Talk:Chick lit

Discussion of topic
Aaargh! The system logged me out in the middle of uploading the text of this article, so I didn't get credit for it. Anyway, if anyone wants to discuss the topic (and it probably needs discussing), the original work is mine....---Michael K. Smith 20:22, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

list and links
I'm planning on adding a list of chicklit books with links to short descriptions of the books in seperate pages. On those pages I'd like to add links to either publishers or places like Barnes&amp;Nobles.com so people know where to pick them up. Lastly, I'm planning on making a section on the main page with links to various places on the web to find stuff. I hope no one minds me doing these things, this is the first section I've found on the pedia that I think I can make a real contribution to. Once the lists are up I hope that some people will be willing to revise and edit as they see fit to make the pages more full. Later --Steeley42 17:05, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)
 * The list idea sounds good, but if you plan to add an article/stub for each book, then you should be using a category instead. See Categories, lists, and series boxes as well as Categories. Also, don't link to booksellers directly. Wikipedia convention is to make reference to a particular edition of a book by writing its ISBN number, prefixed by, such as   (with or without hyphens), which results in a link to a generated page that provides many links to sources for the book. &mdash; mjb 19:31, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * In addition, the page needs to be linked to a book category anyway. &mdash; Onlyemarie 19:45, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Done, by adding it to Category:Literary genres. &mdash; mjb 20:09, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't see a list of books...I added a few popular ones that have wikipedia pages already created. I am hoping people will add more to the list 134.134.139.76 (talk) 23:05, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Tone issues
I'm contemplating an edit to correct what I see as some tone issues in this article. Though the comments regarding the "slightly uncomplimentary" tone of the term "chick-lit" are valid, the genre is immensely popular and I think that many chick-lit readers have come to terms with the realities of the genre (i.e., they're okay with the fact that it's primarily "fluffy" literature). I would thus suggest a separate section on connotations of the term, so that the genre-specific information can be more informative while the article retains references to the possible derogatory connotations of the term "chick-lit." I'll get to this as soon as I'm able; please comment here or send me a personal message if you disagree. Onlyemarie 17:41, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

See Oprah's Book Club?!
Hmm, I am not sure I understand the connection between chick lit and Oprah's book club. Oprah DOES NOT recommend chick lit, unless people like Tolstoy and Toni Morrison write chick lit?! Just because certain books are popular with women does not make them chick lit. You might as well have a "see Romance genre" or something, because Romance novels is as much chick lit as Oprah's Book club. I know many fans of chick lit who would never want to read anything on Oprah's book list.71.194.155.170 08:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with the above, Oprah's Book Club recommendations are not in accord with this article and I recommend it be removed unless there is a connection between them. --Avigon 21:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Oprah's book club is top-heavy with female authors, however Lowellt 16:48, 3 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Since when do "female authors" equal "chick lit?" Chick lit is not defined as literature written by women. You should try reading the page before commenting on the discussion. Jesus. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. --J.Dayton 00:32, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Seconded. Oprah, if anything, is "anti-chick-lit." She has tried to promote "good" fiction among those of her viewers who have (historically) not been regular readers, urging women to read books such as those she recommends in place of "junk" paperbacks or TV soaps. I've read many of her recommendations and they definitely are not fluff. Counterparts to chick lit elsewhere in popular fiction would be western shoot-'em-ups and routine cop novels. --Michael K. Smith (talk) 19:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

connotations and origin of term
"...with the implication that readers of the genre are likely to be clichéd, unintellectual females who chew gum and avoid "serious" literature."

I am not understanding why the term chick lit carries these connotations. Is there really a stereotype about the chewers of chiclet gum? Why does the term chick lit imply that the people who read it avoid other literature, are unintellectual, and cliched? Seems like the person who wrote the connotations section has opinions about chick lit.71.194.155.170 08:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I didn't say the connotation was justified or that I agreed with it -- only that it exists, which it does. I've been a public librarian since the 1960s and get to a lot of annual ALA and ABA conferences, and the several marketing discussions I've witnessed on what chick lit is and who it sells to have noted the semi-sneer with which better educated readers of both sexes approach it -- probably for the same reason that this market segment sneers at people who watch reality TV shows. Myself, I read practically all genres. --Michael K. Smith 16:11, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

a quick google search of "chick lit as a derisive term" returns many results, several by female authors who consider it derisive. 173.71.9.66 (talk) 05:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Christian Chick Lit
Not that I care very much, being atheist and male, but there appears to be Christian Chick Lit - see

Motives for writing Chick-lit
It appears that any woman who eats a bowl of alphabet soup, waits several hours, then goes to the toilet can create any kind of chick-lit plots. Many people will disagree with this bold statement, but the hanging truth is that anyone can pull this pretentious rubbish from their backsides. Even some writers have included female characters who are writing chick-lit books in the writer's story. That's how easy it is.

I am only overly annoyed at the fact that many mindless individuals buy this trash year in, year out. It also reflects whats ongoing in the music scene at present: (if I were to shave my head, would any of you give a shite?)

