Chick Lit

[carrier76]

Realllllllllllly? Because that is next on my list to read/buy. I LOVED her other books.

[janejollity]

I definitely didn't enjoy Baby Proof as much as the other two. I did like that she didn't take an easy way out of the storytelling, and showed that these decisions were miserable and hard, and that there is a huge bias against women who just plain don't want kids, ever.

But I don't think Emily Giffin's gift is really in making her characters particularly likable. She's good at portraying love, not romantic fairy-tale crap but real solid love, but after I read all of them I still think the characters are assholes. How sad is it that even though she's an evil bitch for most of Something Borrowed and Something Blue, I still like Darcy better than Rachel? I don't think that was Giffin's intention.

[Maddiemoo]

Yeah, Something Borrowed and Something Blue are much better than Baby Proof. I just felt like the protagonist was less sympathetic (than even Darcy!) and I didn't really care about all her "problems". Also, I hated the ending. <<It just seemed like they got back together and all of a sudden they decide, "Oh, we're not going to worry about this just yet. We'll deal with it later." Which, to me, means that the exact same shit is going to go down in a few years, but they don't quite seem to realize that. >>

Speaking of Emily Giffin, does anyone know what her next book is about? I know there was a excerpt of it in the back of Baby Proof (I'm totally blanking on the name) but I couldn't get a feel for what it was going to be about at all.

[chonies]

Blowing the dust off this thread for discussion: Bridget Jones is returning. Link

My immediate reaction was YAY! But then quickly dropped to "oh no," with a dash of "uh oh." So, to revisit some topics: is "Chick Lit" always pejorative? And anyone read anything good and chicklitty lately?

[Ladybug]

I read two things that were borderline historical fiction/chick lit. Mr. Churchill's Secretary and Princess Elizabeth's Spy. They are both about a young woman named Maggie Hope, British subject but raised in Boston. She goes back to London to take care of her deceased grandmother's estate and ends up - you guessed it - working for Winston Churchill. There is a rag tag group of young friends all living together in Maggie's dead grandma's house, all connected in some way to the war effort or some well-known element of London in the 30s, for example one friend is a dancer with Saddler Wells, one's in the RAF, one's a nurse, a couple also work in the Cabinet War Rooms. Maggie is an brilliant mathematician and thinks the secretarial work is beneath her, but she's drawn into wartime espionage. Bletchley park and the Enigma machines and the Blitz are featured, Maggie is a typical plucky heroine, and there's a parental subplot lifted heavily from the TV series Alias. But it has a decent pace and I am a sucker for anything WWII Britain. There's a romantic subplot, which I guess qualifies it for chick lit, but it's not strongly connected to the main action. It was shelved in the chick lit section.

In Princess Elizabeth's Spy, the action is transferred to Windsor castle and the royal family is heavily, ridiculously featured. Very far-fetched but fun. There's more romantic stuff in this one, but also more hard-to-believe plot twists and contrivances. Neither of these books are for deep thinkers or dedicated historians, but they're fun car/plane reads.

I don't know if I can do another Bridget Jones. Will it be all about her having a baby? If the first one is (loosely) based on P&P and the second one Persuasion will this one also be based on an Austen novel? I want to go back and watch the movie. That's one book/movie combo that I think are equal in quality.

[kateln]

Feb 6, 2013 12:29:04 GMT -4 chonies said:

Blowing the dust off this thread for discussion: Bridget Jones is returning. Link

My immediate reaction was YAY! But then quickly dropped to "oh no," with a dash of "uh oh." So, to revisit some topics: is "Chick Lit" always pejorative? And anyone read anything good and chicklitty lately?

I could have sworn I read the articles this was based on about 5 or 6 years ago in a British Newspaper. Is it that she's discussing the kid now?

[chonies]

I don't know! A friend and I were discussing how we have no idea about the content of Bridget's life, but we both assumed that Bridget would marry Mr Darcy and "get sprogged up." Our assumptions were based pretty much on the fact that Helen Fielding had kids in her 40s, so I kind of hope I'm wrong, despite it being a fairly logical conclusion. Her mother would be a hilariously awful granny, which would be a plus, but I have no literally no memory of how Edge of Reason ended. </scurries off to find synopsis>

Bridget did seem legitimately anti-kids, but people can change over the course of a decade.

ETA: After some sleuthing, it seems that in 2009, there was an announcement that a movie called Bridget Jones's Baby was being developed, and the screenplay was underway. To my knowledge, this predates an announcement of a third book, and it's been almost four years, so I still have no idea what's going on.

[kateln]

Found it! Bridget Jones has a baby, articles from The Independent in 2005 and 2006!

I am not (at least in this instance) imagining things and/or going crazy...

[chonies]

Wow. Thanks! I had a to-do list for this evening, but not anymore. It was okay, but

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}ARGH fucking Daniel Cleaver! Why, Bridget? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? Also, it seemed mostly in character, although I suppose that once it's edited and reshaped into a book it will probably be more Bridgety. Is it wrong to desperately hope that somehow, if that storyline were true, that there's a totally predictable twist and the DNA test is wrong? Of course, I hate the Bridget just popped back into bed with Cleaver literally a week after ending things with Darcy, although I really don't care how pathetic my stanning is.

I hope I'm not too insane.