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dsbs42 's review for:
The Devil Wears Prada
by Lauren Weisberger
Holy cheese-fucking breadsticks this was an unpleasant reading experience.
I mean look, objectively speaking, this was not AS poorly written and plotted as some of the other 1-star books on my list (*cough*Twilight*cough*), and realistically, this was never a book I was going to love (I am not interested in fashion, magazines, mind-numbingly dull protagonists, or "chick-lit" as a genre). So take my rating and review with a grain of salt. But FUCK I hated this book.
I picked this up because I was on the bus (so more like "downloaded onto my kindle," but whatever) and wanted something quick and mindless that wouldn't distract me from exams. "Chick-lit" is a pretty fraught term, but just because a book is written by women, about women, for women doesn't make it light-weight or trash. Unfortunately, this is both.
One chapter in and I'm already screaming at the narrator - this is the THIRD TIME you've snapped the heel of $700 shoes while driving?! Fucking buy cheaper shoes, drive in cheaper shoes, or take your damn shoes off while driving WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. So, brainless, sure, but quick? Not when I have 40+ kindle notes venting about how irritating EVERYTHING in this book is. So why not put it down? Well, I paid $1.99 for it. I started it. And since I started it, I have to finish it.
Listen. For anyone feeling despair over the shape of the publishing industry after Twilight and Shades of Shit, let it be known that garbage writing was bestselling long before. At the very least, it's not a new development.
I hate so much about the things this book chooses to be. Because all her novels are published with pleasingly similar covers, and if I'd loved this book, I could have HAD THEM ALLLLLLLLLLL.
We have the unintentional casual racism of Twilight; every cab driver, newsagent, and concierge has a deliberately ethnic name and an over-the-top accent. She only has one gay character and has copied and pasted him 20 times to populate the entire magazine staff, and their only role is to shout about how fabulous everything is. We have both books' unbearable rich, arrogant, controlling, douchecanoe of a potential love interest in the form of one CHRISTIAN Collinsworth, who addresses Andrea as "darling" and "little Andy," and repeatedly tells her not to worry her "pretty little head" about things, kisses and feels her up without her permission, uses his status to manipulate her into being in the same places as he is, and I just can't. I can not. This in addition to the concierge who grants and denies entry into her PLACE OF WORK based on whether or not she SINGS AND DANCES FOR HIM, and I truly do not understand what it is about this book that people enjoy.
On top of the shitty main character, the listless plot, the endless descriptions of clothes and accessories by a character who ostensibly "doesn't care about that sort of thing," ethnic stereotypes, gay stereotypes, and the horrific sexism, the editing of this bestselling, several-years-old book is unforgivably sloppy. You can blame the author, who often seems to forget what's she's written two paragraphs ago (see below for examples). But you can also blame the fact that someone was paid to spot errors like these, and they did not do their job. I'm seeing this in SO many books lately, and I just do not understand it at all.
Anyway, the examples:
About her friend Lily:
And one paragraph later, for those with frontal lobe damage:
But why wait for the next paragraph when you can do things like this:
There are things like
After describing, on the previous page, Priestly mimicking Andy with a "hyena-like howl" after which people turn to stare. How is this not making a bloody scene?
There's also a general feeling of carelessness. Nobody's emotions flow or make any contiguous sense from paragraph to paragraph.
And there's this:
I believe she's referring to the curl of hair that totes adorably falls in his face before every line of dialogue so he can sexily push it away. Or possibly, his hooded lids really do have a curl, and the author has managed to inject something original into this inane and cliche-ridden waste of electronic space.
I laughed twice in over 300 pages. Both times were in response to some good, old-fashioned Jewish mothering (sure, it's a stereotype, but it's one I can relate to), and maybe I'd read Lauren Weisberger again if she wrote a book about that, but damn.
And then the end. How unsatisfying was that?
I have now spent way, way more time thinking about this book than it deserves, so, I'm done.
That's all.
I mean look, objectively speaking, this was not AS poorly written and plotted as some of the other 1-star books on my list (*cough*Twilight*cough*), and realistically, this was never a book I was going to love (I am not interested in fashion, magazines, mind-numbingly dull protagonists, or "chick-lit" as a genre). So take my rating and review with a grain of salt. But FUCK I hated this book.
