The publishing industry says that chick-lit is dead. As a reader and a person who loves the frothy tone, I disagree. When those pastel colored books hit the market I purchased tons of them and lost myself in the good times, which was so needed after 9/11. Now with the great recession, escapism is much more in demand. I've been pulling out the old ones that I loved such as Shopaholic series and those written by Marian Keyes and I've hunted for new ones. Recently, I purchased A Vintage Affair and Nancy's Theory of Style.
So is chick-lit as dead as a doornail?
NO! It has changed, become deeper no longer about the girl trying to get the fabulous shoes. That excess doesn't fit today's world. But us reader still need to escape to a world that leaves us emotional satisfied.
People might say that we get it from Women's Fiction. I think those two genres are like twins they might look the same on the outside however look beyond the cover and you'll see the difference.
In this market, chick-lit must finds its place. The genre must grow up and use the experience us writers and readers have learned from its big crash. How? That's an answer I don't know but someone must. I can't wait to read that book. Maybe I'll be the one to write it.
5 comments:
I don't read chick-lit, but hate to see genres leaving the market. Hoping you can continue to have plenty of them to read.
Mageela, I have always disliked the term chicklit. Right up there with chick flick and female writer. As if being a chick or female is somehow less. I love the term romantic comedy. I loved Sophie Metropolis. To me that is a romantic comedy. It isn't about the shoes and the accessories, it is about an attitude towards life and sometimes you just have to laugh at life and at yourself.
I never was a fan of "chicklit", simply because it seemed so empty. It talked the martinis, the shoes, and the clothes, with little substance in most case. I did love The Devil Wears Parda, because there is the substance and characters that were intelligent, fun, and layered. That is I think the death of the term or the genre as we knew it. The layering. I can survive if and be successful with intelligence and layering the characters so we can care more about them, than the shoes.
Markets are always evolving and what works today may not work tomorrow. I have never been a fan of chick-lit, but readers will always find a good, well-written story, no matter the genre.
Hi, Mageela, thanks for mentioning my book, Nancy's Theory of Style. I wrote this under my pen-name Grace Coopersmith and blogged a lot about the supposed demise of chicklit. Bookstore marketing folks invented the term to sell books -- a good thing we can all agree. Unfortunately publishers jumped on the trend and flooded the market with badly written, unfunny nonsense about women obsessed with shoes. It's a pity because I love funny books by women.
I posted the draft of Nancy's Theory of Style as a free read at Scribd. Anyone can download it to e-readers or computers. It's the unedited version, but quite amusing and I hope readers will want to buy the finished book.
Please feel free to share with your friends:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/37115908/Nancy-s-Theory-Draft
Post a Comment