Abandon Bad Books
Not having mice in this house (that we know of. yet.), I am left to report in not nearly so side-splitting ways about a problem I have: I can't _not_ finish a book. This is *not* a good thing. It means that I waste time reading some silly, horrid books just because I think, "welll...maybe it'll get better ______ (in 50 pages/in the next chapter/by the last sentence).
I just wasted several weekends reading an absolutely abysmal, cliche-packed chick-lit book. I've defended the genre before, but this one was SO bad that it made me embarrassed to be a girl. But mostly, it made me even more embarrassed that I took the time to finish it.
I just wasted several weekends reading an absolutely abysmal, cliche-packed chick-lit book. I've defended the genre before, but this one was SO bad that it made me embarrassed to be a girl. But mostly, it made me even more embarrassed that I took the time to finish it.
posted by Anonymous at 5:12 PM
9 Comments:
Which was it? There was a fascinating discussion about chick lit today on NPR. The question was posed, why do we consider things that are fun but feminine (ie chick lit) "bad literature" but not things that are perhaps 100% fun but not feminine (ie horror or some sci-fi fantasy stuff). V. interesting discussion...
Oh, totally. I agree--it's too easy to categorize things as 'chick lit' and therefore trivial.
This book, though, was just plain bad. It was _The Other Woman_ by Jane Green. Seriously, it had the kind of stilted dialogue and overwrought scenes that we could have written, only better, in 8th grade. Reading it was like eating cotton candy. Only worse.
I also heard that discussion on NPR yesterday -- fascinating. I happened to be going into a bookstore, so I bought the anthology they were discussing, called "THIS IS NOT CHICK LIT". I'll let you know how it is. Just finished "If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things" which was a FANTASTIC book and one you wouldn't regret reading!! :)
I also heard the NPR discussion about chick lit! In fact that was what I was listening to on my way to your house LCS... I didn't catch the whole thing, but what I did hear was interesting and made me wonder where and how they (whoever they is) draw the line between "chick lit" and the more serious literature that was put into the anthology. Not that I can't see/read the difference, but I think there are times when it is a very thin line. Hmmm I'm kind of going in circles here! Maybe it's because I enjoy reading chick lit, and I hated to see it getting slammed for the most part!
Chick lit....don't people just like to put stories about women in some sort of ridiculous category so that the "important" "mens" don't have to even wade in to the shifty (i.e. complex)waters that are a woman's ("a person's") story. I didn't not get to listen to the NPR story, but I would have liked too.
Do you think that anyone complained about the narrator in "Catcher in the Rye" being a male voice??? NO, OF COURSE NOT....he was suposed to speak for a generation at a certain moment in their life...but don't you think that it would have been a HUGE ISSUE if a public school would have made us read a "coming of age" story from the perspective of a teenage woman/girl. I think that it is assumed that guys won't get anything out of it, like it is not as true for them as their story is for THE WHOLE POPULATION.... The more I think about it, I think that I was assigned more "literature" about the "African-American Male's" experience than I ever read about a female's experience, white, black or otherwise.
The more I think about it the more irritated I become...I think that there is a well of irritation down in there somewhere.
Why do you think there are majors like "Women's studies"? Half the population is living on the margin, their story is not getting told to the other half of the population, because there are all sorts of ridiculous labels that classify it as something that doesn't pertain to males. (Someone, PLEASE correct me if I am wrong.)
That said, there are some BAD BAD books out there, I too used to read them all the way through. After having kids, I realized that personal time was too precious to be wasted on bad (not funny bad) writing. I decided first on the hundred page rule...but now I have to say that I am a subsciber to the 50 page rule...life is too short and books (movies too) need to have good writing and/or a good editor or they just don't deserve my time.
(Boy, you two sisters can pack a lot of discussible things in sweet little blogs...good work!)
Thanks for all the good comments. I really like what you all said and, jmbmommy, you're so right--"chick lit" wouldn't be a dismissive term if it weren't, well, about chicks.
I meant no dissing of the genre--I too enjoy good cl. This was more about my paranoia about giving up on a book than anything. Thanks for the book title, Lisa! Now I've gotta figure out how to navigate a library--looking up books on the computer, finding them on the shelves--with the two kidlets in tow!!
i used to have that problem. now my problem is finishing a book. of course, neither of those is the same as having cancer, but fun to talk about all the same. :-)
oh, PS.
i have to confess i kind of like most of the chick lit i've read (bridget jones' diary, etc).
jmbmommy, i think you're probably right about "... a well of irritation down in there somewhere."
my recollection is that we read a lot about the female experience (judy blume, maya angelou, sylvia plath, erica jong, etc).
granted, it's probably not as much as we read about the male experience, but i think it's a little overstated to suggest that someone is/was complaining or making a 'huge issue' about having to read about the female experience, or that the term "chick lit" was deliberately coined to marginalize the female voice.
to me, CL is merely a description of a certain type of light reading, charaterized by "traditionally female" subject matter (ie, mostly about relationships and social interaction, as opposed to man-against-nature, or politics or science fiction or adventure or whatever) and having the attribute of being fluffy, formulaic, and not too deep.
or maybe that's just a definition i made up, i don't know. maybe a lot of men think anything about relationships or about women is automatically dismissable...
I commiserate with you over hours lost on that paticular book by Jane Green. I wish I would've been a believer of the "50-page rule" when I read it.
I wish I was a firm believer in the rule as I am stuck 140 pages into an equally boring "chick lit" book at the moment and can't seem to throw in the towel. Life is too short for bad books needs to be inscribed upon my forehead.
And, yes, I agree witht he man above when he describes "chick lit" as being mostly female in nature and light in heart (but not sleezy like a romance novel). I would in NO WAY compare Jane Green to Maya Angelou. Not the same in any way, case or form!
Wish I would've heard the NPR discussion!
Carrie
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