*dimsumdolly* - the different morsels of the life of a foodie

Chick Lit

Do you agree that books have snob appeal too? I mean, there are some books which we wouldn't want to be caught dead with, e.g. trashy romance novels with Fabio on the cover. *puke puke puke*

Hence publishers play on this snob mentality of consumers and package books in different covers and different titles. I’m now reading a book from what is known as the "Chick Literature” genre. It has quite an embarrassing title—How to Meet Cute Boys: a novel by Deanna Kizis.

I mean, the title certainly is an attention-grabber for their target audience, i.e. swinging single women like moi, but to be seen toting it around is a different matter. I mean, yes, I do want to meet cute boys (who doesn't??? Don't lie now!) but I don't need to be so blatant about it ok. SO I only read it on the bus and train (where no one knows me. I hope.) with the book cover parallel to the ground, and stash it in my bag the moment I enter the office. :p

Anyway, the book's all very tongue-in-cheek and it makes for a fun read. It's about this 27-year-old female journalist who's the dating scene authority for LA's Filly magazine even though her own love life is nothing too boot about. So the book brings us through her ups and downs as she struggles to survive the perils of the LA dating scene.

An interesting feature of this book is that it is interspersed with magazine articles (e.g Five Dates from Hell) and several quizzes (e.g. Is it a Love Connection?) supposedly written by this journalist. It's very Sex-&-the-Cityish, which is what characterises Chick Literature. Us intellectual women don’t like to flex our brain muscles ALL the time. Heh.

I haven't reached the end of the novel, but I'm enjoying the read so far. It's like junk food for the brain--you need some of these things once in a while.

Other Chick novels I enjoyed are the Shopaholic Trilogy by Sophie Kinsella and the ones by the author Jill Mansell. I suppose this genre owes its origin to Helen Fielding of Bridget Jones fame. Her most recent novel Olivia Joules is ok....not fantastic but readable. It's like Bridget Jones meets Austin Powers.

Chick novels aside, I’ve also recently finished Sputnik Sweetheart by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. This book is so weird that I don’t even know where to begin talking about it. Maybe I’m just dumb, but I didn’t really get the message behind it. It was a mix of mystery, love, lost souls and a little of the metaphysical. Go here to read an extract of it.

His writing style and the things he writes about are very similar to Banana Yoshimoto. I don’t think I got a good introduction to Murakami through this novel--it probably isn’t his best. I’ve heard that Norwegian Wood and South of the Border, West of the Sun are good. I will try to get hold of those two books. Meanwhile, I borrowed another book of his called The Wild Sheep Chase from the library, and I’ll start on it once I finish that bimbotic read of mine!

Posted by DSD at September 8, 2004 12:27 AM | TrackBack