knockoff!

Also I kept trying to find some type of humanness, or sensitivity within Miranda. It was never revealed. In fact, I believe that Miranda may be a robot that is programmed to wear $100,000.00 designer outfits while she steps all over all the little people because I can't imagine a real person could be so incredibly heartless...?

I really didn't enjoy how the book ended, though. I don't want to give anything away, but I do think the ending was somewhat anti-climactic. Also, reading about Andrea's friends and family was boring. But the salacious tidbits about Miranda more than made up for it.

Please keep in mind that the book is very different from the movie. Aside from the basic plot (sweet girl works for mean-spirited fashion guru) there aren't much more similarities.

I recommend this book to anyone that ever had a hateful boss like Miranda. I had one that was pretty repugnant but I am certain that anyone who reads this book will agree that no one is worse that Miranda Priestly!

Lauren Weisberger is an awesome writer, thank you for writing such a funny and entertaining novel!

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Summary of The Devil Wears Prada

A delightfully dishy novel about the all-time most impossible boss in the history of impossible bosses.

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.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA gives a rich and hilarious new meaning to complaints about ?The Boss from Hell.? Narrated in Andrea?s smart, refreshingly disarming voice, it traces a deep, dark, devilish view of life at the top only hinted at in gossip columns and over Cosmopolitans at the trendiest cocktail parties. From sending the latest, not-yet-in-stores Harry Potter to Miranda?s children in Paris by private jet, to locating an unnamed antique store where Miranda had at some point admired a vintage dresser, to serving lattes to Miranda at precisely the piping hot temperature she prefers, Andrea is sorely tested each and every day?and often late into the night with orders barked over the phone. She puts up with it all by keeping her eyes on the prize: a recommendation from Miranda that will get Andrea a top job at any magazine of her choosing. As things escalate from the merely unacceptable to the downright outrageous, however, Andrea begins to realize that the job a million girls would die for may just kill her. And even if she survives, she has to decide whether or not the job is worth the price of her soul.

It's a killer title: The Devil Wears Prada. And it's killer material: author Lauren Weisberger did a stint as assistant to Anna Wintour, the all-powerful editor of Vogue magazine. Now she's written a book, and this is its theme: narrator Andrea Sachs goes to work for Miranda Priestly, the all-powerful editor of Runway magazine. Turns out Miranda is quite the bossyboots. That's pretty much the extent of the novel, but it's plenty. Miranda's behavior is so insanely over-the-top that it's a gas to see what she'll do next, and to try to guess which incidents were culled from the real-life antics of the woman who's been called Anna "Nuclear" Wintour. For instance, when Miranda goes to Paris for the collections, Andrea receives a call back at the New York office (where, incidentally, she's not allowed to leave her desk to eat or go to the bathroom, lest her boss should call). Miranda bellows over the line: "I am standing in the pouring rain on the rue de Rivoli and my driver has vanished. Vanished! Find him immediately!"

This kind of thing is delicious fun to read about, though not as well written as its obvious antecedent, The Nanny Diaries. And therein lies the essential problem of the book. Andrea's goal in life is to work for The New Yorker--she's only sticking it out with Miranda for a job recommendation. But author Weisberger is such an inept, ungrammatical writer, you're positively rooting for her fictional alter ego not to get anywhere near The New Yorker. Still, Weisberger has certainly one-upped Me Times Three author Alex Witchel, whose magazine-world novel never gave us the inside dope that was the book's whole raison d' etre. For the most part, The Devil Wears Prada focuses on the outrageous Miranda Priestly, and she's an irresistible spectacle. --Claire Dederer

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