Getting Over Jack Wagner

Where are all the real rock stars? Eliza is looking to date a rock star -- though she uses the term loosely. None of her boyfriends have been famous. Most have unbearable habits and overbearing mothers. A few only played show tunes. Still, they're intense. Pierced. Tragically stubbled. With a predilection for dressing in black. Eliza finds them deep -- in theory, anyway. But in reality, none comes close to the object of her original rock-star crush: actor/crooner Jack Wagner. When her latest catch turns out be another mama's boy, Eliza begins to realize love is nothing like her favorite '80s song. Is she ready to face the music? Just as Eliza is planning her next move, she's dealt an emotional triple-whammy involving her sister, her best friend, and a horrific blind date. That's when she realizes that only by taking a good look at her past -- and her tape collection -- will she ever be able to hear a different kind of song and live a different kind of life.

For two quietly unhappy years, linguist Claire Gallagher has been living deep in the New Hampshire woods, enduring a polite but strained marriage to a highly respected scientist. Once a determined overachiever and academic star in her own right, she now spends her days avoiding her stalled dissertation and creating EZ crossword puzzles. But for all Claire's knowledge of words and their meanings, the meaning in her own life eludes her. One bleak morning in winter, she announces that she's leaving. By nightfall, at the urging of her younger sister Noelle, Claire finds herself heading to the last place she thought she would ever go: Ireland -- the birthplace of her abrasive, chronically ill mother and the country Noelle, a college dropout, now calls home. In a small town on the Irish coast, Claire's struggle to move ahead with her life takes her deep into the puzzles of her past -- in a world in which there are no simple answers, and the only questions that matter are those of the heart.

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From the bestselling Bridget Jones's Diary that started the trend to the television sensation Sex and the City that captured it on screen, "chick lit" has become a major pop culture phenomenon. Banking on female audiences' identification with single, urban characters who struggle with the same life challenges, publishers have earned millions and even created separate imprints dedicated to the genre. Not surprisingly, some highbrow critics have dismissed chick lit as trashy fiction, but fans have argued that it is as empowering as it is entertaining. This is the first volume of its kind to examine the chick lit phenomenon from a variety of angles, accounting for both its popularity and the intense reactions-positive and negative-it has provoked. The contributors explore the characteristics that cause readers to attach the moniker "chick" to a particular book and what, if anything, distinguishes the category of chick lit from the works of Jane Austen on one end and Harlequin romance novels on the other. They critique the genre from a range of critical perspectives, considering its conflicted relationship with feminism and postfeminism, heterosexual romance, body image, and consumerism. The fourteen original essays gathered here also explore such trends and subgenres as "Sistah Lit," "Mommy Lit," and "Chick Lit Jr.," as well as regional variations. As the first book to consider the genre seriously, Chick Lit offers real insight into a new generation of women's fiction.

With her free-spirited daughter away at college and her "hip" ex-husband living across the country, Charlotte has grown used to being alone. For the most part, she prefers it. She relies on familiar routines: manicures, grocery shopping, game shows. But at night, no matter how hard she tries (and in spite of the Dream Machine her daughter Emily sent her) she can't stop her logical mind from running wild -- imagining burglars, strange noises, and all manner of trouble that might befall her fearless daughter. Having just graduated from Wesleyan with a pierced tongue and an arsenal of opinions, Emily has always been passionate about her beliefs -- from mindfulness to vegetarianism to her new live-in boyfriend. Though Charlotte rarely understands her, she's learned to keep her doubts to herself. But when Emily and the new boyfriend arrive for a weekend visit, secrets are revealed that compel Charlotte to take a stand. Forced to examine her own life choices, she's about to learn she can't control everything. What she can do is open her heart to new possibilities, and to the fact that headstrong Emily might have a thing or two to teach them all.

The author offers a scholarly dissection of "chick lit" from a post-feminist perspective. She analyzes the novel Bridget Jones' Diary and the HBO series Sex and the City while making parallels back to writings of Jane Austen and the Victorian novel in general. She looks at what these works say about women in society and whether they are just an escape or a serious reflection of women's concerns.

"I wonder if Judy Blume really knows how many girls' lives she affected. I wonder if she knows that at least one of her books made a grown woman finally feel like she'd been a normal girl all along..." —from Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume Whether laughing to tears reading Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great or clamoring for more unmistakable "me too!" moments in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, girls all over the world have been touched by Judy Blume's poignant coming-of-age stories. Now, in this anthology of essays, twenty-four notable female authors write straight from the heart about the unforgettable novels that left an indelible mark on their childhoods and still influence them today. After growing up from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing into Smart Women, these writers pay tribute, through their reflections and most cherished memories, to one of the most beloved authors of all time.

GO ON. DO IT. BITE OFF MORE THAN YOU CAN CHEW. It's Sam Leighton's job as a celebrity journalist to get the scoop on Hollywood's top celebs. But when rumors fly that she cozied up too close to an Oscar-winning Australian, she finds herself looking for a new job -- and a new life. Enter Tom Sanders, one of her closest friends and the life-style editor at a business magazine. To console Sam, he invites her out for dirty martinis, and they fantasize about the magazine they'd start if they could. It would be smart and sexy. It would be all about the ways you can have fun in the world. Then it dawns on Sam: Maybe they could. NOW SWALLOW. Sam and Tom take the message of their new magazine -- it's called Bite -- to heart. They rent cool offices. They test-drive story ideas. They hire a staff of friends old and new. And before the first issue comes out, the new staffers do all the other things young people do. They pickle their livers and obsess over unattainable loves. They dish about celebrities and bicker among themselves. And ultimately they learn one big lesson: Life is short, so take a big bite. Hilarious and witty, Bite offers a delicious behind-the-scenes taste of life at an upstart glossy where everyone's just trying to grab a little piece of the good life!