You won't find much chick lit on the blog – I don’t despise people who read it, it’s no worse than a lot of the brainless crap I end up watching on TV. But it is generally trite and formulaic. The chick lit plot goes thusly:
Heroine’s life goes to pot, usually thanks to being dumped and or fired, usually there’s a meddlesome mother involved who erodes the heroine’s self-esteem. The heroine mopes about at rock bottom, doing a lot of boozing with friends and undergoing hilariously humiliating incidents, drunk-dialling the ex only to discover he’s dating her supermodel friend or similar and the obligatory tangle with a womanizing ne’er do well. Extreme weight loss from heartbreak follows, as does a glamorous makeover and she is then entitled to hook up with the lovely and handsome man mentioned in the first paragraph but dismissed as just a friend or unobtainable.
But one chick lit author I do have time for is Sophie Kinsella. The Shopaholic series was eked out for far too long, swapping charm andhumour for desperate plot twists and an unlikeable 'mini-Shopaholic'. And don't get me started on the deplorable film that was a brainless, trite, entertainment vaccum that even the delightful Isla Fisher couldn't save. That said, I really enjoyed the first 3 Shopaholic novels, focussed as they were on entertaining characters and humour, with the romance element firmly relegated to a sub-plot. Kinsella's other novels,
Remember Me, Twenties Girl and The Undomestic Goddess all have equally incredulous premises but are great fun, light and fluffy novels perfect if you're recuperating and don't want to tax your brain.
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