The struggling story of a newly graduated blonde twenty-something with high hopes and a few insecurities, The Devil Wears Prada is a novel about the classic story of a character struggling to find balance in life and in herself.
After traveling the world and feigning work for months, Andrea Sachs, a graduate of Brown University and a former small-town girl, finally secures a job as junior assistant to one of the most prominent women in the world of fashion in the Big Apple. Despite the numerous chapters that explain Andrea’s daily stresses of attending to the extremely demanding – albeit outrageously ridiculous – editor in chief for Runway magazine, Lauren Weisberger’s 360-page novel sheds just a shred of light on the unglamorous side of what appears to be a glamorous world.
Penned after attending Cornell University, the heart of the New York Times National Bestseller is relevant to a wide demographic of readers, the basic element of knowing how to balance one’s life. Balancing a tiresome job with 14-hour work days, a boyfriend and a best friend with hushed alcoholism, Sachs has an awakening after realizing that playing slave to her boss isn’t going to get her a job at the New Yorker or fix her failing relationships with friends and family.
Although the novel tends to get a bit dry and often times repetitive when describing the routine tasks that Sachs completes for her “boss from hell,” The Devil Wears Prada is richly narrated by Sachs’ own voice, whose blunt attitude and running commentary add comedy. Essentially, Weisberger’s novel is an entertainingly easy read, reminding readers that the struggle for balance and self-discovery is a hardship shared by many, no matter the job.
Joanna Davila can be contacted at j.davila1@umiami.edu.