Jezebel

And by all of this blather she means, "my book is poorly written."

@Philthyist took a Xanax and is still bitter today: She's actually an awesome writer, IMO. Good in Bed was one of my favorite reads

It's a rhetorical question. If it's a Jennifer Weiner book, it is "Chick Lit".

@Philthyist took a Xanax and is still bitter today: Exactly.

@RyanB: No offense dude, but it was fucking stupid.

Okay, that is offensive, but I am afraid it is unavoidable. Weiner and her whining and her impossible situations inspire wrath.

Has anyone who has read Marian Keyes think Weiner's books are as good? Just curious - I love Marian Keyes but am loathe to attempt to read another "chick lit" book if it's not as fun as hers (Keyes' stuff.)

Good on her for saying that though. A book's a book! We can't be expected to read high brow literature ALL the time now, can we? CAN WE?!!

*curls back up in bed with the latest Dorthea Benton Frank book on Lowcountry livin' and lovin'*

Aw, I love her books. But I admit I don't read them for any sort of intellectual purpose.

Regarding the men's point of view, wasn't there an essay in "The Guy Not Taken" written from that perspective? Or am I making this up?

I like her books. I'll say that. I do like them and I'll buy this one when it hits paperback but after reading her short stories book I can safely say that every one of her main characters is a somewhat sassy larger lady who's parents got divorced when she was in middle school. Maybe she's single and maybe she's married with kids and solving crimes. But she's larger and comments on this all the time and her parents are divorced.

I don't know who Jennifer Weiner is, but I'm glad my last name isn't "Weiner." And that's all I have to contribute to this thread. Sorry.

@TaraIncognita: Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married was great.
As is Rachel's Holiday. Her later books are bordering on awful, but the early work was really enjoyable.

@Philthyist took a Xanax and is still bitter today: Aw now, I have a soft spot in my heart for "In Her Shoes." I bawled like a baby through the whole movie. My mom committed suicide like the mom in the book/movie did, and I thought the way it showed the on-going impact on the sisters and their relationship to each other was really good.

@TaraIncognita: oh and no. Weiner's stuff does not compare.

@Philthyist took a Xanax and is still bitter today: Yeah, I could NOT get into Is Anybody Out There? - - or whatever the title of the last one was. But I loved Sushi For Beginners.

Did anyone read Steve Almond's essay about Kurt Vonnegut and also Jen Weiner in "(Not that You Asked)"? I just finished that one.

@petuniacat: Well, I didn't mind the movie, but I think that can be attributed to Toni Collette.

Sorry about your mum though, that is rough.

@Philthyist took a Xanax and is still bitter today: to each his/her own i suppose..

i read a wide variety of books, and happen to enjoy an easy read once in a while. I LOVED Good in Bed. as well as In Her Shoes and am not afriad to admit it.

@TaraIncognita: the angels one was bullshit too.

I thnk Ms. Keyes needs a holiday or ten from writing- but she has truly written some good stuff.

Also, I am torn on the idea of "chick lit" in the first place. Like, I hate that it's really a pretty demeaning sort of label to give something, because it seems like code for "load of shit." However, so much of it IS shit that maybe I should just accept the code and hate on the publishing companies that try to peddle it to me in the first place?

@TaraIncognita: In my opinion, they're not as good. But I love Marian Keyes, so I guess I'm a little biased! I want to be a Walsh sister! (Even though come to think about it, none of those girls have had it easy - which is probably why I love them so!)

@RyanB: I enjoyed Good in Bed also. I mean, none of these books are the next great american novel by any stretch of the imagination, but give me one of these books & a beach and I'm a happy girl!

@Philthyist took a Xanax and is still bitter today: Well... I guess to each her own. I just liked the part of the book about Cannie's "rage" - felt like I could get that mad over the situation too.

Plus, I like that she's from Philly. I can always imagine where the scenes are taking place.

@Philthyist took a Xanax and is still bitter today: Agreed re: Angels. So strange and seemed to wander. But I still love her and have decided to blame it on a pushy agent or something.