The only reason i buy chick-lit books is to see what kind of tripe has swindled the general public again. The books seem to have a poor use of vocabulary to describe scenes/places/emotions and there is repetition of spoken dialogue (e.g she said angrily, she said laughing, etc).

So in this day and age, if you want to be successful as a writer, you don't have to be intellectual, witty or dramatic, you only have to have a "hectic" social life with dadjies plastic card and an eaves-dropping ear to create some pieces of commercial dog-faeces. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.100.39.45 (talk) 18:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC).


 * This is not a message board. I agree, mostly, but this is not a message board. --J.Dayton 00:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * You're absolutely right. But the anonymous decrier is also mostly wrong. Writing any sellable popular novel is not at all easy. I've written a few highly formulaic (formula provided by the publisher) romance novels, and believe me, like any other sort of writing, it's hard work to get all of it right. This stuff may not be "great literature" (whatever your definition may be) but not just anyone can produce it, and sell it. --Michael K. Smith (talk) 19:22, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Weasel Statements
I deleted the line "Men frequently use the term disparagingly, considering the genre as a whole to be meaningless/mindless and not worth reading" as it is unsourced opinion. --DOHC Holiday 17:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced doesn't mean weaselly--this should have had a citation needed tag added to it.99.234.101.193 (talk) 23:31, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

a quick google search of "chick lit as a derisive term" returns many results, several by female authors who consider it derisive. 173.71.9.66 (talk) 05:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.71.9.66 (talk)

Chick Lit
"Chick lit" is a term used to denote genre fiction written for and marketed to young women, especially single, working women in their twenties and thirties. What is the term used to denote genre fiction written for and marketed to young men, especially single, working men in their twenties and thirties? Maybe this term can be connected to Chick Lit. Coffsneeze 23:38, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe it is called 'Dick Lit'. But this term may just be an aphorism to the term 'Chick Lit' as generally books aren't marketed to young men. Unless someone can prove me wrong by naming one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.100.38.226 (talk) 02:56, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe it is called Fratire — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.134.139.76 (talk) 23:26, 3 June 2011 (UTC) Afifa1989 (talk) 15:35, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Marion Chesney (M.C. Beaton)
I don't see what the M.C. Beaton mystery books, either Agatha Raisin or Hamish Macbeth have to do with "chick lit" and would propose removing that reference. They are just ordinary mystery stories. If that's "chick lit" then so is Agatha Christie. Jlawniczak (talk) 15:32, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess I'm talking to myself here, but I think that it would be arguable that Marion Chesney's series, like the Daughters of Mannerling series, would qualify for this genre. Jlawniczak (talk) 13:46, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * No, I disagree. Beaton is a writer of present-day and historical murder mystery novels. Chick lit novels aren't mysteries, and I can't think of any that are historical in their settings. Quite the opposite -- their authors go to considerable lengths to make them as up-to-date and contemporary in language and setting as possibility. (One reason they tend to date quickly.) Just because an author like Agatha Christie is popular with female readers -- as well as male ones, I should add -- doesn't make her work "chick lit". --Michael K. Smith (talk) 19:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Curtis Sittenfeld's quote
This is not a criticism, nor is it about chick lit. An actual criticism would involve saying something specific and negative about chick lit, while this states Sittenfeld's reservations about labeling a specific novel as chick lit. 24.199.87.237 (talk) 15:00, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Most polular?
I moved the following text here, since I think we need a system for presenting "popular" chick lit first, to avoid everybody to dump their own stuff into the article. Dr. Sweetheart (talk) 17:32, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Popular chick lit novelists include Ireland's Marian Keyes, Cecelia Ahern, and Sophie Kinsella, author of the Shopaholic series. 

This whole Criticism section
I think we really need to make this whole criticism section more encyclopedic before anything in it may be reinserted. These citations seem unrelevant - it's just some single persons's point of view. The universality of it, if any, needs to be sorted out.

And that scandal, it's just a single book, so why blame the whole genre?

The section:

{|class="wikitable

Criticism of chick lit
"To suggest that another woman's ostensibly literary novel is chick lit feels catty, not unlike calling another woman a slut -- doesn't the term basically bring down all of us?" -- Curtis Sittenfeld in the New York Times

"Chick lit claims to be representative of women’s lives, their hopes, fears, dreams and values. But it’s actually about white, upper-middle-class American and Western European women. Chick-lit defenders like to point out that there is black and Latina chick lit, chick lit for older women, but this is all tokenism—a chance for women of every color and age to be portrayed as annoying, shallow twits. Just like George W. claims to be a regular Joe, chick lit claims to be the story of the Everywoman, when really, it’s the story of Some Women of a Certain Class. Which is pretty ironic, given that chick-lit authors cry elitism more often than their characters accidentally trip on their own designer shoes and fall into tall, handsome strangers." -- Anonymous Chick lit editor in Boston's Weekly Dig

