Chasing Lauren Weisberger

I just finished Everyone Worth Knowing and Chasing Harry Winston, both by Lauren Weisberger, who also wrote The Devil Wears Prada (which I read ages ago). I didn't really pay attention to which was written first, but wound up unwittingly reading them in chronologic order.

In DWP (and The Nanny Diaries), I got annoyed with the lead character for putting up with a lot of crap at work and just whining--not doing anything about it. There's still a bit of that in EWK, but it's not nearly as bad as it could be. The lead character in EWK, Bette, winds up at a PR firm, where her job involves a lot of partying. And while some of the people she works with are a bit much, it's nothing like DWP. Plus, she seems to enjoy (at least, certain aspects of) her job, and is good at it.

One thing I really appreciated is that a lot of the times, Weisberger didn't go for the easy wacky situation. Bette would be given an assignment when she clearly didn't feel prepared...and then the book skips ahead a bit. That assignment? Went fine. Not a big deal. Almost like real life. Huh! A lot of the story felt fairly organic.

Which was totally not the case in CHW, which is about three best friends (Adriana, Emmy, and Leigh) as they approach 30. And, as a 30-year-old, I just could not relate to these people at all. It was hard to see how these three women were even friends, and if Adriana had any likable qualities, I don't know what they were. I mean, pretty much any time Emmy or Leigh had good news, Adriana got annoyed and had to get the spotlight back on herself. It would probably help the story if we got actual scenes of Leigh and her love interest, too, so maybe that we'd see it was love, not lust. And I'm not sure about Emmy's story, the moral of which I think is that to loosen up and find love, she had to have sex with a bunch of random men.

I also got thrown off by some of the references. For EWK, it really has to be placed at a certain time--Bette works in PR, she needs celebrities at parties, so there's a definite time for that book. But in CHW, one of the characters rides in a limo past Bear Stearns and makes some comment about it, and I was like, "Wow." I also wasn't thrilled with a bit where one of the characters praises Something Borrowed and Something Blue (which I've mentioned a bit before). Now, I have no idea whether Weisberger knows Emily Giffin, but it still bothered me a bit. Solidarity and all that is fine, I just felt like she maybe laid it on a bit thick.

Anyway, I recommend Everyone Worth Knowing, but suggest skipping Chasing Harry Winston...though they're both pretty quick and easy reads. CHW isn't the worst book ever written--which some of the Amazon reviews would have you think--but there are definitely better ways to spend your time.