I'd love to know why she's chick lit but Chuck Pahlaniuk and Nick Hornby are just lit.

@jenalicious: hehe, jinx!

I can appreciate that a prolific chick lit writer has the last name Weiner.

Also, I have heard her wax defensive on this topic many times, people should stop asking.

@marin79: Have you read her short essays? I guess they were published in a paper in Ireland and were compiled to sell here in the US. Love, love, love. She's so unapologetic about her lapsed Catholicism and her anti-children stance.

@Philthyist took a Xanax and is still bitter today: Thanks.

I also enjoyed the book - but to each their own. Yeah - Toni Colette was awesome in it. She can do no wrong in my book.

@marin79: Oh god...I'm so ready for a day at the beach with a good book & a rum & coke.

@marin79: Exactly. I do enjoy "literary genius" - but I also just love a story that I can get lost in.

CONFESSION - I had no idea who she was until I read the last post about her, then went and checked out her books on amazon and put "the guy not taken" on my to-read list. sorry. i don't think i've ever read a single book that could be called "chick lit," but the stories in this one seem like stories to which i could relate.

@TaraIncognita: I resent the term- because sometimes, the books are clever and well written- but because of some romance or a pair of legs on teh cover, it's "chick-lit"

I will keep reading.

@petuniacat: Please bring me with you! I will bring Pringles and Sour Patch kids and we can trade chick lit 'til we're blue in the face. I'm pale and have to wear a hat, so I won't be stealing any sun, swear!

@Philthyist took a Xanax and is still bitter today: I love Rachels Holiday! But I really have loved all of the Walsh sister books - Angels, Watermelon, Is Anyone Out There... I've read them all & enjoyed each one. Isn't there one sister left who hasn't had her story? The youngest of the family? Me wants!

@KillMeNow: The same can be said about movies...

@Philthyist took a Xanax and is still bitter today: because of some romance or pair of legs on the cover

Don't forget pink covers! Always PINK! Blush and bashful are bleeding all over those suckers.

I'm tired of the "Chick Lit" classification used to denegrate female "pop" writers. There are plenty of less-than-literature genres that are nearly exclusively male, but no one calls them "Dick Lit." Try Scott Turow, Dick Francis, Jonathon Kellerman, John Grisham, any book with a swastika or gun on the cover, ad infinitum. None of these are going to win the author a Pulitzer, and plenty of women read these books without worrying about their gender identity. Naming all female writers of mass appeal that aren't a Joyce Carol Oates "Chick Lit" is just another way the Man ghetto-izes female art and justifies his refusal to experience it.

@TaraIncognita: I adore Marian Keyes, and enjoyed the Jennifer Weiners. They were an entertaining way to spend a few hours.

I really try not to be a book snob and I am always looking for books that are from a woman's perspective. I am beyond sick of identifying with male characters in books, but I hate most Chick Lit. It's like the line from "As Good as It Gets" when the receptionist ask him how does he writes women so well. Jack says, "I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability." To me (and I stress this is just my opinion) that is how most Chick Lit is written. Just because I am woman don't throw any shitty written story with a pink cover with a picture of a half a torso in a mini skirt, one high heel cap leg in the air and tell me it's what I want.

@RyanB: I am from Philly too- and yet oddly, I find her mentions of Philly to be "name-droppish" I mean, she writes of Center City and Rittenhouse- like damn, lady drop a little East Passyunk or 10th and Porter in there, or hells, 3rd and Girard and then I might respect you more.

@TaraIncognita: Tell me when & where and I'll be on the next plane, promise! I can barely sit still at my desk because it's sunny and supposed to be in the 60s today, and tomorrow it'll be 70 and I'll be at a ball game. I want to be outside so bad!!! Going crazy. Must duct-tape my butt to the chair.

as someone who works in publishing, I understand what she's trying to say, but that's the idealized version, not the real world. of course she knows she's writing "chick lit." a book has to have a market angle of some sort, and I agree that it's unfortunate that "chick lit" has become a market angle, but them's the facts. her books would not get published if they didn't fit into a marketable category.

