Chick Lit

[tinyshoes]

stargirl said:

Must Love Dogs by Claire Cook has just been released in a movie version. I read the book when it first came out; I thought it had a clever premise, but it turned out to be poorly written and really boring.

I hate when that happens. The premise grabs you, but the writing fails to deliver. What's the lesson kids? If you're an aspiring writer, forget about your craft. Just use your five minutes of superficial charm to write that jacket blurb!

[Deleted]

I saw a book the other night called Love at First Site, about a single woman whose matchmaking friends attempt to find a guy for her online. All types of humorous and humiliating dates ensue.
Gee, I wonder where we've seen that plot before. How original.
Chick lit can be done well, and is really fun to read when it is, but it's a genre too cluttered up with recycled plots and wannabe writers!

[tinyshoes]

stargirl said:

Chick lit can be done well, and is really fun to read when it is, but it's a genre too cluttered up with recycled plots and wannabe writers!

Word. Although every plot's been done before, as the old argument goes. You just have to have an original take on it. I think once the faddishness of it dies down, it'll get established as a normal genre like romance, mystery or sci-fi, and have room to evolve.

[jennipoo]

Am I a dope for believing Kaavya Viswanathan, author of Opal Mehta??

I just think that the genre is so overdone that one could find plagiarism in any of these books.

If anything, I blame her for being a fan of this genre.

[Deleted]

^^^Chick lit is one of the only genres where I can understand the idea of unconscious plagarism. Usually, in this situation, I would roll my eyes and watch the author squirm, but the plots and writing styles of so much chick lit are so incredibly similar, I can see any young or new author who has yet to develop a voice being influenced by the similarities found in most chick lit. The passages cited by the Harvard Crimson (click) are very similar to McCafferty's work but they are also very similar to loads of ideas and sentences that can be found in other chick lit.

So, yeah. I can buy her excuse a lot easier than I would have thought.

[Deleted]

I'm just enormously annoyed that a 19-year-old has a book deal. So although I have not read her book, nor have I read the book that she is accused of plagerizing, being a bitter 30-year-old, I was pleased to see her get negative press.

I am officially a curmudgeon.

And I'm a bit of a hypocrite because one of my favorite books is The Neon Bible and that was written by a 16-year-old John Kennedy Toole but he's dead now and it's not like it was published when he was 16 so I guess that's where I draw the line.

I also am excessively bitter about anyone who's crappy blog resulted in a book deal (Save Karyn, I'm looking right at you).

[jennipoo]

Apparently Katie Couric is bitter too, 'cause she was a total bitch to this girl at the end of her interview this morning.

Katie will lob softballs at politicans, but she takes a hard line with 19 year old girls. Yeah Katie, we can't see right through that one.

[celebrityfly]

I am looking forward to buying Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner. Anyone read it? It comes out on paperback this week.

I hated Jennifer Weiner's book Good in Bed, she killed any desires I had to read any of her other books because of this.

I did like Nanny Diaries and the first 2 Shopaholic books. They were cute lighthearted reads. But then the Shopaholic Gets Married and Shopaholic and Sister books came out and I grew to hate Becky for never learning or growing up. That author also did a book called Can I Tell You a Secret? but it wasn't nearly as charming as her previous works. The plot was very cliched and she didn't bring anything new to it.

I also enjoyed See Jane Date and Milk Run. Milk Run made me run out and read some of Sarah Myclowski's other works. I really liked Fishbowl but hated Monkey Business. In fact I actually returned it, the book was that bad. God bless the liberal return policies of some stores.

I don't know if they qualify as "chick lit" ( I would think so), but I love Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings by Megan McCafferty.

Me too! I can't wait to get Charmed Thirds, although I read some not-so-great reviews of it over at Amazon. It was sold out at the store I went to, so it must be pretty popular.

Jane Green books are usually alright, but I couldn't stand the title character in Jemima J. Marian Keyes book Last Chance Saloon is really good, an interesting take on the lives of 3 friends and their various ups and downs. It was one of her better books, IMO. Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married is pretty good but it always depresses me at the same time.

[chonies]

Blech! I hated Good in Bed, too! However, an unseemly weather delay forced me to pick up a copy of In Her Shoes, and it was better, although all the physical descriptions of people made me nutty.

As far as the Viswanathan case, that sort of junk should have been caught. Yes, I'm a big Sandra Cisneros fan, and sometimes I know my language structure borrows from this, but I don't take phrases! Jeez. Also, there was a consistent pattern of 'borrowed' phrases with just enough change to make it look (to me) that Viswanathan knew it was lifted, but altered it slightly so it wouldn't be glaringly obvious. Sort of like what you do with a book report in 4th grade, perhaps. I didn't see the interview, though.

And word to seriously young people getting book contracts--I also don't like that Amelia Something-Something girl who wrote really bad horror. Grr.

Has anyone read Buddha Baby? I loved Dim Sum of All Things and I hope it's as funny/sweet.

[franticjoy]

Marian Keyes's stuff is good; I always enjoy it. But I hate it when she tries to write about someone with depression. She pulls out this 1970s textbook definition of depression and that's what they have- they sit around and cry and can't get out of bed all of a sudden, and they can't read newspapers or watch television anymore because it's too sad, and they don't know why until someone comes along and says, "Are you sad? Can you read newspapers without crying? No? That's how I am, and I have the disease known as Depression!"

It's just a bit of an odd writerly tic she has, I guess- much like Catherine Coulter's weird thing about her male characters worrying about the state of their nails.

I know I always end up bringing up Jennifer Crusie's books in this type of thread, but for a wonder I'm actually saying something negative this time: I really, really disliked Don't Look Down, the new one she wrote with that Special Ops guy. I have such high expectations of her writing, and this one fell way below them.