Bookhive Afield

I've been thinking a lot about travelling and books lately, as I get ready to depart for five days in Oregon. My focus will certainly be on my sister's wedding and quality time with friends and family, but I can't travel without something good to read, and the flight from Detroit to Portland is long enough to plow through an average sized novel.

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Jennifer Weiner's War on...Men? Women? Fiction? Everything?

I have very little patience for Jennifer Weiner. I have never read a novel by her; I have no plans to.  Nothing about her books is appealing to me-- the covers (legs and shoes, mostly), the titles (“Good in Bed”? Blech!), the blurbs (“Allison Weiss got her happy ending—a handsome husband, an adorable little girl, a job she loves, and a big house in the suburbs. But when she’s in the pediatrician’s office with her daughter and a magazine flips open to a quiz about addiction, she starts to wonder whether her use of prescription pills is becoming a problem.” Yes, that is real), the genre (chick lit, “slumber party fiction”). But that said, I was perfectly content to leave her be; obviously someone buys her books, because she’s one of the best-selling authors in the English language, and you can’t visit an airport without seeing dozens of those leg-and-shoe covers staring back at you.  It’s not for me, but I don’t mind if it exists.

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