The Devil Drinks Diet Coke and Plans Parties Now, Evidently

Having had a decently enjoyable time seeing The Devil Wears Prada, I decided to embark into the seamy world of chick-lit. Since the library was fresh out of Devil copies, I opted for Lauren Weisberger's recent sophomore release Everyone Worth Knowing, deciding that it would be fun and fluffy and perfect during the rare spots of downtime that occur in my high-pressure, overachieving, always-on-the-go life.

Everyone bears a lot of similarities to the movie version of Devil, with a young twentysomething post-grad in Manhattan dealing with a conflict between personal, kind of unfulfilling success and snarky coworkers versus friends and integrity. Now just substitute "trendy fashion mag" with "trendy PR firm". Our protagonist is Bette, a imperfect but likeable and relatable single banker who quits her job only to land, with the help of her gay socialite uncle, at the aforementioned trendy PR firm. She spends her days planning parties and contacting celebs and promoters and her nights doing business at Bungalow 8 and the like with her hot but mostly drug-addled and morally contemptible coworkers. Bette rapidly finds herself in the NYC gossip columns due to her persistent, but nonsexual, relations with British it-boy Philip Weston. Throw in the requisite disappointment from friends and family, plus a dashing love interest, and you've got a story.

I definitely got what I wanted, namely an entertaining ride full of interesting characters and unrealistic plot twists. Weisberger has received a large amount of criticism, for this book in particular, but I'm convinced that she can write a snappy and compelling story that, yes, ties up neatly at the end to an absurd level, but is still well worth the ride. The whole chicklit critical backlash seems kind of unfortunate, really, and I hope that some of the stigma associated with reading chick-lit has, at least, partially transferred to other sorts of books.

I'd recommend it though, and as cliched it sounds, it really is great for reading in an air conditioned coffee shop on a sunny summer day with some iced caffeine and a lemon bar or five. I don't really feel like I gained any insight into the PR world outside of what I could glean from a Samantha-centric episode of SATC, but I had a good time and I'm even more psyched now to live in NYC. Ah, some day.