A 2018 Time Capsule: A Re-review of When Life Gives You Lululemons by Lauren Weisberger

Hello, Book Nerds! Welcome back to Reading Has Ruined My Life or welcome if you are new. As always, my name is Hannah and I am your captain on this journey into my bookcases.

Today’s review has been a long time coming. A couple years ago, I reviewed When Life Gives You Lululemons by Lauren Weisberger. I am a huge fan of The Devil Wears Prada film and was super excited to read When Life Gives You Lululemons when I picked up a copy way back when, but in my review of the novel I focused on the body image issues and fatphobia a lot; probably too much. Ever since that review went live I’ve felt like I didn’t do When Life Gives You Lululemons justice. I focused heavily on the body image issues and not enough on anything else. Which is why I’m re-reviewing the book today. I’m actually going to talk about the characters, the writing, the themes; all that good stuff!

So please give a warm welcome, officially, to When Life Gives You Lululemons by Lauren Weisberger!

Synopsis time now! As always, a spoiler alert is in order. If you’ve read any other review on this site then you’ll know I love to spoil the entirety of the books I read. This is your one and only warning. I also have a content and trigger warning for this novel. There are discussions of infertility all throughout this novel, and they can’t be avoided. I won’t be talking about this topic in my review though. With that, let’s get to the synopsis.

Karolina Hartwell, former supermodel and current senator’s wife, is driving around her son and his friends when the Bethesda police pull her over and arrest her for drunk driving. The problem is, she wasn’t drinking and driving. No, seriously, she wasn’t! Someone’s framing her. Someone with a lot of power. So the media drags her, people cancel her, her senator husband begins divorce proceedings, and worst of all, she’s in a custody battle for the son she raised.

Enter the one and only Emily Charlton. Her image consultant business isn’t doing too well at the moment. The newest up and coming pop star refuses to hire her, her long term clients are leaving left and right, returning to Runway and Miranda Priestly is starting to sound like a better and better idea. That’s when Emily’s old friend Miriam introduces her to Karolina. It doesn’t take long for Karolina to hire Emily to work her magic.

And work her magic she does. Emily fully transforms Karolina’s image. Gone are the days where the public views her as nothing more than a former Victoria’s Secret Angel, and in are the days of being an average, suburban mom hell-bent on proving she’s not the villain tabloids have made her out to be. All while finding evidence against Karolina’s soon to be ex-husband to ruin his life because he’s 110% the one who had the police pull her over and arrest her on a fake charge. If anyone can put this sleazeball ex-husband in his place and get Karolina’s son back in Karolina’s custody, it’s the dream team of Emily, Miriam, and Karolina.

Let’s start with the characters. Emily, Miriam, and Karolina are in fact the dream team. They are an awesome girl squad. They’re catty, take no shit, they’re all vastly intelligent in their own ways, and they’re also imperfect. Not one of these women are without their faults. Emily is problematic, she definitely body shames others due to her own body image issues and she’s straight up a bully at times. Miriam is shown to be developing some misguided jealousy issues. And Karolina…well Karolina doesn’t have any major bad traits; she’s just going through it for the vast majority of the book. Anyway, I love these three. I find all three of the them to be realistic and I don’t hate reading from any of their POVs.

Yay! It's a good day when I don't hate multiple POV books.

Yes that’s right, we have another dual POV book. Thankfully Lauren Weisberger expertly handles the multiple points of view. All three women have their stories told in a concise, linear, well-written manner. No one’s story feels out of place. Not one of the three main characters feel forgotten about, nor do any of them feel unnecessary to include. Let’s be real, in most books with multiple POVs, there’s always at least one character whose story is weaker than the others. But in this read, I found all three stories interesting and kept me engaged despite my growing dislike of multiple POV books.

I do believe When Life Gives You Lululemons could have worked as a single point of view book, I truly believe Lauren Weisberger could have worked some magic and written a good single POV version of the story; but because all three points of view are so well-written, and the book as a whole is so well-written, all three protagonists kept me interested in their stories. At no point did I skip over chapters because my least favorite one was in the driver’s seat. Nor did I fall asleep in the middle of a chapter.

Where Lauren Weisberger’s talent as a writer really shines though is in her wit and style. Weisberger has a great sense of humor and When Life Gives You Lululemons showcases that. The writing is snarky, it’s witty, and it toes the line between being edgy and being problematic; though it definitely does get problematic in places, see Emily Charlton sowing the seeds of body image issues in a young child. For the most part, I did find the humor of the book to actually be funny, and I think Lauren Weisberger is a fantastic satire writer. Please keep in mind this book is satire. 2025 America is losing critical thinking and media literacy skills by the day, and When Life Gives You Lululemons is 100% satire. Things are extremely outlandish on purpose. Most of this book is to not be taken seriously. I sadly feel I have to mention this because I fear some will take everything about this read at face value.

Now When Life Gives You Lululemons is not without its faults. Namely the background characters are caricatures of stereotypes; specifically the bored housewife stereotype. If a female character isn’t a main character or someone who was already established in the world of The Devil Wears Prada, then she is a horny, bored stay-at-home mom obsessed with plastic surgery. It’s a 50-50 chance this stock character is cheating on her husband. It’s ok, he’s probably cheating on her too. The fact that every background character is like this is annoying and something I don't like about this read. I get these characters are all like this on purpose, again this is satire, but I can only take so much of this stock character and they’ve definitely overstayed their welcome by there being fifty of the same character.

These characters are outlandish but I grow tired of them sooooo quickly.

Before I end today’s review, I do think it’s necessary to talk about the body-shaming and body image issues. The topic is pretty much on every page. Now as I said in my original review of When Life Gives Your Lululemons, the world the story is set in is rife with body shamming and heavily promotes dangerous eating habits and dated ideology. I get the setting of an upper-class suburb likely has fatphobia and body shaming woven into it, but this story is set in 2018 and we don’t need to be promoting unhealthy eating habits or the myth that only skinny people are pretty. We especially don’t need to be promoting that ideology to a five-year-old like Emily does in the book. I really could have done without this aspect. Lauren Weisberger doesn’t try to add anything to the discussion, she doesn’t try to dismantle any of the characters internalized fatphobia, she doesn't satirize it, she doesn’t even add a throwaway line of “you should love your body as is.” I could do without this aspect of the book. I get why it’s in there, but I don’t like that it essentially promotes body shaming and perpetuates negative body stereotypes. Every ounce of satire seems to be lost when this topic comes up. And it comes up a lot.

At the end of the day, I do enjoy this read to an extent. Lauren Weisberger is a great satirical writer. While I got annoyed with the over the top bored housewife stereotype, I know it’s included because When Life Gives You Lululemons IS over the top satire. There is some great humor in this book. There are also some glaring problems. I definitely enjoyed this read a lot more when I read it the first time a couple of years ago. Now I like it, but I’m not in love with it. It’s fine.

With that, I shall bid you all adieu. Thank you very much for joining me today, I hope you all had a wonderful time here today. I shall see you all again next week with a new post. If you want to revel in literary goodness some more, then give RHRML a follow over on Instagram (@ReadingHasRuinedMyLife). I post there almost daily. If you want something not related to books, then check out my podcast Nothing to See Hear. It stars me and two of my dearest friends and we talk about everything. Seriously, I’ve covered haunted houses, cryptids, Barbie films, gay vampires, awesome women of history; and those are just the episodes I’ve led. You can find Nothing to See Hear on Spotify and YouTube.

Until next time, stay safe, wash your hands, and read some good books for me.

See y'all then, bye!