Chick lit is a taboo term in publishing right now and even in its heyday, the sub genre took alot of heat for being substantiveless pap. Joanna Trollope blogged for the Guardian that the effortless entertainment of chick-lit is actually difficult to write.
The thing is, it’s hard to write good romantic fiction, [...]

Dear Ms. Giffin,
Exactly one hundred days to her marriage to her husband Andy, Ellen Graham literally crosses paths with her ex-boyfriend Leo. Ellen describes their encounter this way:
From the outside, say if you were a cabdriver watching frantic jaywalkers scramble to cross the street in the final seconds before the light changed, it [...]

Dear Ms Barrett,
A notation on the cover of “This is How It Happened” states it’s “Not a Love Story” and that’s the truth. Even for a Chick Lit book this novel has almost no romance in it. Most of the story is Maddy and her endless need for revenge against the man who done [...]

Dear Ms. Tokunaga,
You had me fooled. I thought you were Japanese. From the minute I started reading this, I felt like a Japanese woman was writing it, and it had been published in Japan. And since this is written from your heroine’s close point of view and she’s a Japanese woman, that’s a [...]

Dear Ms. Tokunaga,
I was really looking forward to Midori by Moonlight. It sounded so interesting: a Japanese woman coming to San Francisco to marry an American man, only to get dumped for his ex-fiancée and then left to fend for herself. I don’t think I’ve read many womens fiction/chick lit novels with that premise, and [...]

Dear Ms. Tokunaga,
By now most of our regular readers know that I like books which promise to be something different, something unique and your book certainly delivers on both. But while I enjoyed the book, cheered on Midori and was happy that she at last finds her true love, I couldn’t help feeling that [...]

Dear Mrs O’Connell,
I’m still not sure what made me pick up your book in Waldenbooks and decide to try it. I can’t remember if it was turned out on the shelf or if it was just a lucky grab but I enjoyed reading it despite a few problems. I also intend to recommend it to [...]

Dear Ms Barrett,
When I read the pitch for your book The Men’s Guide to the Women’s Bathroom, I was intrigued by the slight weirdness of it. Okay, who hasn’t laughed at bathroom humor at one point in their lives. But I wondered if the concept of what really goes on when women head to the [...]

Paradise Kiss, by Ai Yazawa. Published by TokyoPop. 5/5 volumes released. Retail: $9.99. Rated OT 16+ (sex scenes, but only showing what you’d see on network TV.)
 
“The basement store was removed from the main road by a maze of side streets. To reach it, one had to go down a flight of [...]

Dear Ms. Brockway:
I have loved you in the past and while I have dreaded favorite historical authors move to contemporary, I figured if anyone could do it, it would be you. After all, people complain that your historical voice was too modern. A contemporary would fit you like a glove. Unfortunately, I [...]

Dear Ms. Halladay:
I know this letter isn’t fair because I picked up your book thinking you were another author, Gemma Bruce. In my defense, you were in the romance section, but I think your book is better classified as a chick lit whodunit with all the accoutrements of the chick lit book. All the [...]

Dear Ms. Merrick,
My newsletter from PaperbackDigital.com came and one of the featured books is your anthology titled “It’s Not Chick Lit.” I know that this topic has been debated to death. I am simply late to the party. My excuse is that I am running this blogging experiment about a book that [...]

Dear Mrs. Rosenberg,
I adore a good chick lit book but it’s got to have more than just a series of funny events linked together. It also needs to make me laugh and not cringe at the heroine making a prat of herself, some depth to the characters, enough grounding in reality that I can [...]

Ladies,
I loved your second book, “What I Really Want to Do is Direct” and knew I had to go back and read your first, “Speechless.” It’s worth every trade paperback penny. I hope you two have something else in the works because if not, I’m afraid I’ll go into withdrawal.
Anyone who’s ever suffered [...]

Dear Ms. Brodeur:
Mancamp features two women who have had enough of men in NY City who have had enough of the men in the city. The men no longer know how to fix things, open doors, or be manly enough. Lucy, a biologist, is a long term relationship with Adam but the relationship [...]

Dear Ms. Stout,

I zipped through your fun book, “The List. A Love Story in 781 Chapters” in no time. It’s infectious and funny and so true for any woman who’s ever dated a man she thought was Mr. Right, questioned a man she thought was Mr. Right, cried to her girlfriend about a man [...]

Dear. Ms. Blazer,
I like a lot about Brand Name Dates yet at times I wanted to scream with frustration. I’ve had a hard time coming up with a final grade and might still flip-flop a bit more. You’ve got the classic elements of Chick Lit - first person narrative, good but not top notch job [...]

Dear Yvonne Collins and Sandy Rideout
Who knew that a focus puller was so important to a movie? Not moi, I assure you. But now I do and I loved learning about it in “What I Really Want to Do is Direct.” Though told in 1st person (after all, it is Chick Lit and that’s almost [...]