The Devil Wears Prada: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Lauren Weisberger (Author) "The light hadn't even officially turned green at the intersection of the 17th and Broadway before an army of overconfident yellow cabs roared past the..." (more)
Key Phrases: fashion assistants, Miranda Priestly, New York, Monsieur Renaud (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
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

From Publishers Weekly
Most recent college grads know they have to start at the bottom and work their way up. But not many picture themselves having to pick up their boss's dry cleaning, deliver them hot lattes, land them copies of the newest Harry Potter book before it hits stores and screen potential nannies for their children. Charmingly unfashionable Andrea Sachs, upon graduating from Brown, finds herself in this precarious position: she's an assistant to the most revered-and hated-woman in fashion, Runway editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly. The self-described "biggest fashion loser to ever hit the scene," Andy takes the job hoping to land at the New Yorker after a year. As the "lowest-paid-but-most-highly-perked assistant in the free world," she soon learns her Nine West loafers won't cut it-everyone wears Jimmy Choos or Manolos-and that the four years she spent memorizing poems and examining prose will not help her in her new role of "finding, fetching, or faxing" whatever the diabolical Miranda wants, immediately. Life is pretty grim for Andy, but Weisberger, whose stint as Anna Wintour's assistant at Vogue couldn't possibly have anything to do with the novel's inspiration, infuses the narrative with plenty of dead-on assessments of fashion's frivolity and realistic, funny portrayals of life as a peon. Andy's mishaps will undoubtedly elicit laughter from readers, and the story's even got a virtuous little moral at its heart. Weisberger has penned a comic novel that manages to rise to the upper echelons of the chick-lit genre.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st Edition edition (April 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038550926X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385509268
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1,039 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #204,514 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

200 of 230 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, April 16, 2003

By	Kimberley Wilson (VA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

There is an enormous amount of buzz about this book because the author used to work at Vouge. Most of the PR implies that this is a roman a clef about those days. So far the reviews that I've seen in a least two major fashion magazines haven't been kind but that can be chalked up to fashionistas being annoyed with someone who mocked their world.

Does the book live up to the hype? Yes and no.

It's an amusing book. The descriptions of downtown life in NYC, the side characters and the horrible antics of mean Miranda Priestly are fun but the heroine, Andrea is such a stuck up little snob that it's difficult to care about her. Margaret Mitchell was able to take a character who was an absolute monster and make millions love her. Lauren Weisberger doesn't have that kind of ability.

What's really annoying is that the book has a choppy feel. Andrea lurches from one disaster to another with no transition in between. The plot has a formula that is an old as Greek mythology. The scenes with the best friend character, Lilly and the boyfriend, Alex won't surprise anyone. The climax is straight out of an old Edgar Wallace plotwheel. The ending was a sappy, predictable let down.

The bottom line is this: if you love fashion and gossip The Devil Wears Prada will make you smile. If you want a terrific book, this won't be the one you're looking for.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Amateurish, but the writer shows promise, June 16, 2006

By	kywrite "kywrite" (Groton, CT, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil Wears Prada: A Novel (Paperback)

Were it not for the Manolo Blahniks and Prada and Chanel designs that liberally decorate this book, it would never have been glanced at by a serious editor. The reason for its great success is not great skill or remarkable storytelling, but the fact that it caters to the self-indulgent and self-centered world that is New York publishing. So many times I saw Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City in the lead character's role!

The author tells a good story. She has a real gift for words, and after about a dozen years seasoning, if she's not ruined by early and undeserved success, she might actually be a very good writer. It might also be a good move for her to shift to Hollywood, since her writing style is amazingly visual; I could easily see why her book was made into a movie so quickly.

Be that as it may -- the book is self-indulgent and sometimes bitter and even nasty. The main character is not particularly likeable, perhaps because her primary love interest is really herself (which, if you think about it, is the hallmark of many chick lits). The characters I did like lost out in the end -- Alex the boyfriend and the alcoholic roommate Lily who was utterly lost in the world. There was no attention paid to rising tension -- tension rose to a certain level and plateaued by the third chapter. It was like a picaresque novel without the travel and excitement, and after a while you got weary of the miraculous monty-haul part with driven cars and high-fashion clothes and meeting celebrities. If more attention had been paid to the overwhelmingness of this for the main character, perhaps the book would have been better. Instead, after an initial bump of shock, Ahn-dre-ah pretty much accepted it as her due.

There was no real conflict in the character, at least not a convincing one. There was no real goal (enduring the boss for a year, as a passive action, does not count); I mean, she wanted to be a writer -- where in the first 4/5 of the book did she sit down to write anything? Even with a boss from hell, there's a little time here and there -- or she could have sacrificed her mornings -- or something. Shown some gumption! A good character must want, and want desperately; I never saw that anywhere. These characters all pretty much drifted. And there was no real structure. It was a very odd novel in these respects. The characters were also very flat, very nearly caricatures. Sometimes actions didn't make sense; the taking-away of the credit card by the parents when the plot needed some tension, and then the miraculous returning of it because she needed it for furniture, makes me think that perhaps a little editing needed to be done there. It could have happened in real life, but in a story it's irritating -- why take it away only to give it back in a deus ex machina?

But, and I have to be honest, I really, really took umbrage at one particular aspect of the book that is clearly part of the author and not of the characters alone: her obvious disdain for the South and all things Southern. You see, I'm from the South, speak with that-ther hick accent, was raised by rednecks and hillbillies, and yes, even go barefoot from time to time. My broad foot would not fit in a Manolo Blahnik. I think those models in magazines need a sandwich or two. And it honestly pissed me off to hear different characters repeatedly make fun of the hick accents and complain about how the Southern drawl made them sick and how Andrea's sister had picked up her own fake drawl and how those Southern hicks chaw on tobacco and the sound of their voices would drill a hole in your eardrum -- you know, Southerners read too? It might be a good idea to try being culturally sensitive for a few minutes. We hate Noo Yawk accents too, but we don't sit and write nasty things about them. Usually.

Bottom line: interesting story that could have been told much better by a seasoned writer, or by this writer working in conjunction with a talented and devoted editor. Chunks of description dropped in, flashbacks, and the same actions described ad nauseum lead me to believe that cutting about 25% out of this book in the right places, and changing nothing else, would have made it significantly better. And if you can cut that much out of a story without ruining it, there's something wrong.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Lucifer in a Nutshell, March 11, 2005

By	Alycia "Alycia" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil Wears Prada: A Novel (Paperback)

Summary of "The Devil Wears Prada"

- badly dressed, tacky young woman introduces herself as the "average" five
foot eleven inch, 120 pound woman who miraculously lands an undeserved
job as a personal assistant at a fashion magazine, immediately making every
other woman reading her story roll their eyes

- said young woman complains endlessly about her miserable life of wearing
designer clothes, attending gala society parties, the inhumane rule of not
being able to smoke or make personal telephone calls during business hours,
and her boss's crass insistence that she do her job without copping an
attitude

- said young woman somehow manages to retain her job despite looking down
on all of her colleagues and willfully sabotaging company spending records

- young woman fails to look human because she reacts unrealistically to her
own problems, and those of her cardboard cutout plot-point friends

- young woman somehow attracts a world famous, handsome author despite
her failure to appear attractive to her merely locally famous elementary
school teacher boyfriend.

- young woman finally tells off boss

- young woman somehow lands job at another magazine as a writer, despite
having never demonstrated any talent to her audience

- everything comes up roses for young woman

- and then, nobody cared