Friday, May 21, 2004
After all the seriousness of the last two books I was in the mood for enjoyable fluff. A position admirably filled by Marian Keyes, whose The Other Side of the Story isn't her best, but was still cute and better than most of the other "chicklit" books out there. This one cuts between three different women loosely connected in the publishing world.
Here's where I should go off on chicklit and marketing genres, and the inherent discrimination in the category and blah, blah, but I don't have the energy. Most of the books in this classification that I've read have been really annoying. And several of them have really pissed me off. Helen Fielding and Marian Keyes have remained two authors whose characters manage to rise above the mass of desperate unmarried women cardboard cutouts that are currently in vogue. What I love about Keyes is she allows her women to skirt along the edges of disaster, but ultimately brings them back. They are often silly and irrational, but you love them by that time and want the best for them. When I want to slap them, it's more like when I want to help a friend I love see what she's doing wrong and not because I find them annoying. It's a fine line to walk and she manages it beautifully nearly every time.
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Here's where I should go off on chicklit and marketing genres, and the inherent discrimination in the category and blah, blah, but I don't have the energy. Most of the books in this classification that I've read have been really annoying. And several of them have really pissed me off. Helen Fielding and Marian Keyes have remained two authors whose characters manage to rise above the mass of desperate unmarried women cardboard cutouts that are currently in vogue. What I love about Keyes is she allows her women to skirt along the edges of disaster, but ultimately brings them back. They are often silly and irrational, but you love them by that time and want the best for them. When I want to slap them, it's more like when I want to help a friend I love see what she's doing wrong and not because I find them annoying. It's a fine line to walk and she manages it beautifully nearly every time.
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