I tasked myself with re-reading a book which I read five years ago and my two versions have a lot to say about it...
The proximity of me choosing my next read was very vague. While I was halfway through my July-September read, I faintly recollected that I had the infamous ‘The Devil wears Prada’ sequel ‘Revenge wears Prada’ by Lauren Weisberger. I kept my current read aside and started scavenging my boxes of books and there it was the bright yellow covered book with the famous Pumps (Prada, I suppose) with Devil’s spear at the tip of it’s heel. But it also made me cringe a bit (maybe 1%) accompanied with a mental yikes too . So when Revenge wears Prada hit the bookshelves five years back, I (my fifteen year old self) eyed it and went like ‘Uhum, a sequel,’ I am sure I said it more like a question. Being the good boy that I was (I still am) my mother let me buy this sequel and off I went to dive into the fashionable life of Andy post Runway and it would be great to meet Miranda and her ‘That’s All’ again and possibly Andy could plan a revenge or something and….
PAUSE, 15 year old Prasheel, Pause.
The book as I remember vividly went on to be quite not what I had expected to be. I had only ‘expectations’ as I turned each page back then but disappointment was soon to catch up on my teenage face. Now I eyed the book in my hand, my nerves started to tingle and I decided to re-read this book again, hoping that this time maybe my brain would process the story differently and maybe there’s more to it, maybe there is…
Pause, the present Prasheel, Pause.
Too many expectations never did good to anyone and here the case began in the same way. I forgot why I didn’t like this book back then (I shouldn’t have forgotten) and then that’s why I conducted a poll on Instagram to ask my followers whether books should get a second chance and guess what- 68% felt that books are all about Re-reading. So I finished reading ‘Passion for the game’ by Sylvia Day (read about it in my previous post - ‘The Red August) and jumped on this one immediately just to soak in my experiences that are etched in my mind so vividly.
Coming back to the re-reading. I want to see the interviews of the author to know exactly what she was visioning with these iconic characters after the premise of the original. As a fifteen year old, I did roll my eyes at the fact that Andy was coming along hyper whiny about her fiance and soon to be husband (read: rich) and his ex-girlfriend (who, for some reason is favored by Andy’s Mother-in-law and why her M-I-L drops in a letter to her son mentioning the ex, we will never know. I am sure this little observation slipped out of my teenage brain)
Andy’s whole situation (marriage, ex-girlfriend, fiance, M-I-L’s letter and preference of a ‘respected daughter-in-law) equals a whole new equation which leads to, wait for it, NAUSEA! Ta-daaaaa.
Andy is so put off with this nausea and sickness that both of my versions hated her as the author decides to bring it in every situation possible. On the honest side, I didn’t think, back then and even now, that it was a good idea to keep Andy in ‘Nausea mode’ for so long. Even if it results in her pregnancy, the whole ‘nausea episode’ becomes the prime factor to judge the book further. Also, what about Andy’s career- I’ll get back to it in a minute.
I must’ve skipped or not followed so much about Miranda’s first assistant- Emily Charlton (just saying this name brings out Emily Blunt’s stellar performance) when I first read it, I skipped her dialogues however I wanted to see where and how Emily Charlton progresses. We all know the typical outline of how Emily was written or visioned- materialistic and high on her PR skills. Here’s something which my old self wouldn’t have bothered to tell you- Emily in the sequel is written off as someone who hates children, knows her husband might be cheating but does nothing about it, still is awestruck by Miranda, doesn’t care about Andy’s daughter, has an air of desperation and it is heavily implied that she IS Emily that’s why she is all that and it is pretty hard to buy into the fact that EMILY CHARLTON (with aura of Emily Blunt) would be like this later in her life. (Side note: everytime this sequel’s Emily appeared, my mind imagined Kyrsten Ritter, who played Suze in Confessions of a Shopaholic acting out these dialogues)
Am I forgetting something or someone? Oh, yes it is the devil herself, Miranda Priestly. Above everything, Miranda is pretty much the reason why I had picked up this book in the first place. Miranda appears in the book with a few pages dedicated to her. She is, rather forced, into the scenes and does much nothing to propel the story or the characters ahead. She is a push instead of a central ‘DEVIL’. Didn’t we all love listening to Miranda barking orders in her cold shrill voice (Thank the forces for Meryl Streep bringing her to life) were, sadly skipped by me. I know it is the most crucial part of Miranda herself, but I just couldn’t bear the forceful nature of it. Even though I smiled at the mentions of ‘That’s all’
Now to the part of the careers which has been what the book outlines predominantly. Do you need to tolerate worse behavior from anyone in the workplace? This was the common question that ruled the book and the movie in the practicality of real life. Andy, after her short stint in Runway, would preferably take a job as a contributing writer at some publication or print that would want her opinion on issues that made Andy-Andrea Sachs. But here, we have Andy delving into topics that would definitely don’t go with her personality or her choice of aura. Same goes for Emily. She is put in constant critical scrutiny that her character is a thick contact book of every A,B and C of the industry- nothing else.
Hang on, I have something more to say and this one’s the relief to the rather upsetting set up. This was just a jist of the first 300 pages, the last 100 pages make the 300 pages go in a whoosh in a compartment in my brain that would throw out the upsetting parts. The last 100 pages gave me what actually I was looking for in characters- growth and reasoning. Just the three pages in the last 100 pages I understood Andy’s character arc which deals with grit, determination and in the most Andy way (by not tolerating any nonsense from anyone in her life). Emily betrays Andy and now that one act of betrayal is something Emily would do and still not be sorry for it. These 100 pages felt like how the entire book should’ve been- story of Andy’s grit and Emily’s betrayal as a response while their life progressed ahead of their post-Runway phase.
So, all in all to conclude with a small note to my teenage self who kept this book in the darkest corner of the bookshelf, I wish you would’ve understood the context of the later pages which brought some relief. But you weren’t wrong the first time!
That’s all!
//p.
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