Chick Lit!

When you see these on the library shelf or the bookstore display, they're easy to pick out:  the covers are usually in varied candy-colored shades, a caricatured mom is prominently featured (usually with great hair), and the titles are catchy, if not terse.  This is the whole new genre of chick lit, literature for tired women who want to escape to the world of someone who has it harder than they do, even though the fictional woman is guaranteed a happy ending.

I Don't Know How She Does It epitomizes chick lit to me, if only because it was the first book of this kind that I ever read.  By Allison Pearson, it was ragingly popular when it came out, and is soon to be adapted as a movie (of course).  It's the story of Kate Reddy, an English career woman who -- literally -- juggles a superheated job, a husband, and two children.  Oh, and a very spoiled nanny, an overindulged cleaning woman, and the need to pretend she can handle preparing homemade baked goods for school events.  Although it's exaggerated to a great extent, it's amusing in the way that only a realistic story can be -- If you have a family as well as a life, you'll see that there's a bit of Kate Reddy in all of us.  As the book draws to a close, Kate has to make tough choices about the way she lives her life.  I didn't really expect it to end the way it did, but I enjoyed this book tremendously.

Lauren Weisberger, best known for her book (and movie adaptation) The Devil Wears Prada, has recently come out with another book which I liked much better.  Last Night At Chateau Marmont is a book that, sadly, seems practically written with the movie version in mind, but is a great story to read on the beach, in the tub, or on the plane.  It follows a period in the life of a couple, Brooke and Julian Alter, when Julian's slowly simmering music career suddenly comes to a boil.  Predictably, their relationship has a very hard time dealing with the series of catapulting changes his fame brings to both of them.  I liked this book -- you don't have to think too hard; it's a great book to read when you're really zonked but you want some undemanding entertainment.

For those of you who like Bridget Jones's Diary, by Helen Fielding, I have to tell you that she previously wrote a much better book, which didn't seem to ride the wave of Bridget Jones fame.  Cause Celeb is the story of Rosie Richardson, who goes to Africa to do something meaningful, as well as escape her life as a hanger-on of famous people.  In the fictitious country of Nambula, she finds her work with refugees rewarding until a locust plague strikes and promised aid does not arrive.  Tapping into her connections, Rosie rallies all the celebrities she knows to raise funds for the refugees.  Of course, there's a love triangle involved.  I will say no more.

A new book (I just read it last week) Emily and Einstein, features a husband who dies suddenly and comes back in the guise of a dog adopted by his wife.  Linda Francis Lee writes this story which so easily could have degenerated into a weird version of Ghost, but does not, thankfully.  It's meant to be a tale of atonement and redemption (for the lousy no-good husband turned dog) but also manages to be amusing and touching at the same time. 

The Secret Lives of Dresses (also new) is for you clothes-minded ladies -- if you just love it when books go into great detail on what everyone is wearing, this one's definitely for you.  Erin McKean tells this story of a woman returning to her hometown when her grandmother has a serious stroke in order to take over the running of Mimi's, her gran's boutique.  Yes, there's a guy involved.  Actually, more than one.  Oh, and there's someone plotting in the background.

A column on chick lit cannot fail to tip its metaphorical hat to the mother of it all -- Jane Austen.  Yes, I know all you classic-phobes are rolling your eyes now, but it's true!  The language may be (a lot) more polished, but all the other ingredients are the same -- unrequited love, boredom, adultery, cads, and silly women who are into clothing.  If you've never tried it, I dare you.  At least watch the movies!