Chick Lit is the literary equivalent of the Chick Flick, referring to books written explicitly for an adult female readership, and meant to appeal to their (presumed) tastes. Rather than referring to books by women or about women in general, it has contracted to represent a specific genre.
The heroines are usually young, attractive professional women, and the book will often focus heavily on their relationships, careers, sexuality, shopping tastes and habits, fashion, and so on. The tone is usually light and humorous, possibly self-effacing. Chick Lit is notably different from the Romance Novel in themes and tone, though there often is a romantic element. Romance publishers often have separate Chick Lit imprints.
You'll find the term "chick lit" used in a derogatory sense, in a sort of grown-up version of the Girl-Show Ghetto — most often by people who don't actually read the genre.
Successful Chick Lit novels often yield multiple sequels, and several have been adapted for the big screen and/or television.
Compare with Josei and Shoujo Demographics.
Examples
- The Abandon Trilogy
- The Actor And The Housewife
- Airhead Series
- All-American Girl (Meg Cabot)
- Avalon High
- Audrey, Wait!
- Bridget Jones series by Helen Fielding.
- The Devil Wears Prada
- The Dirty Girls Social Club
- Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
- The Divide (2005):
- Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Empress Theresa
- Enchanted, Inc.
- Faking It
- The Gatecrasher
- The Goddess Test
- Good in Bed
- The Heather Wells Mysteries
- Hothouse Flower and the 9 Plants of Desire by Margot Berwin
- A notorious example, overlapping with young adult fiction, is Kaavya Viswanathan's How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. The publisher of this initially widely-publicized and bestselling novel recalled and destroyed all unsold copies, and cancelled the author's contract for a second book, following several media exposés alleging that Viswanathan had plagiarized numerous passages from the works of McCafferty, Kinsella and Cabot.
- In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner.
- The Island
- Jaine Austen Mysteries
- Jessica Darling by Megan McCafferty
- Just One Day
- Lipstick Jungle
- Love in a Nutshell
- The Lovely Bones
- The Mediator
- Memoirs of a Geisha
- Mistaken Twin
- My Sister's Keeper
- The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot.
- Secret Santa (2007)
- Sewing Circle
- Sex and the City
- Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella.
- The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
- Something Borrowed
- Stephanie Plum
- Teen Idol by Meg Cabot.
- Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty
- Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
- The Undomestic Goddess by Sophie Kinsella
- Valley of the Dolls
- Waiting to Exhale
- What Alice Forgot
- White Oleander
