This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Kay Brooks
When Andy Sachs turned her back on a much coveted position at
Runway magazine, working for the notoriously ruthless Queen of Fashion herself,
Miranda Priestley, she made the best decision possible. Saving her sanity meant
a return to a focus on her own life. Ten years later and everything has changed.
Andy is running a high-end bridal magazine along with her new best friend, Emily,
and is about to get married to one of the most eligible bachelors around, Max Harrison.
The only problems are, if Max is her soul-mate, why is she having second thoughts
on the night before their wedding and why is she having nightmares about Miranda
Priestley? Surely their paths can’t ever cross again, can they?
Having not read the first in this series I was a bit concerned that I might not be in the best position to review it. However, I can confirm that this novel makes complete sense without reading The Devil Wears Prada. A lot of the events that are relevant to the storyline from the previous novel, such as the mutual dislike between Andy and Emily while they were working at Runway, are brushed over to give the more current events context. Though this isn’t explained enough to show how they reconciled all the differences they once had and managed to put their apparent hatred of each other to one side. It seemed unrealistic.
I have to say I was expecting more from the heroine, as the blurb suggests that she has demonstrated extreme strength in giving up a well-paid job that she hated and starting from scratch. She can come across as slightly melodramatic and weak-willed. For example, she finds a letter written by her fiancé’s elitist mother who states that Andy is not suitable marriage material and refers to a meeting that he failed to mention with his beautiful, equally rich ex-girlfriend. When she has the chance to talk about this to her husband-to-be-in-the-next-hour she cowardly goes ahead with the wedding rather than make a scene. Equally, when Emily is selfish and downright rude towards Andy, she accepts the treatment. Having met Miranda Priestley later in the novel, I found it very difficult to believe that the main protagonist was the same one that quit her position as Miranda’s assistant in such a bold way. There are no signs of her being able to stand up for herself until everything has already fallen apart and she has no choice.
The novel as a whole is quite enjoyable. Reading about Andy’s friends at a parents’ support group and her meetings with famous celebrities, all be it fictional ones, was engaging. Having to read a list of what characters were wearing, including colour, style and make was much more tedious and, seeing as Andy doesn’t seem to care about fashion, preferring to lounge around in her jogging pants, I didn’t get the point. When referring to her past relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Alex, she mentions wanting to become a journalist and cover topics that matter to her but this doesn’t seem to be a point she wants to pursue.
The character of Miranda is fascinating and I would have liked to read more about her through the story. The title is actually quite misleading in this way, as it seems to be referring to someone gaining revenge whilst wearing Prada but Andy doesn’t get revenge or wear Prada; in fact, she seems to just get trodden on and accept it. Miranda doesn’t feature enough to gain any revenge although there are a few lists of what she is wearing.
My overall view is that this may have been a better stand-alone book. That way, Weisberger could have focused more on the relationship between Andy and Max without having to drag in parts of a previous novel that didn’t seem to fit smoothly with the current storyline.
5/10