Summer Reading for the Young and Sassy: Will Chick Lit Survive?

Summer approaches, and that means the search for the perfect beach read (or reads, depending on how many vacations your employer allows). Last summer the market was dominated by the "chick lit" genre that had been growing over that several seasons. The market was flooded full force with chipper, witty ten dollar novels with brightly colored covers and authors you've never heard of. But is chick lit surviving into this summer? The answer, it seems, is no. One quick look at the bestsellers list and the shelves at your local drugstore, and you'll see readers are searching for higher brow fare.

The chick lit craze started as college girls and twenty-something women across the country found a way to buy quasi-smutty romance novels without the embarrassment of a Fabio cover model. Red Dress Inc, a division of Harlequin Romance Novels, took the trend to a whole new level and flooded the market with anyone and everyone becoming a novelist. As the "chick lit" market grew, more people thought, "Hey, I can do that." And for the most part, they're correct. The genre is one populated by writing accessible to any twenty-something woman. It encourages authors to write in the same way that they speak. Not so difficult, particularly for a social, marginally witty female writer. And so the onslaught began. Book with titles like "Marrying Up" and "Sleeping Over" and countless others filled the shelves of Walgreens and Wal Mart.

There were several high points in the wave of chick lit. Candace Bushnell's "Sex and the City" was a clear high point, with a fresh and witty way of looking at being single in New York. Lauren Weisberger's "The Devil Wear's Prada" was another. This sharp, devilishly hilarious take on being an overeducated, underpaid, no-respect assistant in the fashion industry was as down and dirty as they get, and readers ate it up. Translated into 27 languages with millions of copies sold, the book is set for a summer 2006 theatrical release starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway.

But all good things must come to an end. For every Weisberger and Bushnell, there were ten other authors attempting to craft wit and femininity for America's women. Most (if not all), fell flat, selling to people looking for a beach read in an airport and nothing more. I read my fair share of these newsstand novels, and sure they made me giggle, but I definitely sold it to the used bookstore next chance I got.

Soon, Red Dress Inc began closing their submission acceptances. As of September 2004, the publishing house stopped accepting unsolicited manuscripts, leaving the writing up to proven sellers and big names instead of Susie grad student in Ohio or Iowa. This signaled the flip flop in literary supply and demand.

And even the queens of the genre were falling flat. Weisberger's new novel, "Everyone Worth Knowing," was far less charming and contained way too many obvious celebrity name drops. Weisberger's charm in "Devil" was that she was an outsider. But the fame of her novel clearly earned her entrance into Bungalow 8 or any of the other NYC hotspots she praises in her latest book, and the exposure spoiler her. Most of her characters were unlikable or just downright irritating. You could see the romantic "twist" coming a mile away. Nothing about the book was charming or witty.

Is chick lit dead? For now, at least, this seems to be the case. If this past year is any indication, this summer will be dominated not by trashy female-empowering reads, but by strong, thematic, introspective female-empowering reads. Women across the country have jumped back on the Oprah bandwagon, reading classics like "Night" by Elie Wiesel, or "As I Lay Dying" by Faulkner. It signals the desire for a higher level of writing from the author and a higher level of thinking from the reader. Even the bestsellers are of a higher brow. Sue Monk Kidd's "The Secret Life of Bees" spent 24 weeks on the bestseller list in hardcover and 48 weeks in paperback, and its themes are far more serious and dramatic than which Jimmy Choo to pair with your Dolce & Gabbana cocktail dress for a night at Butter.

I guess it won't be long before Harlequin begins hawking serious thematic fiction in cheap paperback style. One can only hope to find beach reads as substantive as "Bees" and other soon-to-be classics. Substance over Fabio and Vogue? Yes, please.