Chick Lit

I have to make an effort to like chick lit. If I pick up a CL story, I have to work hard to get into it, even though it rarely leaves me unsatisfied at the end.

Why is this genre so hard for me to read? Well, because it totally contradicts my New York/London Fantasy: I have a dream of running away from home and moving to New York/London to start a brand new life.

I love both of these cities, but most of my impressions come from TV and movies. I've only been to NYC for a two-day trip, which isn't nearly long enough to decide whether I would actually want to live there, and I've never traveled to the UK. Heck, I don't even have a passport.

Why New York/London? Well, because they have more cultural events than a person could attend in a lifetime, and because of public transportation and the fact that people can walk around the city for daily activities like work and shopping (well, at least they did in You've Got Mail and BJD). Right now, I live in a place where I have to drive 3-5 minutes to get gas or food and 20-30 minutes to get to work or a bookstore, which I know isn't far compared to a really rural area, but I would much rather walk or take a subway/bus.

The fact is, New York or London would be a horrible place for me to live. I'm painfully shy and would have a hard time dating or making friends. My line of work pays comfortably where I live now, but it certainly wouldn't pay enough to provide a reasonable living space in a city with such an inflated standard of living. My fantasy can't compete with reality: I'm a small-town girl, and a city like New York or London would eat me up and spit me out.

So, back to chick lit, a genre that deals with women my age living in my fantasy cities. Except, these women are nothing like me, and I don't really want to be like them. I don't want to work in a high-stress job or drink martinis at lunch. I don't want to pay $15 to get into a club or date guys with manicures who only wear black.

In a chick lit novel, I would be cast, not as the heroine or one of her chic friends, but as the awkward Midwestern secretary who eats lunch at her desk and wears sensible shoes.

I will say that CL heroines can be remarkably interesting. I am able to care about their problems and wish for their success in their careers and their relationships. At some fundamental level, we do have the same kinds of concerns, just in very different settings. And don't get me wrong, I definitely have my chick lit moments: no food in the fridge, can't find my keys, nothing in my closet that I want to wear. I can be as confused and Is This All There Is as the best of them, but our focus in life is still very different.

That doesn't mean I can only read about women like me. (Boring!) The difference is, I read romantic suspense because I want to meet a yummy FBI agent or (even better) kick butt and ask questions later. I read mysteries because I want to figure out a crime and "help" bring a killer to justice. My not wanting to be a CL heroine, not relating to the name-dropping and designer shoes, just makes CL a little harder for me to read.

Despite our differences, I continue to read (and enjoy) about one CL title a month.

And dream of moving to New York. Or London. They can't take that away from me!