Chick Lit

The Little Women Letters

2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Feminism, Fiction, Women /

Sigh.

I didn’t hate it. Really, I didn’t.

The problem is that I didn’t love it. And I really, really wanted to love it.

The Little Women Letters had so many things going for it – I should have loved it. A feminist mom who does a good bit of patriarchy blaming. Interesting sisters. The “March girls’” letters.  I could go on, you get the point.

So many things I should have loved but I just didn’t.

Yes, I did chuckle in places – which TW took as a good sign.

I did smile on numerous occasions. And I did even sigh at the end, cheesy as it was.

But no, I did not love it. Something was missing. I don’t know what it was but something. Something important.

Have you read it? Did you love it or did it let you down?

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The Love Goddess’ Cooking School

2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, cookbooks, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

TW asked me why I was reading The Love Goddess’ Cooking School, like it wasn’t a book I’d like, or something. Weird because there was nothing about it that I didn’t like. I like food stories. I like a nice piece of chick lit. I like stories with good teen characters. I like stories with a little bit of magic tossed in.

TW said this book was like Sarah Addison Allen – she’s right. But I think it might be more like a cross between Sarah Addison Allen and Adriana Trigiani which means – you should read this one.

I wonder what happens next… sequel, please.

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Kissing Babies at the Piggly Wiggly

2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction, Queer, Women /

Kissing Babies at the Piggly Wiggly was cute but not as cute as the first book. Probably because the Piggly Wiggly isn’t the Piggly Wiggly any longer so it’s not quite the same, ya know?  I’ll still read the third book but I kind of hope there aren’t any more after that – unless the Piggly Wiggly reopens as a Piggly Wiggly. But I doubt that’s going to happen.

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Waltzing at the Piggly Wiggly

2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction, Women /

A few weeks ago, Sassymonkey mentioned the Piggly Wiggly series to me – it sounded vaguely familiar but I’ve never read them. Seemed like a good series for TW’s mom, so I grabbed the first one, Waltzing in the Piggly Wiggly, in large print… sure enough, she read it and loved it. Chuckled her way through it.  I read it next and it was certainly amusing but boy was there a lot of sex for a book about small town 50/60/70 year old widows in rural Mississippi! Sheesh.

I miss the Piggly Wiggly. No idea why, since my mother didn’t really shop there when I was a kid.

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The Peach Keeper

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Favorites, Fiction, Women /

I’m a Sarah Addison Allen fan so you won’t be surprised when I say that I loved The Peach Keeper!

I was prepared for the “magic”, or I thought I was… I’d been reading awhile without any obvious magic happening and just as I was starting to wonder if maybe this one wouldn’t have the same touch of magic – bam! There it was. And it was pretty terrific.

The magical elements were slightly different in this book, than in previous books – and that’s all I’m going to say about that, you’ll just have to read it to see what I mean.

Also, it was really nice to see Claire Waverly make a brief appearance. Like seeing an old friend. I’m surprised by how big of a feel good moment that was for me. Nice touch – and her appearance added just the right thing to the story at that moment.

Great book – give me another one!

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The Spooky Girl

2 Comments / 2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

The Spooky Girl  is another of those books I picked up from the shelf because the cover was interesting and so was the title. And it was a fun book, sad in places – as you’d expect from a book about a young woman who died before her time. It also contained a very important lesson for those of  us who live in the internet age… make sure you have important addresses and phone numbers of people who should be contacted in the event of your death somewhere besides your cell phone. Odds are high that if you get hit by a bus, your cell phone is not going to survive and your friends will never know what happened to you because your next of kin won’t be able to contact them to let them know. That would suck, wouldn’t it? Bad enough to get hit by a bus and have your cellphone destroyed (that makes me weepy just thinking about it) but to have your friends just assume you’ve skipped out on them. Tsk tsk.

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Greetings from Jamaica

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Favorites, Fiction, From the Stacks Challenge, Queer /

I bought Greetings from Jamaica, Wish You Were Queer at Women and Children First, last month when we were looking for one of Michelle’s Christmas presents. The title made me laugh and as you may remember, I was looking for more lesbian fiction right about that time.

It can be difficult to find humorous lesbian fiction, which is too bad. Lesbians are funny and someone should spend more time writing funny, light, chick litty lesbian fiction. It’s fun!

The Santori family was a fun one to go on vacation with and I was completely amused  with Maria, Lisa and Vince – what great siblings. I’m equally glad Lisa didn’t get the girl, which is what I was afraid was going to happen there for a minute. Oops, that was a spoiler, wasn’t it? Ack. Sorry!

I’d really like Mari SanGiovanni to write a book about Lisa next. Now that would be funny.

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How to Bake a Perfect Life

2011, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction, Women /

I don’t normally read two books at once (not counting listening to an audio book in the car while reading other books in print) but when I picked up Girl Wide Web, I just knew I couldn’t read it straight through all by itself. It was too dry and I’ve read an awful lot of non-fiction lately – so, I read a couple of chapters of Girl Wide Web and picked up the fluffy How to Bake a Perfect Life and read a few chapters of that. I alternated between them both and that was a good plan. Nice mix of the real and the not so real.  

I liked it more than I thought I would. I liked Ramona – as pregnant teen and as single mom, small business owner. I liked Sophia. I liked Poppy and Nancy and Lily. I liked Katie a lot. I even liked Jonas, the only guy in the book (besides the dog and the cat) who gets any serious lines or character development.

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The Lonely Hearts Club

2010, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction, Queer, Women /

Remember awhile back when I was bemoaning the lack of lesbian lit available at the library only to discover several books with serious lesbian themes were already on my library cart? Well one of the books that WAS available at the library was The Lonely Hearts Club and I did reserve it. How could I not – it’s been a long time since I read a steamy lesbian love story, and Radclyffe DOES write a GREAT steamy lesbian love story.

Something interesting to note… back in the day, lesbian lit was all about coming out. Or all about the OUT lesbian falling for the not yet out lesbian. Now, everything I read is about lesbians who are totally OUT and they all seem to be having babies or thinking about having babies.  Interesting, right?

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Little Town, Great Big Life

2010, Books in Bed, Chick Lit, Fiction /

“This might be the sweetest book I’ve ever read.” – that’s a direct quote from TW about Little Town, Great Big Life. So… I had to read it.

I’m not sure why she was that taken by it – it was sweet but the sweetest? I don’t know. Chick lit with a little magical thinking tossed in for good measure. Sweet – but the sweetest? I don’t know about that.

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