The Devil Wears Prada (Lauren Weisberger)**

I do like films, but I would usually they’re no substitute to reading the book. The book is usually better. But in this case, I would say, give the book a miss and watch the film.

Lauren Weisberger is very funny at times, and this is a more successful book than her rubbish second offering, Everyone Worth Knowing. Miranda Priestly is a brilliant character. But like all the characters, she is so much better in the film. In the book, Miranda is funny and scary, but the film takes this to new levels. As for the other characters, they don’t quite work in the book.

The film Andrea is a lovely character. Very kind to everyone, and she obviously feels terrible having to put her job before her friends, but she’s quite understandably much too scared of Miranda. Andrew also has a wonderful ignorance of fashion to begin with. She knows it’s not that important, but she respects the view of the people she works with, and manages to learn a lot during her time in the job.

The book Andrea doesn’t seem to care about anything apart from herself. She’s doing the job so she can have a future in the writing world, and nothing can get in her way. She rivals Miranda in rudeness stakes. She never loses an opportunity to bitch about Miranda, or to look down on her colleague, Emily. And she’s a dreadful assistant. Miranda is wrong to fire Andrea when she goes to hospital to see her friend who’s in a coma. But she should have fired her before for being lazy, insolent and disrespectful. It’s not clever to add ten minutes to your lunchbreak.

The film Emily is, in some ways, the person Andrea thinks she is in the book. Film-Emily can be a bit sneering and snobby. She does despair of Andrea’s ignorance. But you do kind of end up liking her because she’s not all bad, and she’s very entertaining. Book-Emily is amazingly nice and accommodating to Andrea, who is probably very difficult for Emily to work with – which is the last thing she needs when she already has Miranda to deal with. She covers for Andrea. She does all she can to help make her good at her job. I like her, but she’s a lot less interesting than the film Emily. (Emily in the film is played by a wonderful actress called Emily Blunt. I’ve never met her, but I’ve been in a play with her brother and sister.)

Weisberger has various subplots that I don’t think made it into the film, like Andrea’s alcoholic friend, Lily – she has a horrifying storyline but Andrea won’t help her even when she knows something is wrong. This storyline has no place in a comedy, and should have taken a much bigger place in a psychological drama.

The main story doesn’t have a plot at all. It just shows event after event in Andrea’s year in the job. Nothing really happens. She doesn’t really become any more efficient, unless devising more ways of breaking the rules counts. She doesn’t develop any great respect for her job. As in the film, her relationship falls apart, but the part you don’t understand in the book is why Alex (inexplicably renamed Nate in the film) puts up with the bitch for as long as he does.

The Devil Wears Prada is just a horrible book about a thoroughly nasty protagonist and the countless vomit scenes didn’t help. They’re always at it. Weisberger’s wit just about scrapes her into two-star territory, and, after all, if she hadn’t written the book, it wouldn’t have been made into a really great film.

And this Weisberger woman says I’m fat. I’m Size Zero (for health reasons, not by choice) and the stupid woman says I’m fat because I’m eight and a half stone... I'm Size Six, how is that fat? Weisberger is lucky I’m emetophobic because if I wasn’t I could be bulimic by now. Silly cow.

I did stay up late so I could finish this book, but only because I wanted to finish it and then start reading something else so I didn’t get nightmares. Instead, I had a dream where I had this boyfriend who was doing really well in a music competition, but then I found out his fluorescent pink saxophone was a fake with a tape recorder inside. It was weird, but a lot more fun than The Devil Wears Prada.