From the bestselling Bridget Jones's Diary that started the trend to the television sensation Sex and the Citythat captured it on screen, "chick lit" has become a major pop culture phenomenon. Banking on female audiences' identification with single, urban characters who struggle with the same life challenges, publishers have earned millions and even created separate imprints dedicated to the genre. Not surprisingly, some highbrow critics have dismissed chick lit as trashy fiction, but fans have argued that it is as empowering as it is entertaining.
This is the first volume of its kind to examine the chick lit phenomenon from a variety of angles, accounting for both its popularity and the intense reactions-positive and negative-it has provoked. The contributors explore the characteristics that cause readers to attach the moniker "chick" to a particular book and what, if anything, distinguishes the category of chick lit from the works of Jane Austen on one end and Harlequin romance novels on the other. They critique the genre from a range of critical perspectives, considering its conflicted relationship with feminism and postfeminism, heterosexual romance, body image, and consumerism. The fourteen original essays gathered here also explore such trends and subgenres as "Sistah Lit," "Mommy Lit," and "Chick Lit Jr.," as well as regional variations.
As the first book to consider the genre seriously, Chick Lit offers real insight into a new generation of women's fiction.
Acknowledgments Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young, Introduction The Hatching of a Genre: Origins and Influences Cris Mazza, Tome of the Unknown Chick: A Short History of Chick-Lit and the Perversion of a Genre Stephanie Harzewski, Tradition and Displacement in the New Novel of Manners Juliette Wells, Mothers of Chick Lit?: Women Writers, Readers, and Literary History Suzanne Ferriss, Narrative and Cinematic Doubleness: Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones's Diary Free Range: Varieties and Variations Lisa A. Guerrero, 'Sistahs Are Doin' It for Themselves': Chick Lit in Black and White Elizabeth Hale, Long-Suffering Professional Females: The Case of Nanny-Lit Heather Hewett, You Are Not Alone: The Personal, the Political, and the 'New' Mommy Lit Joanna Webb Johnson, Chick Lit Jr.: More Than Just Glitz and Glamour for Teens and Tweens Elizabeth B. Boyd, Ya Yas, Grits and Sweet Potato Queens: Contemporary Southern Belles and the Prescriptions That Guide Them Nóra Séllei, Bridget Jones and Hungarian Chick Lit Sex and the Single Chick: Feminism and Postfeminism, Sexuality and Self-Fashioning A. Rochelle Mabry, About a Girl: Female Subjectivity and Sexuality in Contemporary 'Chick' Culture Anna Kiernan, No Satisfaction: Sex and the City, Run Catch Kiss, and the Conflict of Desires in Chick Lit's New Heroines Jessica Lyn Van Slooten, Fashionably Indebted: Fashion, Romance, and Conspicuous Consumption in Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic Trilogy Alison Umminger, Super-Sizing Bridget Jones: What's Really Eating the Women in Chick Lit Shari Benstock, Afterword Selected Bibliography Contributors' Notes
