thePULSEThe Devil Wears Prada
By Annette Cinelli
When you head to the beach this July, don’t forget the essentials ~ sun block, a Frisbee, sunglasses…a great beach book. My recommendation? Lauren Weisberger’s the devil wears prada (that’s right, the one that’s been made into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway).
This book is the perfect vacation escape; reading about Andrea Saches’ job as assistant to Miranda Priestly, the ruthless editor of fictitious NYC fashion magazine Runway, will make you appreciate your time away from work and from your boss even more ~ or maybe even make going back into the office easier because chances are your job isn’t nearly as crazy as Andrea’s is!
Andy (as everyone calls her) is a new graduate who manages to land a job that “…a million girls would die for!” But being the junior assistant to a demanding, self-centered, fashion-centric editor is not as glamorous as her friends and family seem to think. Andy’s new job doesn’t call for any writing or editing ~ in fact, it’s about as far away as she can get from her dream job as a writer for The New Yorker. But Runway is supposedly the way to get ahead in the magazine publishing industry. In fact, rumor has it that once you finish working (in other words, survive!) for a year with Miranda, she will help you get a job at any magazine you want.
So Andy takes the job and receives one outlandish assignment after another, from sending out twenty five thousand dollars worth of wine as Christmas presents to getting Miranda’s daughters copies of the latest Harry Potter book the day before it comes out to ordering breakfast every twenty minutes until her boss finally comes into the office… Miranda gives Andy only a few hours notice to get ready and greet people (by name) at a black tie affair. She throws a hissy fit and demands Andy find her missing Parisian chauffeur (not caring that Andy is in New York). Basically, this boos from hell consumes every waking hour of Andy’s day…and sometimes night. And that is only in the first few months of her job! Miranda requests the nearly impossible and it’s Andy’s job to make it happen…no matter how insane it makes her! And to make things worse, poor Andy has to put up with her tall, thin, beautiful, fashion obsessed, trendy co-workers who scoff at her hair, clothes, shoes, and even lunch and beverage choices!
While Andy adjusts to her new job, her relationships with her family, friends, and boyfriend flounder. Her best friend and roommate becomes an alcoholic, she and her boyfriend grow further apart, and she becomes an aunt but misses the first 6 months of her nephew’s life because she can’t take the time off work to visit her sister.
The book is a quick read and for the most part, a fun read. There is lots of name-dropping and brand dropping and it’s amusing to get a glimpse at the inner workings of the fashion industry. Since Weisberger was an assistant to Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour; you can’t help but wonder how much of this art is imitating life. There are, however, times when you wish you could just reach into the book and slap Andrea.
It seems obvious that her job is harming her more than helping her, but she is too swept up in the pace and the drama to notice how it is affecting not only her, but also the most important relationships in her life. The book may be over-dramatized and in some ways unrealistic, but it’s an engaging story about a girl’s first post-college job with the boss from hell. There are parts in it that anyone who remembers his or her first real job will relate to on many levels!
So, does Andy finish the year at Runway and land her dream job at The New Yorker? Does she snap and kill Miranda and land in jail? Or does she realize how much the job is hurting her and tell Miranda to “…take this job and shove it?” Well, the only way to find out for sure is to hit up your local bookstore and check out Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada.
