The Devil Wears Prada: A Novel (Hardcover)

True, the title is great, and so the subject matter could have been. Instead, though, the book is a seemingly endless litany of all of the insane things fashion editor Miranda Priestly does or demands her peon assistant to do or get for her, and the gag grows old. Undoubtedly, Priestly is pathetic, unable (or just unwilling) to do even the simplest task for herself, while demanding others do the impossible. (It's a thinly veiled secret that Priestly is based on Anna Wintour, the famously icy editor of Vogue, and the fictional Elias-Clark Company is of course Conde Nast.) Weisberger has some fun mocking the Manolo-clad fashion assistants she calls "Clackers," as well as the fabulous, excessive Conde Nast cafeteria. And Miranda's craziness is a scream, but that's where the fun ends.

The problem lies with the protagonist herself. She doesn't have to be likeable, but she could at least be interesting. Instead, Andrea Sachs is a whiny, spoiled brat who thinks the world should just fall at her feet. She makes no attempt to hide the fact that she thinks working at a fashion magazine is completely insignificant and beneath her. We may be able to identify with having a hellish job, but the thing is, that doesn't make us sympathize with her. Everyone, unless they come from extreme privilege or just have damn good luck, has had a horrendous first job or a terrible boss, so we don't exactly feel sorry for her when she must deal with Miranda's antics. In fact, Andrea has such a sense of entitlement, such a ridiculous superiority complex, that we almost smile when she must search block after block for an antique store Miranda remembers seeing once. It's as if no one ever had a bad job or a crazy boss until Andrea did, and of course, hers is the worst of the worst. The ironic thing is that just as her boss is completely wrapped up in herself, so too is Andrea. She may not get to order assistants around, but her inability to see beyond her own nose makes her just as insufferable.

And her personal life? Wish I could tell you, but I skipped those chapters. They weren't particularly interesting or enlightening. (Yes, we know the housing market in New York is ridiculous. And gee, it's awful, isn't it, when an attractive, wealthy, amazing writer for the New Yorker pursues you?) Besides this, her constant moaning that no one understands just how horrendous her job is and that no one has a job worse than hers wears thin almost immediately. Sachs doesn't even appear to learn anything from her whole ordeal and doesn't seem to be aware of her spoiled behavior, which is perhaps the most obnoxious and annoying thing about the character.

Andrea wants to work at the New Yorker, the sterling example of good writing. But if Weisberger's writing is any indication, the New Yorker won't come calling anytime soon. Boring and repetitive by the halfway mark, the novel reads like a first or second draft, not a polished, finished product. The dialogue is stilted and wooden, and the prose is so ungrammatical, I found myself having to reread or just skip passages altogether. Granted, it's not intended to be Tolstoy, but there is an art to comedic writing, as evidenced by Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones books and even, "The Nanny Diaries," whose "expose your boss" style the book emulates.

Unfortunately, Weisberger falls short of both, leaving us to wonder what the novel would have been in the hands of a better or more perceptive writer.