The Devil Wears Prada

My sister will be ill when she sees this pick on my blog. She hated this book, which, along with the Nanny Diaries is the Ur text of assistant lit.(see Chambermaid as an example). She found Andrea, the young assistant to Miranda Priestly, part genius, part monster to be a terrible cry baby and sided instead with Miranda. That in a nutshell is the beauty of the book, perhaps created unintentionally by the author, who no doubt believed all the readers would side with the thinly veiled copy of herself over thinly veiled version of Anna Wintour, the famed editor of Vogue who Lauren Weisberger briefly worked for as an assistant. Instead, you have to deliberate between the woman who worked hard to get what she wants but can be deliberately unreasonably just because she feels like it and the woman who feels oh so sad that she has to hang up her boss' coat. Sometimes Andrea wins and sometimes Miranda does. The subplots with the best friend and boyfriend are quite silly, but the book still has value as a test to see whether you as the reader take the side of the rookie or the old pro.

Good In Bed

This book is the ur text of so called chick lit. Unlike most chick lit, which is a dressed up romance, this book is really more about finding yourself rather than finding romance. The heroine, Cannie Shapiro, is recovering from a breakup when her ex-writes a thinly disguised column about her for a national magazine making reference to her plus sized body. Even though the column is not a put down but rather his attempt thoughtful look at how her weight affected their relationship, Cannie is still sent into a tailspin that ends up changing her whole life. The book is hilarious as Cannie's voice is sarcastic in the very best way and the whole book is inspiring, especially to anyone who's ever felt like the "fat girl."

Bridget Jones's Diary

When I first heard about this book, I thought it sounded terrible. What real woman keeps track of her weight, how many cigarettes she smokes and how much she drinks everyday and celebrates or mourns accordingly. But reading it I was very pleasently surprised. Bridget is an Everyperson, struggling every day to fit in and behave herself in a socially acceptable manner (thin, in control and so on). As the book progress she learns to be more comfortable with herself and thus, grows happier. (and she meets Mr. Darcy. That helps too).