By Melissa Martinez
News Editor
As a college student, it is important to remember to study, do well on exams and graduate with a degree that will lead you to your dream job… or so you would think. You may be staying up all night studying for that absolutely needed ‘A,’ or spending countless hours at an internship because it will give you “experience,” all in the hopes that after graduation, your life will go as planned and you will land the career you always promised your parents you would be fulfilling.
In “The Devil Wears Prada: A Novel,” author Lauren Weisberger tells the story of young woman named Andrea Sachs, or Andy, fresh out of college expecting to wow the world with her writing, or so she believes.
When Andy graduated from Brown University and turned down law school at Stanford to become a journalist, she thought she had it all figured out. She would first work at a low-scale newspaper to build her resume and soon, make the necessary connections to land her a job at her favorite magazine: “The New Yorker.” However, when human resources called her for an interview at Elias-Clark, the most prestigious publishing company in New York, Andy had no idea she would soon be meeting Miranda Priestly, the woman who would inevitably change her life forever.
Miranda Priestly, the Editor-in-Chief of Runway Magazine is considered royalty. Under her command, Runway holds the highest regard of fashion in the world. Not only do the most famous designers whither under her opinion, entire fashion lines are created for her eyes only. However, she needs a new second assistant, a job “a million girls would die for” and Andy, fashion-blind but wide-eyed and intelligent, is hired.
Though Andy accepts the job, she is skeptical, even asking her boyfriend-of-four-years Alex, “You don’t think it’s completely selling out to work at a fashion magazine, do you?” Though the job is painful and previous second-assistants haven’t survived, Miranda’s first assistant Emily assures her that if she survives Miranda for one year, Miranda will get her a job anywhere (even “The New Yorker?”). However if she doesn’t, she can kiss her writing dreams farewell.
Andy decides she can survive and prepares to take any and all verbal, emotional and intellectual abuse Miranda might, and does, throw at her.
“The Devil Wears Prada: A Novel” is a perfect recent- or soon-to-be-graduate experience that provides perspective to a different way of looking at that “first job.” Though first jobs after college might not be ideal, they are nothing compared to that of being second assistant to the most powerful woman of fashion in the world, and she isn’t even a designer. Readers will coil over the experiences and adventures Andy lives through, however will still be captivated by the sheer grace and terror Miranda provides anyone who is accidentally in her presence.