Chick lit

From Free net encyclopedia

"Chick lit" is a term used to denote a genre of popular fiction written for and marketed to young women, especially single, working women in their twenties. The genre's creation was spurred on, if not exactly created, in the mid-1990s with the appearance of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary and similar works; it continued to sell well in the 2000s, with chick-lit titles topping bestseller lists and the creation of imprints devoted entirely to chick-lit.

1 The genre
2 Connotations of the term "Chick-lit"
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

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The genre

Chick-lit features hip, stylish female protagonists, usually in their twenties or early thirties, in urban settings, and follows their love lives and struggles in business (often the publishing or advertising industries). The books usually feature an irreverent tone and frank sexual themes. The genre spawned Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City and its accompanying television series. Breakout variations on the genre have developed to appeal to specific audiences, such as the novels of Emmy-winning author Lori Bryant-Woolridge, known for her Chick-lit novels (Read Between the Lies, Hitts and Mrs., Mourning Glo) written specifically with women of color in mind.

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Connotations of the term "Chick-lit"

Aside from its obvious source ("chick" is an American slang term for young woman and "lit" is short for "literature"), the term "chick-lit" includes a reference to Chiclets brand chewing gum, with the implication that readers of the genre are likely to be clichéd, unintellectual females who chew gum and avoid "serious" literature.

However, the genre has also been claimed as a type of post-feminist fiction which covers the breadth of the female experience which deals unconventionally with traditional romantic themes of love, courtship and gender.

The male equivalent, spearheaded by authors such as Ben Elton, Mike Gayle, and Nick Hornby, has sometimes been referred to as lad lit or dick lit.

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