I picked this up because I was on the bus (so more like "downloaded onto my kindle," but whatever) and wanted something quick and mindless that wouldn't distract me from exams. "Chick-lit" is a pretty fraught term, but just because a book is written by women, about women, for women doesn't make it light-weight or trash. Unfortunately, this is both.
One chapter in and I'm already screaming at the narrator - this is the THIRD TIME you've snapped the heel of $700 shoes while driving?! Fucking buy cheaper shoes, drive in cheaper shoes, or take your damn shoes off while driving WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. So, brainless, sure, but quick? Not when I have 40+ kindle notes venting about how irritating EVERYTHING in this book is. So why not put it down? Well, I paid $1.99 for it. I started it. And since I started it, I have to finish it.
Listen. For anyone feeling despair over the shape of the publishing industry after Twilight and Shades of Shit, let it be known that garbage writing was bestselling long before. At the very least, it's not a new development.
I hate so much about the things this book chooses to be. Because all her novels are published with pleasingly similar covers, and if I'd loved this book, I could have HAD THEM ALLLLLLLLLLL.
We have the unintentional casual racism of Twilight; every cab driver, newsagent, and concierge has a deliberately ethnic name and an over-the-top accent. She only has one gay character and has copied and pasted him 20 times to populate the entire magazine staff, and their only role is to shout about how fabulous everything is. We have both books' unbearable rich, arrogant, controlling, douchecanoe of a potential love interest in the form of one CHRISTIAN Collinsworth, who addresses Andrea as "darling" and "little Andy," and repeatedly tells her not to worry her "pretty little head" about things, kisses and feels her up without her permission, uses his status to manipulate her into being in the same places as he is, and I just can't. I can not. This in addition to the concierge who grants and denies entry into her PLACE OF WORK based on whether or not she SINGS AND DANCES FOR HIM, and I truly do not understand what it is about this book that people enjoy.
On top of the shitty main character, the listless plot, the endless descriptions of clothes and accessories by a character who ostensibly "doesn't care about that sort of thing," ethnic stereotypes, gay stereotypes, and the horrific sexism, the editing of this bestselling, several-years-old book is unforgivably sloppy. You can blame the author, who often seems to forget what's she's written two paragraphs ago (see below for examples). But you can also blame the fact that someone was paid to spot errors like these, and they did not do their job. I'm seeing this in SO many books lately, and I just do not understand it at all.
Anyway, the examples:
About her friend Lily:
...we hadn't spent any real time together since I'd moved to the city...
And one paragraph later, for those with frontal lobe damage:
Because with her first year as a graduate student and my being a virtual slave, we hadn't seen a whole lot of each other lately.
But why wait for the next paragraph when you can do things like this:
And so after three months, I surrendered. I just got too tired. Emotionally, physically, mentally, the daily wardrobe ordeal had sapped me of all energy. Until, that is, I relented on the three-month anniversary of my first day.
There are things like
Ahn-dre-ah!” she hissed, much too ladylike to ever make a scene.
After describing, on the previous page, Priestly mimicking Andy with a "hyena-like howl" after which people turn to stare. How is this not making a bloody scene?
There's also a general feeling of carelessness. Nobody's emotions flow or make any contiguous sense from paragraph to paragraph.
And there's this:
...the way he looked at me through those hooded lids with the persistent curl...
I believe she's referring to the curl of hair that totes adorably falls in his face before every line of dialogue so he can sexily push it away. Or possibly, his hooded lids really do have a curl, and the author has managed to inject something original into this inane and cliche-ridden waste of electronic space.
I laughed twice in over 300 pages. Both times were in response to some good, old-fashioned Jewish mothering (sure, it's a stereotype, but it's one I can relate to), and maybe I'd read Lauren Weisberger again if she wrote a book about that, but damn.
And then the end. How unsatisfying was that?
Spoiler
Andy doesn't make the decision to quit because she had had enough, she did it because her boyfriend guilted her for not being at the side of her best friend, comatose from an exquisitely convenient car crash, completely WASTING a year's worth of irritation (hers and the reader's). And similarly, when first told about said crash, she didn't immediately decide to rush to her friend's side because that's what's important to her, she decided to stay. So we get the worst of both worlds, and the ending (which I think we're supposed to find charming and fulfilling) is completely unsatisfying.I have now spent way, way more time thinking about this book than it deserves, so, I'm done.
That's all.