Chick Lit

I've read a lot of books, and I love to stay in bed all day and plow straight through a novel. (I don't really love the pathetically lazy feeling that overcomes me when I realize the day is gone, but come on. Ultimately I decide books are worth it.) Today I enjoyed an afternoon of fluff reading a Jane Green novel, this time Babyville. This woman gets acclaim for being the Queen of Chick Lit, acclaim for these unputdownable, frothy, literary treats. And frothy brain candy they are. I've spent a couple afternoons with Mr. Maybe (I've reread it twice), a day with Bookends, and an evening with Straight Talking. And now that I've just about finished Babyville, I'm a very frustrated reader: not only have I found a smattering of really pointless typos that a good proofreader should have noticed, but I've also discovered that these books are filled with characters who are just maddeningly unlikeable.

(So why do I continue to purchase Jane Green books, you wonder? Yes, I wonder that too. Perhaps because I know that they are a guaranteed afternoon of mindless reading and actually quite a good commentary on the desperation of singletons and the futility of failing relationships.)

Back to the irritating, spineless, self-denying characters. In Mr. Maybe it was almost charming, perhaps because it was my first Jane experience and I could almost relate to main character Libby's chameleon girlfriend qualities. But soon enough she was dating a total shmuck and telling herself it was what she wanted. Seriously, three chapters easily of her denying what she already knew, that this guy was a worthless chump. Plus, she was overly hateful to her overly obnoxious mother. For christ's sake, not everyone hates their mother and not every mother is as overbearing and nitpicky as this June Cleaver from Hell. And on the friend front, Libby's best friend Jules is obsessed with her weight and every calorie she puts in her mouth. She calls Libby to complain about the enormous bowl of cornflakes she had for breakfast. I wanted Libby to tell Jules to get some goddamned therapy already.

I'm going to gloss over Straight Talking and Bookends, mostly because I haven't re-read either of those and I don't feel like being thorough enough in this impromptu Jane Green bashing to refer to any of those undoubtedly annoying characters.

Now in Babyville, we've got Julia, who is a crazy, horrible person in a loveless long-term-live-in relationship with her spiritless and broken Nice Guy, Mark. We're not meant to find Julia a terrible human being, in fact the narrator even stresses that point, but she's just not well-developed enough to be a sympathetic character. Sure, we know Mark and Julia's relationship is crappy and neither of them have enough balls to make the break. And the description of their union is written with enough depth and realistic observation that reading it is actually rather depressing. Made me glad I was single, let me tell you.

Julia is obsessed with becoming pregnant. She buys approximately 6 to 10 pregnancy tests a month. She makes Mark carry juniper berries in his wallet for fertility (why he can't say "Um, no" is beyond me). She freaks out at people who have already been blessed with a precious little child. Okay. She's just an unlikeable lunatic. And Mark is a pansy. It's that simple.

Maeve is a high powered career chick who insists that she doesn't want a baby EVER and doesn't want a loving relationship EVER. She's independent! For fuck's sake. She too spends at least three chapters (after finding out she's pregnant and enjoying the company of the father) denying what she already knows. Nope, she doesn't want this baby. Why hasn't she gotten around to scheduling an appointment at the abortion clinic? She sure doesn't want this baby, no sirree, so what on earth has possessed her to procrastinate on such an enormous thing? She just can't figure it out, no sirree. And she definitely doesn't want to be in a relationship with the father. Hell no. She loves spending time at his house while he cooks for her and dotes on her, but they're just friends. Really. She swears. Certainly no potential for lovers there, not even after they share bonding eye contact at the first sonogram of the baby she's (duh) decided to keep.

Augh! Maybe it's true, maybe we do this to ourselves outside of fiction. Maybe we tell ourselves one thing to deny another or refuse to admit what's in our hearts because once it's acknowledged, it's irrevocably "real." Sure. Go ahead and let your characters do that too, but stop bashing your readers over the head with it after about ten pages in.

And that's all. Now I'll get back to reading about Sam, Julia's friend, who has obvious post-partum depression but refuses to admit it and is instead blaming everything on her husband.