Chick Literate » American chick lit

Sex and the City

lklawless — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:08:55 +0000

Though I love the TV show, Candace Bushnell’s book Sex and the City is very dull. I actually read it long before I ever started watching the show – in fact, that’s why I held out for so long. You know how you read a fantastic book and then are often disappointed by the book? This was just the opposite – hated the book, loved the program.

Everything that is wonderful about HBO’s Sex and the City – humor, sweetness, romance, sexiness – is missing in the book. In fact, I’m amazed the show was ever made, because the raw material of the book is utterly uninspiring.

Nerd in Shining Armor

lklawless — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:30:43 +0000

It’s fun to imagine that incredibly smart guys, called “nerds” in high school, will grow up to be rich and successful while the jocks and other popular kids will end working at a gas station. Vicki Lewis Thompson’s Nerd in Shining Armor takes this fantasy a few steps further. The nerd in question is not only brilliant, but also extremely good looking and a great lover to boot. When he and Genevieve end up on a deserted island, it doesn’t take her long to succumb. This is the chickiest of chick lit, but if you’re after escapism, you’ll enjoy being marooned with beauty and the geek.

The Spare Wife

lklawless — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:00:01 +0000

It’s funny how people can see things so differently. A friend of mine asked a chick-lit-loving friend of his to recommend a book for me, and she came up with Alex Witchel’s The Spare Wife, which she described as “fun, sexy and an insider view of New York City’s upper crust.” I tried really hard to like it, but I found it boring, mean, and basically horrible – affairs with best friends’ spouses, rape fantasies, things that some people apparently find sexy and others – or at least I – find offensive and not at all fun. I literally hated this book. To each his or her own.

Bet Me

lklawless — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 06:00:30 +0000

A misunderstanding over an offensive bet leads to good food and great sex in Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me. The characters are well-defined and the story is fast-paced, making for a fun and sexy novel.

Welcome to My Planet

lklawless — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 06:00:46 +0000

Shannon Olson, the eponymous heroine of Shannon Olson’s Welcome to My Planet (Where English Is Sometimes Spoken) is a mess: bad job, worse credit, crazy family, and terrible taste in men. There are a few funny moments, and the writing is pretty good, but it’s just too far out there – what kind of self-respecting woman would allow such a loser boyfriend into her life, let alone let him to treat her like that, repeatedly? And I know this is picky, but I was very distracted by the fact that the author named her allegedy fictional character after herself. I sure hope everything else was made up, because it’s a pretty sad story.

Animal Husbandry

lklawless — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 06:00:16 +0000

Animal Husbandry, by Laura Zigman, is one of the wackier books I’ve ever read – chick lit or otherwise. When Jane Goodall (no relation) gets dumped, she turns to the animal kingdom to try to make sense of her boyfriend’s behavior, and draws a number of startling and interesting parallels between animals and humans. It’s a weird but worthwhile read.

In Her Shoes

lklawless — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 06:00:46 +0000

I can’t believe Jennifer Weiner’s In Her Shoes was actually made into a movie – actually I can. It’s for people who like to laugh at (not with) other people. One of the main characters, Maggie, is mean, spiteful, selfish, greedy, and a bitch (not to put too fine a point on it). Oh, and she’s thin and lovely. Her sister, Rose, is kind, generous, forgiving, yada, yada, plain, and fat. Maybe it’s because I only have brothers, but I just can’t buy into a story where one sister could be so horrible (steal repeatedly from your sister and sleep with her boyfriend, anyone?) and the other would forgive her so easily. The mean-but-pretty and kind-but-fat stereotype is just lame, unbelievable characters abound, and I couldn’t find any redeeming qualities anywhere in the book.

Boy Meets Girl

lklawless — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:00:58 +0000

A modern day epistolary novel, Meg Cabot’s Boy Meets Girl is told entirely through emails, notes, instant messaging, voice mails, and the like. Except I don’t – like it, that is. It’s one thing for a book to be written in the form of two people writing letters to one another – where both parties’ letters are included and you can follow the dialogue easily. It’s quite another to read only the narrator’s letters, in which she has to spell out what happened during the preceding “live” event in order for the letter or email or whatever to make sense. It’s totally artificial. Plus, for some reason the various characters’ outgoing voice mail messages are included before each voice mail message she receives or leaves. The first or second time is ok, but having to reread the same paragraphs repeatedly is annoying, and makes me wonder if the author was just trying to up her word and page count. As for the story, I don’t know – I couldn’t get into it. Maybe it would have been ok as a regular novel.

The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing

lklawless — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:00:34 +0000

More a collection of short stories than a novel, The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, by Melissa Bank, is on the smarter and more serious end of the chick lit spectrum. I’m not normally a fan of short stories, preferring to spend the length of a novel getting to know a few characters and stories, rather than a few pages on this character and the next few on someone completely different. But these stories all center on a single character, and the changing points of view and switching between first, third, and even second person keep things interesting.

Good Grief

lklawless — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:33:28 +0000

For a long time I hesitated to read Lolly Winston’s Good Grief because, given the title and plot (young widow starts over), I thought it would be too sad. And it is sad, in parts, but it is also beautifully written and I really liked it. The grief is palpable at times, but the tender humor and real-life situations are totally believable. It’s not a novel that I’ll be able to enjoy a dozen more times, but it’s definitely worth reading. I just wish the author had included recipes!