Commercial and Critical Reception
Kate Betts, a former editor of Harper's Bazaar who also worked for Wintour at one point, spared no barb in the Times Book Review, stressing the author's ingratitude at the unique opportunity of working at Vogue: "f Andrea doesn't ever realize why she should care about Miranda Priestly, why should we care about Andrea, or prize the text for anything more than the cheap frisson of the context?" Janet Maslin, in the daily paper, joined in: "a mean-spirited Gotcha! of a book, one that offers little indication that the author could interestingly sustain a gossip-free narrative ..."
Maslin avoided naming both the magazine where Weisberger actually worked and the woman she allegedly modeled her main character on. The Times continued this practice when the film was released ). Betts, a former Condé Nast editor, was hardly an impartial reviewer (In Weisberger's second novel, Everyone Worth Knowing, two characters are speculating on the identity of a popular anonymous online gossip columnist. One candidate is "that former fashion editor who goes around writing mean book reviews").
Critics who favored the book admitted it had problems, as any first novel might, but praised it as a "fun, frivolous read".
No Condé Nast Publications reviewed or otherwise mentioned The Devil Wears Prada.
Read more about this topic: The Devil Wears Prada (novel)
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