L A Johannesson

Romantic fiction with a geeky twist

L A Johannesson - Romantic fiction with a geeky twist

What is ‘chick lit’ anyway?

As I promote my book the descriptor that get tossed around most often is ‘chick lit’.

I’m pretty sure ‘eloves me, eloves me not’ sits within this genre. It has many of the characteristics of the great chick lit works of our time – Sex and The City, The Devil Wears Prada, anything Shopaholic related and let’s not forget our beloved Bridget Jones.

Some of the typical haracteristics of chick lit are:

  • Written by women for women
  • Quirky protagonists
  • Funny
  • Creates intimacy by use of the first person format (confiding to reader)
  • Deals with life issues (love,  dating, relationships, marriage, friendships, career, etc.)
  • Relies on a circle of friends for support
  • Dead end jobs they usually hate, often with bad bosses
  • Unsuitable boyfriends or a lack of one
  • Urban-but no real sense of place
  • Outrageous situations
  • Obsessed with fashion, weight, shopping, shoes
  • Somewhere between ‘romance’ and ‘literary’
  • Often a form of masked memoir

Yep, I’d pretty much say that ‘eloves me, eloves me not’ is chick lit through and through. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But it also has a ‘geeky’ twist.

It’s possibly one of the first to define the new genre of ‘digi chick lit’ – where the additional characteristic of being a ‘girl geek’ who’s adept at the latest in technology would be added to the list.

 

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