Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella (#20, Chick Lit)

And for the plane ride home I borrowed Remember Me? from Jess and unfortunately got so into the story that I finished it before we landed. This meant that I had to endure the worst eardrum pain upon our descent into Boston and I only had Jeff Corwin's documentary about elephants to distract me from the pain.

I do like Sophie Kinsella's chick lit contributions and might even read another one soon, but not so soon. Remember Me is about a woman who gets amnesia and wakes up in a hospital with a seemingly perfect life that when looked at more closely is not so perfect. Cliche? Absolutely. But oh so satisfying.

Jemima J by Jane Green (#17, Chick Lit)

After reading those two heavy hitting, sad books I needed something a little lighter. Well--maybe a lot lighter. Jane Green's Jemima J was just what the doctor ordered. Not only is Jessica's bookshelf stuffed with quality reads, but she also has an ample amount of chick lit to satisfy any girl power/romantic story craving.

Sarah read it first and gave it a thumbs up so I figured I probably wouldn't completely hate it. Formulaic yes, but I don't read this genre nearly enough to get sick of said novels. I enjoyed Jemima J's weight loss story. I liked her online dating and her new look and persona and couldn't wait for her to find her prince charming at the end.

Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner (#11, Chick Lit)

Oh dear what was I thinking? I read Good in Bed years ago and found it falling far from my taste in books.

I need to get something off my chest about this author. It may come off bad, but I just don't relate to overweight characters in books--and that is a theme that I believe is present in all of her books. In Little Earthquakes I probably liked the character (of course her name had to be becky) less because she was described as obese. Does that make me a horrible person?

But, that was not anywhere near the forefront of why I wouldn't recommend this book to most people. First off it's about four women about my age, but they all meet in a yoga pregnancy class... yeah, the book is about babies, husbands, affairs, balancing work and family--not exactly up my ally. It was moderately entertaining with some nice friendshipy type scenes, but Weiner's writing is so mediocre. Actually I would say it's 75% mediocre and 25% bad.

I have purposely been avoiding Weiner since 2002 when I read her first novel, but I fell prey to this sitting on my mom's bookshelf in the guest room. I knew what I was getting myself into, but sometimes you just gotta read the fluff.

Second Chance by Jane Green (#5, Chick Lit)

For the month of February, our book club voted to read Jane Green's Second Chance. We were searching for something on the lighter side of things, something that would allow us to recover from our heavy first read, Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Now if you have been reading booknymphs for a while, you know how I feel about chick lit. I always begin these books with such great hope--I always want them to be good, I want them to be satisfying and funny and romantic and overall, a great story. But as we know, good chick lit is hard to find. Aside from reading Jane Austen--who can be credited with the creation of the chick lit genre--it's pretty rare to find a piece of modern chick lit that I actually enjoyed and would recommend to a friend. That said, I started Second Chance with low expectations. I didn't really think it would be that good and I worried how the book club discussion of it would go.

I was right about the quality of the book. It was chinsy and downright annoying at times when the narrative style fell into typical chick lit whiney whiney female babble. That is my number one pet peeve when reading these girly books. I cannot stand a whiney main character waxing about how no man will ever love her or what if he likes me or I don't like him or I really do like him or what am I saying, there is no way he will ever like me etc. You get the picture. It reads too much like a personal diary for me and if I wanted to read something like that I'd read my own journals from high school.

I was wrong about the quality of our book club discussion. I thought the six of us would have a hard time finding things in this book to talk about but apparently our abilities to relate to the themes of Second Chance made for a long, interesting discussion. The subject matter (the death of a close friend bringing the group closer together) really sparked an intense discussion as we all could better relate to the characters. Compared to our stilted and mostly quiet discussion of A Thousand Splendid Suns, Second Chance inspired a vibrant conversation that had us all sharing stories and laughing uncontrollably. And the funniest thing is that only two people actually finished the book! Sadly, I must admit I had fifty pages to go when we met to discuss but I finished it afterward, I promise!

Our pick for March is Bernhard Schlink's The Reader. Sarah is hosting and it will be interesting to see how our discussion of another heavy themed book will go.

Doghandling by Clare Naylor (#30, Chick Lit)

Ahh chick lit, how I hate thee. Well, that is not true. I didn't hate this book. Clare Naylor's Doghandling seemed a fitting follow up to Why Men Love Bitches, as both books seem to agree that men need to be trained. This theory is not a farfetched one, as I have at least one friend who has admitted to me that she indeed had to train her boyfriend to behave the way she wanted him to. But is this really doghandling? What about people handling? 

Every new relationship features two people with two sets of behavioral patterns. Each person will treat the other person a certain way as long as the other person lets them. Similarly, dogs will behave a certain way as long as they can get away with it. The secret to training a dog? Be firm when setting boundaries and letting them know what behavior is okay and what behavior is not okay. Through a system of checks and balances (treats, kenneling, etc) you guide the dog to the correct behavioral pattern. 

Is this how we girls should deal with guys? Do we really need to employ the same techniques used to train dogs to train our boyfriends? Perhaps. A guy will treat you how you let him treat you. When you aren't being treated how you deserve to be, you definitely have to lay down the law and demand to be treated better. This usually starts with a conversation where you address the wrongdoings. But what about when nothing changes? When talking doesn't work, your actions speak louder than your words and you just might have to treat Brian like Rover.