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The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada

List Price: $25.95
Your Price: $16.35
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: I liked it
Review: After reading so many negative reviews, I bought the book anyway. Frankly, I like it. I think everyone has had a boss like Andrea's at one time or another. It was funny and I could put it down and pick it up without losing the flow of it.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: I'd like to be different, but...
Review: As much as I would like to stand up for Lauren and say, "No, this was a well written novel!" I just can't. The simple reason is that it isn't. It was initially entertaining but so incredibly inconsistent throughout. Andrea's character had no depth, you did not find yourself feeling for her or becoming connected to her in any way. Anyone who tolerates this type of abuse, in my opinion, deserves it. I am not quite sure how Ms. Weisberger wanted you to feel about her main character. I did finish the book but I feel bad for the author because I think she does show promise but may not be able to recoup from this poor attempt at a novel (one that was highly anticipated as well!)

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About the Fashion Industry
Review: The Devil Wears Prada is a tedious account of an aspiring young writer's effort jumpstart her writing career by taking a job with Runway (read Vogue) magazine. Her tolerance of her boss's tyranny leads one to wonder about her own concept of self worth. After reading this book, I will never lust after designer clothing.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good summer reading
Review: I enjoyed the book & thought it provided an interesting perspective of a world I had never even wondered about. Last year I really enjoyed The Nanny Diaries, which this is repeatedly compared to, and I enjoyed both. They both shed light on the world of the over-privaleged and come from the perspective of a young, well balanced employee. Beyond that they don't share the same message so it isn't a repeat read!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: What do editors do?
Review: It's always a problem when it takes 150 pages into a book before it gets entertaining. The writing got a bit better, too. The book seemed like a rough draft with subplots like Andreas best friend Lily, boyfriend Alex, and writer Christian thrown in for good measure. The book could have easily been 200 pages. There is an obscene amount of redundency, and it is beyond wordy. I don't understand what editors get paid to do anymore. Publishers have a responsibility to correct grammar and punctuation. Ms. Weisberger should get a new editor for future ventures. I did relate to working for an insane boss. Miranda Priestley was believable and the best drawn character. I am sure Ms.Weisberger has some talent and could be a great writer.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Literary pair of leather pants
Review: I bought this book after seeing Lauren on the "Today Show." I happen to like this genre that so many are maligning (Nanny Diaries, Bridget Jones) You know what you are getting, if you don't like it for God's sake, spend your money on Tolstoy, non-fiction. I read the Wall Street Journal so I deserve a light, escapist read and this is precisely that. I read it during an airplane flight and sitting by the pool. It is not the best book I ever ready but it was enjoyable, funny, sad and pathetic. Andrea is just a kid, she does childlike things as she aches to grow up. Sounds like me at 23. Read it and enjoy it for what it is... campy fun. I hate people who turn a pair of leather pants into something important. This is a literary pair of leather pants. Looks good, feels good, not a necesity.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: fun book, but some complaints
Review: Andrea Sachs from small-town Connecticut has just graduated from Brown and accepted a job as junior personal assistant to Miranda Priestly, the editor-in-chief of Runway magazine. As Andy is told repeatedly (and as she rotely tells others), "it's a job that a million girls would die for!" All she has to do is work there for a year, and she can basically have any job she wants -- for her, it is a writing position at The New Yorker. But it is hell, and Miranad is the devil, and she indeed wears Prada. Not only that, but she insists everyone around her is also fashionably dressed, or they risk getting fired.

This book reads a lot like "The Nanny Diaries" by Emma McLaughlin, and Miranda reflects a lot of the unplacatable, high-maintenance nastiness of that book's Mrs. X. However, here there is no child involved (Miranda does have children but they are not central to the plot) and, unlike Mrs. X, Miranda does have a job -- a job that grants her power and access which she abuses, as the entire city of New York (as well as the elite of Europe)is willing to serve her.

Andy is so overworked at this first job during her year of servitude that she neglects her parents, older sister, boyfriend, and her best friend Lily, who shows signs of being a raging alcoholic. Andy thinks she does not have a choice, and everyone points out to her that she does. But Miranda is like an eclipse -- she blots out everything else.

I do have an issue with this book, which took away from my enjoying it --- when Andy lived with the two Indian girls Shanti and Kendra, she depicts them as quiet with no lives, and when Andy later moves in with Lily, she says she loves Indian food, but can't stand the smell of curry any longer. Later, when describing how she is so overworked that she never gets to eat, she says "it's like f****** Ramadan here." Seriously, if you are not above stereotyping a race or cursing in reference to a religion and absolutely MUST do it, at least do it to your own. It's rude and insensitive to your readers, and adds nothing to the plot. It marred what was otherwise an enjoyable, captivating book for me.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Whiny protagonist
Review: This book had a lot of promise. Like many others, I eagerly anticipated it's arrival, the first couple chapters certainly drew me in as I have friends who work for Conde Naste (aka Condescending and Nasty) and I know what they go through. But the problem is by the end of the book I found myself skipping paragraphs of Andrea's constant whining, it became very stale very quickly...other than that it's amusing reading. I'm surprised Anna Wintour isn't suing the author!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: This was a boring book....
Review: This book was a great dissapointment. What I wanted was a light, funny read. What I got was a semi-depressing bore. I had never heard of this book, or of the hype others had mentioned. I was bored and needed a book, ran to my nearest warehouse club and bought this. I think back and I bought it because it seemed similar to The Nanny Diaries which I found interesting and very funny.

Andrea is NOT a believable character. She is saccharin sweet and a bore. We are lead to believe that she is a saint and doesnt deserve such abuse. Well QUIT!!! That is what I kept thinking through the whole book! QUIT, QUIT, QUIT!! And she should have followed the old addage "If it is too good to be true, it probably is" referring to her interview and job.

Also, the whole looking at the woman and the fashion world down her nose with disdain,but, managing to "score" high priced items was so annoying to me. I just felt the "saint" Andrea was a hypocrite and was begging to be a doormat.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: The Devil Wears Prada
Review: Although at times a humorous read, I completed the book really not liking the main character in the least.

She reminded me tremendously of the stereotypical, spoiled, JAP, sorority girl who transfers to formally impressive Cornell so she's able to say she's graduated from the Ivy League, whines her way into a potentially fabulous job in fashion that people "would kill for" and then takes her vitriol and writes a book courtesy of probably one of the contacts she made in said job during her year of hell. We call that bad form.

Having been in the industry for over a decade, I found Andrea Sachs' character unrefreshingly familiar: conflicted over her "deprived" lot in life, kind to the homeless not so much out of guilt but more out of her desire to potentially hurt her employer, conflicted over her selection of potential mate, conflicted over her choice of roommates, conflicted over free designer clothing and free trips to Paris.

Where did theses ungrateful brats come from? When was everyone born with such a sense of privelege?

When I joined the great world of fashion, entry level people behaved in a manner that was tantamount to the postulants of Vatican One. Look it up if you can't remember what that was like.

I truly hope Lauren Whineberger's attempt at a roman a clef is more contrivance than anything else. Quite honestly, I didn't find Miranda Priestley's behavior all that bad.

I've seen and acted much worse.


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