Chick Novels

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Originally Posted by ajoe

You're lucky. You can enjoy Princess Diaries series without shame. Me, whenever I check out one of those books from the local library, I need to pretend it's for the little sister I never have. Of course, when I was 16 I also still read The Baby-Sitters Club.

What the heck is wrong with me? My hormones develop in all the wrong timing.

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you're a female...right?!

I am guilty of reading those books *hangs head in shame* but I do enjoy them. They're good summer reads.

Last summer I read PS I love you, by Cecilia Ahern and I really liked it. It's about a young woman whose husband dies. The husband leaves a list of things she has to do, one for each month of the year. These things are the kind of stuff she couldn't have brought herself to do without that letter. I really liked it :)

Also, the 2nd Bridget Jones book is better than the first. Oh and I enjoy Marian Keyes books *blushes*

is that the book that means palm springs i love you, but more romantically, p &s are her honey's initials (though am not sure, or have forgotten, thought he was her bf). i read it too, years ago, if that's the same one.

Yea, The Nanny Diaries is also pretty good if a little depressing.

Seriously, I can't wait to find a chick novel where the main character is somewhat above intelligent and is not all obsessed about shopping and guys and whatever it is a typical "chick" is obsessed with. And also where the word "Oh my God" is eliminated.

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Originally Posted by Koa

But once, when I was like 15 or 16 maybe, my mum came home with a book (she often bought me book cos she knew I liked them and I think she felt pity in seeing me reading the same things several times - even if I was doing it for fun) of a dreadful series.....

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My mum, cheeky women, gave me this book for christmas last year. She got it because I have not had a boyfriend for years and she always makes comments/jokes about it. Anyway, she found this book by Elizabeth Berg, which has a wedding dress hanging in a doorway, with the line, What's so wrong with waiting? Until the real thing comes along.
I tried to read it, but it was terrible, about a women who keeps trying it on with her gay friend because he is so wonderful, and she is obsessed with her eggs and losing her chance to have kids.
I just couldn't even get quarter of the way through it!!

it sounds sort of funny. :D

Ha, ha! So Chick Lit is really a genre! Here's a list I recently came across. Some of these I have read, some not:

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Recollections of My Life as a Woman by Diane Di Prima
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
The Saskiad by Brian Hall
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
Pure by Rebecca Ray
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
A Do Right Man by Omar Tyree
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

When it comes to romance novels, I generally only read the trashiest ones. They are the funniest and the most lurid, so it's the best of both worlds. However, if you're looking for something new, but still hovering on the edge of the old romance standard, I recommend Dead and Unwed and the sequel Dead and Unemployed. It's an amusing little series full of pop-culture references and the kind of off-the-cuff, Buffy the Vampire Slayer-esque humor that entertains without bogging you down with metaphors and political parallels.

Be warned, it is a vampire-themed novel, so if you want realism, this series isn't for you.

For those that cater to whim and fancy, or general hysteria in life, torn between the hot Italian cop and the mysterious bounty hunter, try reading about Stephanie Plum who screws up her job as bounty hunter in numerous ways, gets her car blown up every week, can eat massive amounts of doughnuts and still manages to do such things as capture her man, be it in handcuffs or in bed. The author is Janet Evanovich, if anyone wants an all night, chocolate fest readout.

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Originally Posted by simon

For those that cater to whim and fancy, or general hysteria in life, torn between the hot Italian cop and the mysterious bounty hunter, try reading about Stephanie Plum who screws up her job as bounty hunter in numerous ways, gets her car blown up every week, can eat massive amounts of doughnuts and still manages to do such things as capture her man, be it in handcuffs or in bed. The author is Janet Evanovich, if anyone wants an all night, chocolate fest readout.

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Hear, hear!

Love Stephanie and Plum collection. Evanovich redefines so called chick novels!

I had no patience with "Handbags and Gladrags" by Maggie Alderston, but I did end up reading the first of the Shopaholic series. I thought the main character was a bit of a ditz, though. "The Devil Wears Prada" was okay. "Girl With a Pearl Earring" was great though. "Three Wishes" by Lianne Moriarty was good too.

I like classic "Chick Literature" as well. My favourites are Austen (of course), who is a master of romantic comedy and Anne Bronte. Of course, one can get away with it, asserting that they are 'classics', but they are very much a part of the women's reading lists. (Austen at least, I don't know if Anne Bronte is as popular as her sisters)

I don't know about Georgette Heyer, I just don't think I'd really enjoy her books. As for all those sequels to Jane Austen books, don't go there! I can't stand them. They just don't work, because usually their writing style doesn't sound at all like the original, and anyway, I don't think Jane Austen would approve at all.

I hear from people who have read the really trashy novels, that they are addictive and quite entertaining. I haven't tried any before, but I think they sound pretty funny.

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Originally Posted by ajoe

^ Which reminds me. WHO on earth reads those paperback romance novels with naked people on the cover picture? I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover and I can't say bad things about them since I've never read any of them, but I'm still against them anyway. Sue me.

By the way, I'm starting to get sick of the Shopaholic main character. She's somewhat... dumb?

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I know who, youd be supurised at the demand they are in (and the silly head office keeps sending us duplicates!)
MOstly and Im sorry to have to do this a resort to generlisation but mostly its little old ladies. we have a lady who gets sent 12 every fortnight because she cant ge out of the house. Even Ive ended up reading a few to get an idea of what she wants so I can look for less ( ah clourful covered ones becasue often as not you have romances masking as somhing else.)
As for chick lit a lot of it can be great mnd you I wouldnt say Wuthering heights is chick lit it lacks the oh most important of features "feel good"ness
And as for Jane eyre if there was ever a sloppy R in disguise that is it.
Idid nt like the plum books though found I was just too detached mndou in a similler genre I love the Joanna fluke ones.

:D

Ah genoveva, I'm glad someone else enjoyed How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent, I thought it was a light and enjoyable escape from all worries of the world. As for the Bronte's, the main female characters always ellicited the most throat strangling responses from my cerebral cortex.

THankyou thankyou someone else who cant stand bronte and yet, somehow we are reading Charlotte in the book club?? *glare* :mad:
(suffering at temporary losss of other smilies)

Some of the chick lit and romance novels can be pretty hilarious, especially the romance ones when read aloud. In high school the girls volleyball team while dressing for a game would read aloud from bad romance novels and act out the parts to everyones, all the stupid, "she looked at his lush lips and batted her eyes", "she placed her hand on his thigh", it was your general giggling extravaganza.