Exceedingly Mundane

I finished another book last night, one I picked up at a recent library sale. It’s called “Everyone Worth Knowing” and apparently is the second book by Lauren Weisberger, who wrote “The Devil Wears Prada”. I also own this one in paperback (thanks to a different library sale), but I have not read it. I saw the Prada movie, so I wanted to read something that I didn’t already know the plot to. Anyway, I liked the book, didn’t love it, but I did enjoy it. In a really guilty, hide-in-the-corner kind of way. Sort of like you would toss a People or celebrity magazine in your shopping cart, but not really advertise that you read those kind of things. 🙂

Rather than trying to write my own review, I’m going to copy this directly from Amazon.com, as it really sums it up:

Lauren Weisberger, whose bestselling debut The Devil Wears Prada outed the vicious antics of the magazine industry elite, is back at it with Everyone Worth Knowing, another cautionary tale of sex, power, and fame. This time around, the PR industry is her target, and Prada fans will recognize similar themes throughout this entertaining, if at times overly dramatic, exposé.
Bette Robinson is a twentysomething Emory graduate who shunned her parents’ hippie ideals in favor of a high-paying yet excruciatingly boring job at a prestigious investment bank. One day, after a particularly condescending exchange with her boss (who sends her daily inspirational e-mails), Bette walks out on her job in a huff. After a few weeks of sleeping late, watching Dr. Phil and entertaining her dog Millington, Bette’s uncle scores her a job at an up-and-coming public relations firm, where her entire job seems to revolve around staying out late partying and providing fodder for clandestine gossip columns. What follows is one episode after another of Bette climbing up the social ladder at the expense of her friends, family, and the one guy who actually seems worth pursuing.

Weisberger is clever enough to turn seemingly outrageous circumstances into amusing anecdotes, like the tale of a woman who was close to suicide until she found out she was only 18 months away from scoring a highly coveted Birkin bag (“You simply cannot kill yourself when you’re that close … it’s just not an option.”). This wit, combined a hint of voyeurism that most of us can’t deny, is what makes Everyone Worth Knowing a guilty pleasure that’s well worth the indulgence.

Guilty pleasure – that’s exactly how I’d sum it up. Sometimes, it is sort of fun for me to break out and read something that is “deliciously entertaining” as the cover proclaims. It does have a bit of sex, drugs and bad language in it, but not so much that it was too overly distracting to me. It fit in with the partying theme of the book. It had a bit of heart to it as well, and a little substance, although not too much. 🙂 Not enough to take away from the fun of the book, but enough to give it a redeeming quality!

For the record, that makes 26 books read so far this year, with a total of 8,371 pages. Up next is another library book I picked up recently, “Beach Road” by James Patterson. Believe it or not, this is the first “real” Patterson book I’ve ever read. I have read one other by him, “Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas”, back in 2005, but I don’t think that is his typical type of book. So, I thought I’d give one of his murder mysteries a try. If you’ve read this one or have another Patterson book to recommend (or any book, for that matter), let me know!