Dietland: When Your Female Protagonist is Fat and Stays Fat | A Review by Noël Duan

“Chick lit” is a genre of popular fiction, written by women about women, that has unfortunately been treated with condescension and disdain in traditional literary circles. Bestselling author Jennifer Weiner once told The New Yorker, “I could write the Odyssey and people would say, ‘Chick lit in Greece.’ ”

It’s because women’s tastes are not considered to be serious.

Not surprisingly, women authors who want to be taken seriously in the literary canon tend to veer away from the plot and character tropes found in chick lit franchises—it’s not because chick lit, oftentimes nuanced social commentary on women navigating success and love in certain socioeconomic levels, is not serious. It’s because women’s tastes are not considered to be serious.