Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Christian Chick Lit

I am in the process of reading something I got from the library this week. A new genre for me, Christian Chick Lit...I guess I should have read the description a little better. The book in question is "The Trophy Wives Club" by Kristin Billerbeck. It sounded like a cute story reminiscent of Olivia Goldsmith, and I had been on the waiting list for a really long time, so I was excited to pick it up. I am baffled, though, at the halfway point, what exactly is going on here. It started out in the usual, wife scorned, manner and soon added God and church to the mix. Now, I have nothing against God, or church for that matter, but this was really a shock to my system. Apparently this is a very, very popular genre, judging from the length of time I waited for the book. Although the story is somewhat predictable, I was looking for some fluff, and got a large dose of the big G thrown in, which threw me for a loop. Am I weird? I feel like I should finish the book, but on some level it is very preachy, and not my style at all. I am going to try and keep an open mind, after all, I loved "Eat,Pray,Love" and I enjoyed "Plan B-Further thoughts on faith" by Anne LaMott, so I'm not sure why this is so uncomfortable for me. I will finish tonight and report the end result. It just feels strange.

2 comments:

  1. It is my firm conviction that Christian Chick Lit is very coldly and deliberately a marketing scheme and very little to do with literature. You're uncomfortable with it because you're too smart to be preached to about God or anything else. That's not why you read. Lamott and Gilbert's books don't preach and were written thoughtfully. CCL follows a rigid blueprint.

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  2. Kristin writes chick lit because that's what she loves to read. It's not a marketing scheme. And she usually doesn't have a heavy gospel message, but this particular book was one where she felt it was needed. If the spiritual thread is too heavy for you, try Kristin's Ashley Stockingdale series. It's THE series that stands out in all of Christian chick lit and was the first of that genre in the U.S. . The first book is What a Girl Wants.

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