Many people can relate to taking a job that you don't have particular interest in because it will get you ahead at a certain company or industry. People can also relate to working long hours and dealing with demanding bosses. Hopefully none of us will have to deal with them to quite the extent of Andrea in The Devil Wears Prada

It was a fun and entertaining read, but falls short of 4 or 5 stars for the following reasons.

We are told that Andrea is a bright girl - she graduated from a prestigious college and has hopes to work for the New Yorker. She is occasionally referred to as having a lot of intelligence. However, in her actions and speech throughout the book, she does not come off as having above average intelligence. She can also be sarcastic and off putting to the point of being unlikeable, which didn't make sense for Christian, the writer, to want to flirt with her.

I'm not sure how we were supposed to feel about Alex, Andrea's boyfriend. He seemed very one dimensional, and I didn't really care one way or another about the stress the job was putting on their relationship. I also didn't care too much about Lily and couldn't even tell why Andrea and Lily were even friends. This was the case with many of the characters - they were flat and were only included as plot devices. I would understand this for the various other supporting characters, but a handful were very prominent in the story, and it would have been nice if I felt some emotion towards them. As it was, I just didn't care.

So, entertaining chick lit, without much substance. Read for the over the top anecdotes about working for a crazy and unreasonable boss and enjoy it for that. Be thankful your job isn't that bad! ( )

2006 ( )

Good read. ( )

Meh. The movie is better. The main character is a little whiny. On no, I'm underappreciated, my job is hard bleh bleh bleh...whatevs. At least the movie has Stanley Tucci and nice clothes to look at. ( )

After thoroughly enjoying the movie, I decided to pick this book up over the summer. I barely managed to finish it, and only because I don't like abandoning books halfway through. Andrea was terrible! When I read, I like to be able to sympathize with the main character - if your main character is a serial killer, let us find SOME way to connect with him. I hated Andrea for the entire book. Leaving her family, her (amazing!) boyfriend, and her best friend in the dust for a terrible boss who makes outrageous demands, just so that she has a shot at a better job in the future is not okay!

The book was insanely repetitive. Chapter after chapter we see:
1) Boss makes crazy demand
2) Andrea ditches her family/friends to do it
3) Andrea fails, boss threatens to fire her
4) Repeat.

Where is the pleasure in that? ( )