can anyone reccomend a good chick lit book please?

[lizandlulu]

or something like chick lit. i am going on holiday soon and want a good book for the beach. i will be child free so want to make the most of my free time
i loved the shopaholic and baby books, ps i love you, that sort of thing.
any reccomendations please?

Agreed with paperchain, no big deal, just the fact that there isn't any good or bad chick-lit, it's all very much the same! Slayerette, what I meant was that authors like, for example, John O'Farrell or Sue Townsend write very easy, entertaining, beautiful novels yet they don't eve come close to numbing your brain like chick-lit does.
But of course everyone's free to read what they damn want to read!

no, it is not all the same. Some is very readable. Some is passable, and some is downright dreadful. And that's just the ones that get published.

you are at least the 3rd person to flout their oxymoronic knowledge on this thread to sneer at chicklit.

i had to ask my mum what oxymoron ment! it was a long time since i was at school

phillipa gregory- some ofthe non tudor ones are very good..fallen skies. Also elizabeth chadwick...

haven't read all of this, but I'd recommend Jennifer Crusie (if no-one else has already). Also recently read Lani Diane Rich's The Fortune Quilt and loved it

How many chick-lit books have you read Seashell and paperchain? I can believe that you've never read a good one, but I'm not sure how you can extrapolate from what you've read that they are all not good.

If you have read every single chick-lit novel ever published (and I'm including a couple of Jane Austins in the genre) and none of them have been good, then your point is proved. In that case I would have ask why you bothered wasting your time after the first couple of thousand failed to meet your high expectations.

I just read one called the chocolate lovers club. It was a nice fun read. Can't remember the author though.

I've read Thirtynothing, Paul's Party, Watermelon and Shopaholic & baby: they're all shameful and wouldn't use them as door-stoppers. I reckon by now they've been recicled into something more dignified (smug emoticon).
Bran, to work out that a particular genre is not your cup of tea you don't have to read every single novel in that genre ever published! But if that was the case, I'd still take a chance and stick to my choice of never picking up another chick-lit volume. Life's too short to waste any valuable reading time on such junk. I'd rather sit in front of MN or pick something else to read.

ahh the shopaholic and baby books are great

the reading group - can't rem who by

read and re-read, nice heart-warming story...

The reading group is by Elizabeth Noble - that is a nice read.

Can't wait to hear what you went with 'lizandlulu'.

No time to read all suggestions but have you tried Melissa Bank A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing or The Wonderspot. She is a wonderful very wry, very touching New York writer - definitely aimed at women but it is intelligent and perceptive (no shopping or soppy plots).

i saw that girls guide to hunting and fishing but dismissed it as the cover was boring (yes i am shallow, sorry

i got the glass lake mentioned earlier from ebay for 1p plus £1 postage, just cause it was cheap.
i might buy those little black dress books. the one i read was very good, just very short.

Don't worry - I don't buy any books that have metallic lettering or endorsements from Daily Mail reviewers .

Girls Guide... is brilliant! My favourite book. Thought the Wonder Spot was a bit of an inferiour rehash, tbh, but GG is amazing.

seashells, I dont particularly rate any of the ones you mentioned. Cant stand Shopaholic, she really gets up my nose! Sophie Kinsella's non-shopaholic books are better.

Try Rachels Holiday

i have just bought the little black dress books from the book people and also one called 'sold' true story about a mother who sold her daughter to a man to work in a brothel.
not sure it will be read on my holiday as it might put a dampner on things, but it is the kind of book i usually read.

I've just read Jennifer Weiner's Little Earthquakes. The design certainly thinks it's chicklit, but it's more, chicklit heroines become mummies. A good read.

There is a lot of very very bad chicklit out there. But the "good" ones are worth knowing about if you need to get your word fix but aren't up to anything challenging just now.

I'm sure I've seen Chris Manby's The Matchbreaker referred to as "good chicklit" somewhere recently (maybe on here??).

The Penguin blog had a post on guilty pleasures recently.

Divas Don't Knit by Gil McNeil - I've recently taken up knitting and this title just caught my eye and made me laugh - I'm reading it at the moment. The character has to start a new life as a single mum with sons aged 5 and 6 and she takes over the family knitting shop.

Rowan Coleman is fun and has written two chicklit books about women taking on motherhood and Julie Highmore was my favourite new to me light fiction discovery of last year.

Talking of Jane Austen derivatives in chicklit, Melissa Nathan wrote two quite good ones - Pride Prejudice and Jasmin Field has been retitled, Persuading Annie.

i have read the rowan coleman ones and thought they were good, but not outstanding.

Any of the Catherine Alliot books. Fantastic. They are def chick lit but very well written so you dont guess the ending in the first chapter.

Hello Just want to second gummybears - Catherine Alliot is the bets chick lit writer around and her characters arn't skinny models either.

I think I quite enjoyed one of Ctherine Alliotts, but didnt enjoy another one. They are supremely forgettable.

Louise Bagshawe has written some entertaining chicklit books, the later ones are better.

talking Knit-lit (can this be a new genre?) this is a really touching story about a single mum running a wool shop:

www.amazon.co.uk/Friday-Night-Knitting-Club/dp/0425219097/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books &qid=1211455373&sr=8-1

really have not read anything else this past week (and i usually have 2 or 3 books on the go!).

I got turned off reading books about single mothers, after I read the Playground Mafia. The heroine has a cute little old cottage (oh dear, its smaller than her rich married friends' houses!), is subsidized by regularly paid maintenance from her ex, and is a freelance, part time, graphologist who works at hours that suit herself.
It is SO unlike reality, I got jealous just reading it!!