Bone To Pick

I have a bone to pick with Chick Lit (OK, OK, it's not about food, but it's my blog so who cares!). I just finished reading The Favored Child (2nd in the Wideacre trilogy) by Philippa Gregory. My goodness did that suck! I picked it up from the library (totally not worth $10.88!) thinking "Huh! I, and the rest of America, enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl, and my sister enjoyed The Queen's Fool, and it's here, why not." Oh, Sherbs, bad, bad choice. First of all, the plot was stupid. The main characters were all just stupid, the climax was stupid (and predictable to a degree), the love interest was a wimp, and the writing was fair. Sure, I knew this coming into it - TOBG was well researched and a gripping historical tale but the writing would have gotten a B/B-. I mean, in the case of TFC, at least have a moderately happy ending not one that makes you go "What? I just read 614 pages for that?!" In the movie The Pedant and I saw last night at least they acknowledged you needed a happy ending.

Now, I understand there is not great chick lit out there (exception: my love, Jennifer Weiner). America is full of dumb people with adequate tastes and a desire to read books on the beach. I guess I want some meat in my stories. And some quality writing, not something a 14 year old could scratch out on Hello Kitty notebook paper. Candice Bushnell is terrible, Jane Greene writes about skinny girls finding love and thinking size 10 is fat, Lauren Weisaberger and the Team of Emma Kraus and Nicola McLaughlin write about angry bosses and dooormat protagonists just trying to make it big.