Lit for chicks of color: a girls' guide to desirable reading.(culture)(Brief Article)(Book Review)

Walk through any chain bookstore, and you're likely to be bombarded with alluring titles and brightly designed covers in a special section: chick lit. It's the publishing phenomenon that has developed over the past decade of romance literature for women. Suzanne Ferriss, co-editor of the first academic anthology to critically examine chick lit, Chick Lit: New Woman's Fiction, says the genre is a force to be reckoned with, "not simply a marketing ploy." Ferriss and co-editor Mallory Young argue that chick lit is the most recent manifestation of historical trends in publishing relating to a "resurgence of interest in literature for women, by women" whose roots date back to the nineteenth century and authors like Jane Austen. Chick lit's growing popularity reflects the interests and power of the majority of the book-buying public: women, 70 percent and on the rise, to be exact.

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With the mushrooming demand for and popularity of chick lit in the past five years, sub-genres including titles for and by women of color have emerged. While the chick lit phenomenon was arguably ignited in the early '90s by Terri McMillan's Waiting To Exhale, it has been in the past three years that chick lit for women of color started producing significant numbers of titles. Unfortunately, the publishing houses' eagerness to tap into the market of professional women of color has watered down the caliber of literature being produced for and by women of color. Far from the days of books like Waiting To Exhale that address substantive issues with cultural accuracy in an accessible way, titles like Playing With Boys by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez and Cara Lockwood's Dixieland Sushi are among the latest to capitalize on cultural stereotypes and bad cliches. These titles represent the ugly side of chick lit: formulaic and representative of stereotypical images of women of color from the horrible Asian grandma driver to the sexually-repressed Latina mother. Though not an industry standard, there are publishers who make a concerted effort to steer clear of this trend. Karen Thomas, founder of the five-year-old Dafina imprint of Kensington Books, requires that the titles she publishes that fall under the "chick lit," "girlfriend lit" or "urban lit" genres be empowering to women.

Despite the undesirable literature currently being mass-produced in the chick lit genre, quality literature for women of color with themes of romance and cultural and social issues continues to be produced. Albeit with significantly less frequency than the popular and easily marketable chick lit, these novels offer well-written stories about the experiences of women of color, from immigration to sexual abuse. Both Abha Dawesar's Babyji and Jill Nelson's Sexual Healing tell compelling tales of sexual awakenings that simultaneously tackle complex issues like gender roles, female sexuality and Western colonial influences on notions of sexuality throughout the world. Also worth reading is Let It Rain Coffee by Angie Cruz and Highwire Moon by Susan Straight about Latina women with themes ranging from sexuality to mother-hood to immigration. Unlike the formulaic and trite chick lit, these novels employ imaginative perspectives in their storytelling that promote the continued growth of literature written for and by women of color.

Babyji by Abha Dawesar (Anchor 2005)

Setting her tale in Delhi, Dawesar tells the story of one young woman's sexual awakening. Anamika embarks on a journey to explore her sexuality and finds both women and men to help answer her questions about life and love. Seamlessly woven into the plot is Dawesar's commentary on Western colonization of India, queer identities, gender roles and binary notions of sexual identity.

Sexual Healing by Jill Nelson (Agate 2004)