Unless you've been very discriminating the last few years, if you're female you've probably read something that could be categorized as "chick lit". Anything by Jennifer Weiner. The Bridget Jones saga. The Nanny Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada, any of a number of nearly identical books that only seem to be published in trade paperpback form with candy-colored covers with drawings of shoes or lipstick or something else that repels Y-chromosomes. If you have somehow avoided this, I applaud you, and also wonder whether you might be way overdue for a nice beach vacation.

Recently this literary trend started moving into the childbearing years along with the readership. Bridget Jones had a baby, genre queen Jennifer Weiner's single gals have all started procreating. Alison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It was a runaway bestseller (spoiler: She does it by bitching and moaning a lot about her choices), and recently I reviewed Amy Scheibe's What Do You Do All Day? for Babble and while I more or less enjoyed it, my take was that it was pure genre formula, and that if you've read any similar book, you know exactly how it's going to play out.

I'm not the only one who's noticed. Australia's The Age recently discussed the mommy-lit phenomenon, and concludes that mommy lit's got its merits. Chick/Mommy Lit readers seem to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, and they're very vocal on internet message boards about what works and which writers are getting it. It's a readership that wants realism along with its escapism and now craves a little more depth, just a little though, as the readers themselves evolve in life. Which is exactly why I surreptitously throw books like Little Earthquakes into my library bag along with "the good stuff" and why you might, too. It might be the same old story with different character names, but being able to see yourself through the filter of a novel isn't necessarily such a bad thing. Especially if the flight attendant keeps the cocktails comin'.