Even readers who loved Lauren Weisberger's bestseller, The Devil Wears Prada, may be disappointed by her other novel, Everyone Worth Knowing (2005, Pocket Books, a division of Simon and Schuster, New York, 435 pages).
A mundane plot follows 26-year-old Bette Robinson, a big-city dweller and romance-novel lover who becomes disgruntled and resigns from a steady, but exasperating, job in banking. After a financially draining stint of unemployment, she becomes a party planner in the public-relations business. In this, she finds a degree of success.
What can beat rubbing shoulders with “the beautiful people” and collecting a salary to enjoy one big bash after another? Suddenly without time to visit her family or to cuddle with a delicate pet dog called Millington, Bette pursues good times and her love-life, even catching the attention of a nasty gossip writer.
So the New York party-girl lifestyle stirs problems: “It occurred to me that I'd been spending nearly every minute of every day and night with some of the worst people I'd ever met, and I had nothing to show for it but a shoebox full of clippings that humiliated not only me, but also everyone I loved.”
As a ditzy dreamer with her dilemmas often self-made, Bette fails to draw much sympathy. Worse, Everyone Worth Knowing falters badly for the lack of a proper villain, someone like the boss-from-hell in The Devil Wears Prada. Abby, the preening-paparazzi character straining to stay “at the vortex of the media world”, amounts only to a nuisance like a mosquito buzzing in the stillness of night.
Without a real villain, there's little suspense, and interest lags. Although unsatisfactory, Everyone Worth Knowing gives an impression that the author could, and should, do better. Perhaps her best writing remains in the future.
Approval rating: 31 per cent.
For more information: www.simonsays.com
(November 28, 2008)
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