Falling Out of Fashion [Paperback]

Karen Yampolsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 24, 2007

As a teenager at a prestigious prep school, Jill White studied her roommate's magazines, filled with airbrushed-beyond-recognition photos of whisper-thin blondes who hadn't finished a meal since third grade. She dreamed of one day starting a magazine of her own that would feature women of all sizes and colours - smart, witty, real women with aspirations beyond tinier thighs and shinier hair. Flash forward several years and a couple of giant leaps up the career ladder, and Jill has it all. Jill magazine is a huge hit, and her fabulous life comes complete with free designer clothes, an abundance of celeb friends, a shamelessly huge salary, and a framed Time magazine cover in her office featuring her beaming face over the legend, "Jill White, Media Wunderkind." Now that mega-successful Nestrom Media has taken over Jill's parent company, its future should be assured. Jill shares the fifteenth floor of the Nestrom building with illustrious "Fashionista" magazine, and the Nestrom suits are panting with admiration for both Jill and Jill. But the ashes from the post-coital cigarette have barely hit the floor before Jill's new bosses start barking about getting ad revenue up and toning down articles like "His penis is not a toy...or is it?" in favour of fluff pieces with the reality star du jour. What smelled like team spirit devolves into a bitter game of manipulation and backstabbing. With Ellen Cutter, the blond, bland, Bergdorfed CEO of Nestrom Media, and Liz Alexander, Jill's publisher (and Ellen's conniving sidekick) suddenly aligned against Jill, plus a paranoid new managing editor with an addiction to spying, the situation is as grim as the magazine's decidedly unfabulous new offices. Reluctant to jump ship, and equally reluctant to watch as her baby morphs into yet another cheesy rag, Jill fights back, even as Ellen and Liz plot her next move for her. With her name, her creation, and her future all on the line, Jill realises mean girls don't get left behind in high school - they grow up and work in publishing...

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Magazine junkies who remember the original Jane will devour this cheeky roman à clef by Jane Pratt's former assistant of nine years. Unlike Anna Wintour's alter ego in The Devil Wears Prada, Yampolsky's alter ex-boss is an off-the-rack heroine. Raised on a commune by inattentive hippie parents, Georgia girl Jill White was an outcast at her New England prep school before a predictably eye-opening stint at Bennington. After Jill descends on New York, a succession of magazine gigs leads her to editing Cheeky (i.e., '90s grrrl glossy Sassy) and, eventually, Jill. At that eponymous publication, idealistic Jill goes up against bottom-line obsessed Nestrom Media (a thinly veiled Condé Nast). Fictionalizations of Pratt's personal and professional moments as editor-in-chief add frisson: Sassy's skewering profile of actress Tiffani-Amber Thiessen becomes Cheeky's roasting of "Kelli Hyer-Burke"; there are plenty of other cameos. In the end, Jill comes off as a sometimes selfish but mostly likable woman who gets beat by corporate magazine land. Survivors of the era, however, may question Jill's claim that she "coined the term grunge." (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Publisher

Advance Praise for Falling Out of Fashion

"Karen Yampolsky writes with humor, verve, and heart. In Jill White, she's created an utterly compelling heroine, whose spectacular rise, fall, and rebirth as one of the fashion world's most talented personalities makes for fantastic reading--especially as Jill remains committed to her passions in the face of the industry's most supreme bitches. If you liked The Devil Wears Prada, you'll love Falling Out of Fashion!" --Holly Chamberlin, author of The Summer of Us

"I absolutely loved Falling out of Fashion! It was delightfully fun read and Jill is a character to root for!" --Amanda Brown, author of Legally Blonde --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Kensington Books (April 24, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0758298102
• ISBN-13: 978-0758298102
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,624,428 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Badly-written roman à clef, December 8, 2007

By 

alicetiara (Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Falling Out of Fashion (Hardcover)

Although Karen Yampolsky purports to have written this book, it's clear to anyone with a good memory of Sassy and/or Jane that this is the (very thinly veiled) story of Jane Pratt herself as told to Ms. Yampolsky.

The book is very simply written and thus easy to read. It doesn't really have much narrative pull, as it's basically just Jane yammering I did this, then I did that. It's not really fiction so much as it is a blog-like memoir. Jane's obviously quite impressed with her star-studded life and has very little self-awareness of how she might appear to others. She constantly talks about how Jane was this groundbreaking women's magazine that was ruined by moving to a new publishing house, but most women I know thought Jane kind of sucked from the very beginning. Jane is desperate to establish her indie cred, but it falls flat: for example, she runs down the "cheesy reality-tv winner" "Katy Hanson" (Kelly Clarkson), instead championing such slebs as "Serena Sax" (Courteney Cox). Her characters are sketched in the broadest of one-dimensional strokes and the celebrity pseudonyms are unbelievably easy to guess. Anyone in-the-know will immediately recognize "Richard Ruiz" as Michael Stipe, Drew Barrymore as a bisexual, curiously African-American (?) recovering addict who Jane makes out with at a party, and so forth. I gave this book 2 stars because some of the gossip is quite juicy once you get past the aliases.

For fans of Jane/Sassy, this might wile away an hour or so. For chicklit fans, the bar is already so low in this genre that I can't say this is much worse than most of what's out there, but compared to good chicklit like Marion Keyes, this is dreck. It's certainly no Devil Wears Prada, which, while not brilliantly written, was sparkling, entertaining pop trash. This is not.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Fun, Free Read!, July 20, 2010

By 

Libby Mari - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Falling Out Of Fashion (Kindle Edition)

I truly enjoyed this book. So much so that apparently I read it in two days! I got so caught up in it that I was enjoying myself as the pages just flew by. This book has just enough parallelism to real events (the real life magazine Sassy is relabeled Cheeky, etc)that is believable and entertaining. If you enjoyed books like The Devil Wears Prada, Everyone Worth Knowing, or Celebutantes, you will like this book. It offers insight into the world of publishing that most of us are not aware of, but honestly many of the antics will ring true to anyone who's had a boss from hell, snarky coworker, or a colleague that tries to take credit for your work. If you want a nice, fun book for the pool or beach, this is a great choice. Same for passing time at an airport. If you want a book with alot of action, suspense, drama, or inspirational message, you will walk away disappointed. Also, I can't imagine it would appeal to the average man.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Somewhat Smarter Chick Lit Offering, September 3, 2007

By 

Lisa J. (Bridge City, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Falling Out of Fashion (Hardcover)

While I won't say this is a great book, I did find it to be quite entertaining. It didn't have the humor or snap of The Devil Wears Prada or some others of the same genre, but Yampolsky did a good job of creating mostly believable characters with a storyline that rang true, as well. This may not be the best book she ever writes, but I think it's proof that Karen Yampolsky is an author to look out for.