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You probably know someone like her. You may have read about her in magazines, or seen her on television or in the movies. She's smart, sophisticated, and sassy—a career woman who worries about her boyfriend, her boss, and the latest fashion trends. She may be like your best friend, or the girls who hang out with your daughter.
She's the heroine of the publishing phenomenon called "chick lit," a secular literary trend that gained attention with Helen Fielding's best-selling book (and later movie) Bridget Jones' Diary. Bridget first hit the bookstore shelves in the UK in 1996 and has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide since. While the women of this genre are funny and have a distinctive literary voice, they can be annoyingly young, somewhat shallow and materialistic, and definitely obsessed with sex and men.
So when Neta Jackson, author of best-selling The Yada Yada Prayer Group, a lighthearted Christian novel about a group of churchgoing women, discovered her book helped launch chick lit into the Christian market, she was surprised. Actually, since Neta knew the reputation of chick lit, stunned was more like it. "I didn't have chick lit in mind for any of the Yada Yada books," Neta explains of her now two-book series. "I do know a lot of readers picked up the first book because of that bright pink cover with the crazy socks and then get caught up in the characters and the story." These bright colors and fun, girlie images are common in secular chick lit. As one of Neta's readers wrote, "The jacket was colorful and interesting. But I never expected what I read! What a fantastic and moving book on faith, friendship, and finding oneself. I loved every page."
What Neta—and her readers—discovered is that chick lit really is about women's hearts and the incredible friendships that can grow between them as they struggle with the ordinary issues in life—men, work, stress. Christian women readily relate to these topics, especially if the story also shows how faith drives a woman's choices in fashion, fun, and friends. Karen M. Ball, senior acquisitions editor at Christian publishing company Zondervan, says, "We love reading about women of faith who have an ability to laugh at themselves and the foibles of life. We want real, honest, vulnerable characters."
She's Me!Christian chick-lit heroines don't have grand quests to achieve or villains to conquer. They aren't larger-than-life people who traverse countries, take on serious causes, or engage in romantic encounters with stalwart, wavy-haired heroes. In fact, the strong voice of ordinary women who are both flawed and funny is central to this genre, and is one of the reasons why its popularity is growing by leaps and bounds. A number of Christian publishers now have chicklit novels on their current list or are planning them for the future. As Ami McConnell of Westbow, the new fiction imprint from W Publishing Group, points out, "The 'voice' of the heroine is so essential in a chick-lit novel. It's attractive because when you 'hear' her voice, you recognize it. Spending time in the book is like hanging out with a really engaging, funny friend."
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