Not Oprah’s Book Club: Death by Chick Lit

There’s no doubt about it—young women tend to take themselves very, very seriously (takes one to know one). That’s why I was very excited about the opportunity to read Lynn Harris’ new book Death by Chick Lit, a totally entertaining, truly absorbing novel with an authentic, relatable narrator (who is neither obsessed with Coach, nor desperate to find a man and make babies) and some unpredictable twists and turns.
Harris has a damn good sense of humor. Her heroine is fuming with jealousy as she sucks down theme drinks at a “friend’s� fabulous book party, until she realized the friend has been murdered. She spends the rest of the book trying to figure out who the killer is, Nancy Drew with a borough writer’s edge. Her adventures take her to a ridiculous baby shower, a couple of swanky apartments, downtown bars, a canal, and everything in between. Think campy, but smart, biting, but poignant, totally New York with a Brooklyn edge.
It was refreshing to read a smart feminist novel that made fun of all the hullabaloo over “chick lit.� Lynn Harris doesn’t know why anyone would be so up in arms about what feminists are reading. After all, do lefty pundits get riled up when one of their own is caught reading John Grisham, or gasp, Michael Crichton?
In the words of Cyndi, sometimes girls just want to have fun. (You get special points if you find all the covert and not so covert feminist references throughout this juicy little read!)
Next week: Confessions of a Video Vixen by Karrine Steffans. Seriously.