'Cause You Know You Still Crave Chick Lit

I love chick lit. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I think it's fun and light and just what you need sometimes (same goes with just about any genre for me actually).

I can still remember buying Bridget Jones Diary in hardcover, newly released, just after the now defunct mag Jane ran a raving review. I think it may have been my first hardcover purchase -- I didn't even have a driver's license yet, but my friend did. She brought me to the bookstore and then, when I finished reading the laugh-out-loud hilarious adventures of Bridget, I passed the book onto that very same friend, who went on to read it at her private school where other teens starting picking it up, subsequently getting the book banned at the catholic high. Yep. Fun days!

And chick lit is still out there, sometimes hiding under the more ambiguous tag of women's lit and other subgenre marketing labels that anyone thinks may appeal to a wide range of readers.

Anywho, I kicked off my weekend with a new to me chick-lit read, Kim Gruenenfelder's There's Cake In My Future. In the book, three thirty-something friends are all hoping for love, success, and happiness. Nicole, about to be married and looking for a new job, Seema, in love with her best friend but afraid to make a move, and Melissa, dating her boyfriend for six years and still no ring, have a plan. Nicole arranges for a cake pull at her wedding shower and rigs the cake so that they each will pull the charm that will bring them exactly what they wish for. But when the charms somehow get switched, everything goes awry.

Super cute read. I really mean that. I was laughing out loud all night! I loved the characters, I loved the hijinks, and I especially loved Gruenenfelder's sense of humor. A little snarky, a little sarcastic, things I've thought myself but never said aloud!

Cake pulls, if you're curious (I'd never heard of them) are apparently a Victorian tradition. Here's a neat website I found with some info. Seeing as how I'm pretty superstitious, I found Gruenenfelder's latest to be especially hilarious. I guess it's a good thing I'd never heard of the cake pull before my own shower. Hm...

Definitely recommended. Gruenenfelder has two other titles under her belt, A Total Waste of Makeup and Misery Loves Cabernet, books I intend to check out after the holiday season.

Many, many thanks to Rachel for sending this one along. I absolutely loved it!