Andy’s fuck-you moment to horrible boss Miranda at the end of Lauren Weisberger’s first novel, The Devil Wears Prada, was deliciously vindictive. It was a perfect finale.
The sequel, out this week, doesn’t taste so sweet. With an overstated title, Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns, it explores Andy Sachs’s life a decade later. The theory is fantastic. But the reality is stale.
After breaking free from Miranda-ville, Andy writes for a bridal blog called Happily Ever After before founding a wedding magazine with her archnemesis turned BFF, Emily. As Andy struggles to find her footing, she discovers that “nothing is as it seems.”
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If you’re all too aware of the notion that reality bites, pick a different beach read. But if the Prada-wearing talk has sent you into a Pavlovian spiral of curiosity, you’re in luck. Herewith, 11 of the cringeworthy moments we’re secretly hoping warrant a Devil Wears Prada 2 on the big screen. Your move, Meryl.
1. The Chocolate-Chip-Cookie Nightmare
The book opens with midnight terror, as Andy is running down a snow-filled street barefoot—late to meet (who else?) Miranda. The nightmare is scary (kind of) until the dream turns to a cookie. “She was consoling herself with the promise of hot coffee and maybe, just maybe, a chocolate-chip cookie.” Just ... maybe. Someone get this woman a cookie.
2. The Bejeweled Juicy Pants
We soon learn that Andy is just mere hours away from marrying handsome millionaire Max Harrison, who is also—conveniently—the veritable king of the New York City media world. Andy is sweet, normal, not the least bit annoying, until this: “It was slightly embarrassing to wear the terry-cloth sweatpants with a hot-pink BRIDE emblazoned across the butt ... but she was secretly proud, too.” Any sentence that mixes terry cloth, emblazoned, and butt is cause for alarm.
3. The Teach for America Ruiner
If you thought Adrian Grenier as Nate—Andy’s boyfriend in The Devil Wears Prada, called Alex in the book—was the stuff dreams are made of, then prepare to be PO’ed. Shortly after Andy returns from her “fuck you, Miranda, Paris trip,” she and Alex break up. It might be less annoying if it weren’t so earnest. “By the time he finally said that he wanted a break ... he was accepting a Teach for America transfer to the Mississippi Delta.” Talk about a buzzkill. Way to exit the majority of the novel to do something noble, Alex/Nate.
4. The TMI Workout Bit
It’s annoying to hear about your friends’ workouts, much less your fictional friends’. In an OK-we-get-it section about Andy and Max’s weekly “routine,” we get an unwanted, insanely detailed explanation of their workout. “They would head to the Equinox on Seventeenth and Tenth together and spend exactly forty-five minutes there; Max did a combination of free weights and the stair treader, Andy bided her time on the treadmill, speed fixed at 5.8, eyes glued to whatever rom com she’d downloaded to her iPad, fervently wishing the time would pass faster, faster.” Us, too. Thanks but no thanks.
5. The ‘LMK’ (Let Me Know) Email
Maybe calling your new wife simply “wife” in the days following your wedding is endearing, but shooting her an acronym-happy email most definitely is not. A cringeworthy missive Max sends Andy a few days after their wedding officially ends any honeymoon phase for the reader. “Dear Wife,” he begins. “I’ll call you to talk plans for tonight. I want you there, but only if you’re up for it. LMK.” TTYL, Max.
6. The Andy-Emily Cooking Class
Miranda’s scathing first assistant Emily Charlton—who once asked Andy if she was going to a “hideous-skirt convention”—is now, implausibly, her best friend. The two run into each other a year after quitting at a cooking class where they are (how ironic!) paired up as kitchen partners. A few zucchini matchsticks later, and they’re inseparable. “With Emily’s business contacts and Andy’s writing expertise ... they conceived [The Plunge] a uniquely beautiful product. Andy could hardly imagine a time when she and Emily hated each other.” Mmm, OK. If only real girl friendships were this easy.
7. The STD Scare
On the day of her wedding, Andy stumbles upon a letter in Max’s coat pocket in which his mom reveals that he saw his ex-girlfriend Katherine a week ago, unbeknownst to Andy. She goes through with the wedding, but a week she later has a straight-out-of-Girls STD panic attack. With chlamydia on her mind, she heads to the doctor’s office, where a male nurse practitioner and 17-year-old “Asian boy” give her an exam. “She tried to ignore Mr. Kevin staring between her spread legs as though he’d never seen anything like it before,” Eek. “Oh yes, a fun gyno appointment story!”—said no woman, ever. Next, please.
8. The ‘One Time in Hilton Head’
That time that Andy thought she got chlamydia, but really she was just preggers! (Yes, that’s actually what happens.) When Andy’s test results come back, she learns that she’s STD-free, but baby-full. It’s—almost—a touching moment, until YOLO’ing Max clichés the heck out of it. “You know what this says, don’t you? It was meant to be. This baby was mean to be.” Andy then informs him that she thinks she became pregnant on that trip to Hilton Head where they got “carried away” in the shower. Spicy, sort of.
9. The Meeting With Miranda
When Emily and Andy get word that Miranda—now the editorial director at Elias-Clark—is interested in acquiring The Plunge, they’re floored. But when the two sit down to a meeting with her, they’re pleasantly surprised to learn that she has no memory of them. “Well, were either of you that sorry girl who turned completely catatonic and needed to be carted off to a psychiatric hospital?” (No, they reply.) “And neither of you were that lunatic who repeatedly threatened to burn down my apartment?” (Again, no.) So they weren’t that memorable, Miranda decides. The box office would beg to differ.
10. The Bully Stick
Andy continually discusses her dog Stanley and his obsession with his “bully stick” throughout the book. Call it a bone, call it a chew toy—Andy calls it like it is: a “bull’s penis.” We cringe when she continually brings it up ... like in the meeting with Miranda: “[Andy] thought of her Stanley, safe and snuggled right then, probably chewing a bully stick.”
11. The Twin’s Shaved Head
When the Andy and Emily head to their devilish boss’s residence for dinner, Andy is stunned to see one of Miranda’s twins, now 18, with a half-shaved head. Breaking, she thinks: the shaved look is in! Cassidy’s “half-shaven head looked both fierce and trendy.” Andy seems somewhat obsessed with the half-shaved head, bringing it up several more times. Third installment, coming soon: The Half-Shaved Head Wears Prada.
