The Wonder Spot

I started reading Melissa Bank's 'The Wonder Spot' and now I want to stay up and finish it. It's 2:16 a.m., though.

I can never answer when people ask "What are you reading?" because if I really like something, I want to read the whole thing right away. I could very well finish this book by 5 a.m. (just because I read fast if I like something) and then sleep three hours until time for work. But maybe I'll just keep myself in suspense until the weekend.

So far, this book doesn't feel like "chick lit," but it all depends on what the definition of chick lit is. Sometimes, it just acts as a marketing term to sell women's writing, and, well, I gotta be all for that.

2 p.m. update

I eventually did read a lot more, although I haven't finished yet. I am blown away by the writing in this book. It's not the specific language so much, but the way she is so dead on with her dialogue and depiction of the relationships between characters. There are a lot of similarities to The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing; the main character in these interconnected stories is again Jewish, young, has an odd Carson McCullers-esque hope/envy relationship to her brother's girlfriend(s), and eventually winds up in publishing. So why am I so newly impressed? It's still such a compelling story and so different from chick lit, too. What is it that makes the difference?

Again, it's not the language. Perhaps it's the pacing. This book is slower and not as goal-oriented as some chick lit. Right away, a lot of "chick lit" books begin with a goal (like finding a good relationship), and the main character then rapidly sets off to meet it (NOTE: in any of these comments, I am not excluding myself or anything I've written, nor am I complaining about chick lit, just trying to figure out why Wonder Spot feels different from it).

The first story has the main character, Sophie, at the age of 12...and her comments, her friends' comments, and their actions place me right in the mind of an edge-of-innocence mid-80s adolescent. And even though I remember a lot of what happened back then, I don't think I could be as dead-on in my dialogue and description as Melissa Bank. Just the scene where an eighth grade boy asks Sophie, "Are you going out with anybody" reminds me exactly of the way kids used to talk back then. I don't know if kids use the term "going out" anymore, or it's been replaced by "hooking up" or something else, but the sense of innocent kids trying to be not-so-innocent places me dead in that time. The school's "cool girl" is alternately aloof and unreachable but then says things to Sophie like "see you 'round, basset hound." Cracks me up.

Melissa Bank, by the way, hates the term 'chick lit.' I consider it a marketing term, but she doesn't really need that kind of help.

And now back to rejoicing over the snow.