Initially I wasn't jazzed to read this, I don't know if it was the cover or the description "Devil Wears Prada meets Mad Men," but I went into this book completely meh. Three and a half hours later I had a completely different reaction, I was head over heels. I started by reading a chapter and then... I couldn't stop. I literally bailed on plans so I could sit and read this book in one setting. I simply adored the main character Alice Weiss and her vulnerability and indecision; her tenacity won me over. Alice moves from the country into the big bad city of New York. It's the sixties and she is convinced that she will be able to make it as a photographer. She calls up one of her mother's friends who doesn't give her any hope on the photography front but does set her up with a secretarial job to one of the most controversial and revered women in the country, Helen Gurley Brown, the editor of Cosmopolitan magazine and author of the book, Sex and the Single Girl. Alice is swept away in helping Helen tackle the fools at Hearst convinced that no woman can run a magazine and who are determined for the whole venture to fail. Alice gets so wrapped up in the magazine, her boss, and her new "Don Juan" that she slowly starts to lose her aspirations for photography and her vision for the future. A wonderful read and journey into 1960s New York publishing scene.
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