@crunkjuice: Just my opinion but the Guy Not Taken wasn't my favorite. I think Good In Bed (her first) was probably my favorite. Guy Not Taken is a collection of her short stories and some of them were stories she wrote in college. And it kind of shows. Again, just my opinion. I might have just gotten tired of her schtick at that point since it was the fourth book of hers that I read.

@KillMeNow: I think we need to start calling books written by Hornby, et al "dick lit" and see if we can make it catch on.

@jenalicious: Admit away- I was just telling some friends, how I read like EVERY book published by Red Dress Ink- and a lot are awful. But they specifically publish young, female authors- who have never been published before, and I appreciate that.

I really don't like Jennifer Weiner's books, but I can understand that she might not intentionally be writting chick lit. EdnasEdibles is right, she pretty much writes about herself- larger lady with family issues find happiness through love or work. Lots of men do that too and in the US we don't label them as anything other than books. At least in the UK they call some of them "lad lit."

Unlike a lot of chick lit author's Weiner does write from the male perspective- or at least she did in the one book of hers I read to the end(Good in Bed).

@TaraIncognita: I wouldn't put Marian Keyes and Jennifer Weiner in the same category. Marian Keyes (who I really like) is much more "every girl" than Jennifer Weiner (who I don't like) is very "this is my fantasy." In Good in Bed her main charecter becomes best friends with a movie star for christ sakes! Jenny Colgan, Jane Green or Melissa Nathan would be closer the Marian Keyes.

Chick lit, IMO, is just mindless trash. It's like reading the tabloids in book form - entertaining, maybe, but at the end I just feel like I wasted my time. Also, once you've read one you've kinda read them all.

@TaraIncognita: No, but thanks for the recommendation! I'm always in search of a new read & I'd love anyone who is a lapsed Catholic who isn't sure about kids like me!

@Philthyist took a Xanax and is still bitter today: I hear you, it's like "And then we went to the Eiffel Tower, and then took a cab to the Champs Elysees"...

But still, Philly doesn't get enough love. So I'm down for a little Rittenhouse.

@marin79: I missed Is Anyone Out There-
Srsly, Angels kind of wore me out.
There have been a few non-Walsh books- The Other Side of the Story- and another which I forget- that were so-so.

@EdnasEdibles: Yes Guy Not Taken was not her best. Little Earthquakes wasn't very good either - I'd take Lipstick Jungle over it.

Good in Bed and In Her Shoes were my favorites

@lanouvelleprive: Then you just havent read the right ones.

@TaraIncognita: what's the name of the essay book?

@AuroraVox: O hai! You weren't the one who pressured my agent to make my book more "female-friendly" right?

"She needs to shop more" was an actual character note on the last round of rejections.

Her books are OK, pretty thin but worth a laugh or two. One line of hers, I forget in which book, about slipping a pinky into her husband's ass made me laugh so hard a stranger asked me if I was ok. He thought I was hysterically crying.

I dug "Good In Bed," but that was only a diversion after reading Ian McEwan (yikes, so serious.) And I laughed out loud in places. I enjoyed it, but I'm in no hurry to read more of her stuff.

So I've been reading a lot of "chick-lit" lately, and while I agree that the marketing and need to make it all the same (shoes, shopping and cosmos) is over the top, I'm not going to down it as a genre.

The term is a marketing tool. I just think that women don't have to buy into it. I've read plenty of "chick-lit" that doesn't have any shopping, shoes or Cosmos. I still loved it.

@Philthyist took a Xanax and is still bitter today: Anyone Out There wasn't my favorite at all. Rachel's Holiday was definitely my favorite & I'll always love Watermelon since it the first Keyes book I read. But I've definitely been a little disappointed by some of the more recent non-Walsh sisters books she's written. Still read them though - one of those guilty pleasures! And plus, wasting my time on some chick lit is far better than some of the other things I do to waste time (ugh, the Hills!)

@nellicat: haha, wasn't that in a Candace Bushnell book? Trading Up?