By Its Cover - Stuck in Estrogen's Funhouse

This cover does a wonderful job of hinting at what lies between its covers. It's pink: chick lit. There's a martini glass: Marti is a bartender, and there are several instances of drinking throughout the story. The woman in the glass looks confused (and rightly so, since she's in a martini glass): Marti spends the entire book confused and lost, in a sense. Excellent.

The font is rounded but still in straight lines: not overly fun but not terribly serious. While the topics covered by the book would be quite serious in real life, the book has a lighter tone: not making light of important things, but not weighing everyone down with excessive gravity. So this font fits wonderfully.

I like this cover... It's helpful to anyone trying to decide if they would like the book, it draws the eye without being gaudy, and it's easy to read, even from a bit of a distance.

I really like the cover.  It's fun and flirty and, well, girly.  This book is a very girly book and I think whoever designed the cover did a great job with it.  They really hit the nail on the head for the feel of the book.  That's not an easy thing to do.

Review Me Twice - Stuck in Estrogen's Funhouse by Shayna Gier

This book wasn't really my cup of tea.  I feel like it was directed and maybe an older audience than me.  I'm not at the age where I'm having kids and hormones are doing weird things to my body, so it was hard for me to relate to the main character.

Marti was probably the best character in the book, with the possible exception of her best friend.  She was fleshed out and was going through something out of her control, which anyone can at least have an idea of.  Sometimes, we all go through something that's out of our hands, so in that way, she was a good character to follow along.

However, there were a few things that made it hard to really get into the book.  The first was probably that I think this book just needs a good edit that it didn't really get.  Which, can be difficult to do as a writer.  I know from personal experience, it can be hard to tear your book apart.  But this book had a lot of things that were irrelevant to the story or things that started out as a good point but seemed to get out of the author's control.  Also, the research in it was a little weak.  There were a lot of incorrect facts that could have been corrected by just a simple search.  But, like I said, most of this falls under the editing category.

The book has some good roots and starting points, but I just felt like it was a work in progress more than a finished product.

My Bottom Line 2 out of 5.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I don't do chick lit. I don't read it; I don't write it; I generally don't like it. It's not you, chick lit; it's me.

That said, I still think there's something missing in this book. Conflict, mainly. Many people don't realize this, but narratives are more formulaic than you might think. Maybe some of you saw this diagram in English class at some point:

You start with exposition, which teaches you the basics about the setting, who the characters are, and how they fit together, relationship-wise. The rising action builds up to the climax, with minor conflicts and foreshadowing. The climax is where the Big Thing happens. Falling action brings us back down, usually with steps toward fixing the problem that arose during the climax, and the resolution is where everything goes back to normal, or the problem is solved, or some less happy ending is brought about.

I feel odd making this critique, because I have the same exact problem in my writing, but there is way too much rising action, and the climax, falling action, and resolution are crammed into the space of about two dozen pages (out of 134). I feel like I'm more aware of this problem when reading an e-book (like I was with this  book) because I have the page counter right next to the "next page" button, but it's still a problem.

I like that our characters are fairly normal people, without being typical-normal. Marti's schedule is weird because she's a bartender. She's the main breadwinner while her husband works on starting his career. These are normal things in today's life, but based on a lot of "modern" fiction out there, you would think it's still as unheard of as applying it to the Cleavers. So I applaud that.

This novel was written for NaNoWriMo, which - as we all know - means it was written hastily. In the afterword, Gier mentions that it's not a perfect final product, but it is better than the pre-edited version. I agree with Cassy that it needs another solid editing (there are some spelling, punctuation, and half-of-a-sentence-being-repeated mistakes) but it is fairly put-together.

And once more, I repeat: I don't like chick lit. It feels like a friend - who wouldn't really be my friend - telling me all about her woes regarding lovers and hormones and girly stuff, which I would quickly tire of, and start yawning and trying to point out how early I have to get to work the next morning. It's not a topic that grips me in the least. I do know some people who would like this type of story, and I think they would probably enjoy this one.

Favorite Chick Lit

I actually had to look up definitions and lists of examples of chick lit in order to answer this week's favorite. It's typically defined as literature that addresses issues of modern womanhood, typically in a humorous or light-hearted way. It usually contains romance elements, but doesn't have to (so it isn't a subset of the romance genre, although they often go hand-in-hand).

I don't read chick lit. On the rare occasion that I do, I usually don't like it. It is not my genre, and because I understand that and accept it, I avoid it. But we try to diversify our selections here at Review Me Twice, so I'm trying some of it.

I found a list that told me that Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson counts as chick lit. And while I think that's pushing the boundaries of the genre a little, it does - technically - fit.

Melinda is a modern (1990s) woman (teenage female) who has issues (like being raped and losing all her friends) that are being dealt with (sometimes in a surprisingly humorous way, considering the circumstances). That fits our definition above for "chick lit."

I've addressed Speak before, when talking about the theme of "belonging" in YA fiction.

I like Melinda. I like the way she thinks, I like the way she sees things (for the most part) and I like the way her story ends. I like how realistic her world is (without being too real... reading about how someone sat through math class, then history class, then science class, then got on the bus, and went home, and did homework... etc., that would be really boring). Her parents aren't perfect, but they aren't evil. Her friends aren't evil, but they aren't perfect. It's all feasible, without being mundane.

I probably also like this example of "chick lit" because it doesn't revolve around a romance, but still deals directly with issues relevant to today's females. Surprise! You can have a real story, about a teenage girl, without a love interest!

I, unlike Alex, do enjoy Chick Lit.  MAINLY because it allows me to take a relaxed view of a book.  When I pick it up, I'm not expecting it to be a wonderfully written read that's going to astound me.  I'm expecting it to be fun, lighthearted and for my main characters to get together in the end.

I really liked Confessions of a Shopaholic.  Kinsella gives us a GREAT main character, Becky Bloomwood, whose life is, essentially, a mess.  Her finances are in ruin because she can't seem to stop buying, well, really expensive designer things.  But the even more humorous part of it is that she gives financial advice to others!

Her ridiculous spending habits, actually force a run in with our male love interest, Luke Brandon.  Their interactions are comical and ridiculous and really, the whole book is just light-hearted and fun.  Would I consider it ground breaking literature?  No, of course not.  But I like the main characters, the writing is good and, at the end of the book, you just get a warm fuzzy feeling.

I liked it enough to read the sequel, anyway.