The Devil Wears Prada (literature)
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| Written by: | Lauren Weisberger |
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| Genre(s): | roman à clef |
| Followed by: | Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns |
| First published: | February 6, 2003 |
The Devil Wears Prada is a 2003 novel by Laura Weisberger. It was allegedly based on her experiences working at Vogue for Anna Wintour.
Andy Sachs is a college graduate not in a hurry to find a job, though hoping one day to work at the New Yorker to write great fiction and nonfiction. After a stint of food poisoning while traveling, Andy spends a few weeks recuperating at home, and then a few weeks kipping on her best friend Lily's couch. When Lily gets tired of Andy moping around her apartment all day, Andy goes around New York dropping off her resumes and cover letters. One place she's never heard of, Runway magazine, reaches out: editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly needs a new junior assistant to support her senior assistant Emily. Andy figures that should be okay, and it's a job that "a million girls would die for" according to everyone she meets at Runway. How hard could it be?
Very.
Miranda Priestly is a Mean Boss and super entitled; she gives vague orders and expects her staff to fulfill them to the finest detail. She can't even get Andrea's name right, referring to her as "Emily" most of the time. Yet if Andy sticks out the 14-hour workdays, the 4 AM wake-ups and the surprise events, she can work wherever she wants. If only she could keep regular date nights with her boyfriend Alex, and figure out why Lily has developed a drinking problem.
The film adaptation would soon follow in 2005, and two more sequels would as well: Revenge Wears Prada about Andy and Emily running a bridal magazine ten years later; and When Life Gives You Lululemons, about Emily helping a client whose politician husband frames her for a DUI and takes away her stepson.
- Bittersweet Ending: The first novel ends with Andy getting herself fired when she hits her Rage Breaking Point in Paris, and she would have been fired anyway since Miranda asked her to do an Impossible Task: renew the twins' passports in time for a flight in three hours. She arrives him where Alex breaks up with her because he can't believe she hesitated to come check on a comatose Lily, and they've been having problems for a while. Yet Seventeen magazine accepts her story based on these events, and buys a few more. The editor, also a former Miranda assistant, secures her a job interview at Buzz.
- Entitled Bitch: Miranda Priestly, especially when her food and coffee are involved. While her asking her assistants to pick up her lunch is reasonable, ordering them to pick it up, getting another lunch with the other editors and then ordering them to throw away the rib-eye steak is quite another. She also ordered Andy to berate the maitre'd for upgrading her to a filet mignon steak.
- Jerk With a Heart of Gold: Emily as Andy's supervisor and senior assistant is not necessarily nice, and the two have a barely-professional working relationship. Andy doesn't get why Emily is blindly loyal to Miranda, and Emily resents that Andy doesn't take the job seriously. One of her first moments is promising Andy that if she's ever sick, she and the other Runway staff will cover for her so she still gets paid. Later she covers for Andy when the latter is late on delivering a Miranda order while Lily is apartment-hunting for them.
- Mean Boss: This trope may as well be called the Miranda Priestly. The woman never sleeps, calling her assistants incessantly for different tasks, and doesn't know the meaning of "clear instructions". She's not even nice to the more competent employees at Runway.
- Mean Brit: Book Miranda is also very British. Even after the fact, Andy tenses up if she hears a British accent when someone calls her by her name, even if it's a random guy in a bar.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: The novel notes that Andy fits the physique of Runway girls in that she is skinny and tall. She's just also "fat" compared to them because she tries to eat lunch, which soon becomes lunch once in a while. Her parents become worried that she becomes rail-thin as a result, which both of them relieved that she gets a better weight once she's fired and spends her time at home.
- Spoiled Brat: Andy has shades of it at the beginning of the novel. After graduating from Brown, she decides to spend her time traveling with her boyfriend with no plans of applying for a job except to ensure she doesn't spend the rest of her life writing in her parents' house. Her parents are more than happy to have her. This could also be some Values Dissonance, given the book was set before the 2007 recession happened.
- We All Live in America: The English Miranda is described as leaving high school in London at seventeen, three months short of graduation. In the UK, students go to secondary school, and leave at sixteen without graduating. Her siblings also slipped her 'bills' when they could afford it.
- You! Get Me Coffee!: Coffee is actually the easiest task that Andy has, and she wishes that it weren't. Miranda always demands the same latte with two raw sugars from Starbucks, rather than the free coffee from the break-room. Andy notes that at least there is Starbucks practically everywhere, and the managers are reasonable if she explains her boss is very impatient and demanding; trying to find a furniture store without knowing the name or address is much harder.