Major scandals
In April 2006, 19-year-old Harvard College sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan faced a major scandal when it was discovered that her chick lit novel "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life", published by Little, Brown and Co. had lifted major portions from several other chick lit books, most notably Megan McCafferty’s "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings". Plagiarized passages were also found taken from the works of Salman Rushdie and Meg Cabot. Significantly, Kaavya had received a $500,000 advance for her first book, with plans for another. Her publishers were so embarrassed that on May 4 2006, they recalled all unsold copies of the book with plans to destroy them, and called off the second book deal. The movie studio also stopped pre-production and dropped her movie project based on the book.
 * }

Dr. Sweetheart (talk) 17:50, 6 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Surely we need a criticism section (albeit a better one than you removed) but the "major scandals" is unrelated and shouldn't be in the article. I'm all for a well-researched and NPOV criticisms section. Themfromspace (talk) 03:14, 7 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. It's needed, just a better one. Dr. Sweetheart (talk) 06:55, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Redefining Chick Lit
I can't find back up for the definition posted. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA623004.html and http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6674245.html?q=women%27s+lit disagree with the basic definition. So I'm changing it and adding sources.--Hitsuji Kinno (talk) 17:33, 8 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I finished the rehaul of the article, and fixed the errors in the article to include a wider variety of Chick lit and the definition of Chick lit. I also expanded it out of the White-centric POV which is just wrong and rewrote the history part with references. The first Chick lit is often now defined as Jane Austen's novels, not Bridget Jones, which took from Jane Austen. (Plenty of sources on that). The article was ugly all over and misquoted sources as well as putting a whole pro-white spin on it, when clearly Waiting to Exhale and other novels predated the definition, but were still considered as such, which is to be very frank, racist. I expanded the sub sub genre bents of Chick Lit too... So it should look better than it did before me as this is a lot more diverse. Might have small errors here and there in terms of grammar and style, though I tried to fix them all. The references need to be fixed too.--Hitsuji Kinno (talk) 17:33, 8 November 2009 (

Lesbian Chick Lit
Is there "Lesbian Chick Lit"? If yes, I think it should be mentioned in the article. Luizlac (talk) 23:47, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Jane Austen, the Brontes, and Chick Lit
One really must raise one's eyebrows at the assertion that Jane Austen and Helen Fielding share more than a superficial connection. I might refer to the Borges' "Kafka and His Precursors," in which Borges suggests that, reading Kafka, we begin to detect hints of the Kafkaesque in older works, hints that were not perhaps visible before. It is Kafka who has influenced our reception of his predecessors. I could see how a similar argument might be made that reading Bridget Jones makes us see the Bridget-Jones-esque qualities in Austen.

However, I have several objections to the way this idea is used in the article. Foremost, it seems like the only reason that Austen and the Brontes are invoked at all is to give the genre a greater air of legitimacy. Between Jane Eyre and Waiting to Exhale there is an 140 year gap not covered at all by the article, a gap during which many other kinds of popular fiction that are closer ancestors to chick lit arose. I surmise that the reason Austen is highlighted and pulp romances are omitted is because the author of the article is not interested in the real genealogy of chick lit but rather in making chick lit more respectable by associating it with authors who are for all purposes above reproach. Additionally, the sources cited do not actually back up the assertions of the article. Most importantly, in citation 1, Ferris does not seem to be saying that chick lit was started by the Austen, but rather that chick lit authors take inspiration and plot elements from her novels. Further, the "inspiration" section at the bottom of the article is misguided at best. While Bridget Jones may have been inspired by Pride and Prejudice, Bridget Jones is not the chick lit genre, and the inspiration section would be more suited to the article about Bridget Jones.

Anyways, having explained myself, I am going to take an axe to every part of this article which claims the classics as an inspiration, and do some further general editing to fix a few of the more egregious stylistic problems with the article. Aperfectvacuum (talk) 01:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * These classic novels can certainly be read as simple marrying-up romantic fantasies if you read them in a superficial manner, but I agree they have no connection to modern chick-lit which is mostly about consumerism and narcissism and grew out of the sex-and-shopping genre. Austen's novels have certainly been marketed to a chick-lit readership though, even down to the stereotypical girlie fonts on the covers. --Ef80 (talk) 00:15, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

WorldCat Genres
Maximilianklein (talk) 23:05, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Which PC halfwit wrote the "criticism" section?
Pamela Butler or Jigna Desai? Whichever one of you managed to get your narrow, tendentious p.o.v. (with something like 7 straight footnotes to the exact same source) turned into an entire section of this article should be very, very proud. Not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.227.246.83 (talk) 17:16, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

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Merge from Indian Chick Lit
I propose merging Indian Chick Lit into Chick Lit. Much of the Indian Chick Lit article includes general information on the concept of chick lit, which is better covered in the main article. The limited specific information on Indian chick lit novels can be easily incorporated into the main chick lit article. A merger would not cause any article-size or weighting problems in Chick Lit. Atrapalhado (talk) 15:30, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: University Writing 1020 Communicating Feminism MW 1 pm
— Assignment last updated by Mrthbtn96 (talk) 00:44, 22 September 2023 (UTC)