Confessions of the overweight, pregnant, and spending-obsessed
Romantic comedies about young women have been around for centuries, at least since Jane Austen wrote ''Pride and Prejudice," which has been described, not altogether jokingly, as the original chick lit novel. It's a thriving genre, no matter what it's called.
''The Journal of Mortifying Moments" is a promising title, and Robyn Harding's first novel lives up to the promise. Kerry Spence, a 31-year-old Seattle advertising account executive, is the keeper of the journal. Kerry's former boyfriend, ''gorgeous" Sam, keeps showing up for quickies, and she is powerless to say no. Her therapist thinks that if Kerry could write a journal chronicling all of her past sex-related humiliations she might acquire some insight into why she's allowing Sam to treat her like a doormat. Kerry's journal entries, interspersed in her first-person narrative, are painfully funny, and may have some readers recalling their own mortifying moments.
Sam isn't Kerry's only problem. Her self-centered mother, Gwen, never stops meddling in her love life. Her boss is cold and demanding. Her co-workers are, variously, manipulative, predatory, and possibly insane. It's no wonder Kerry has developed an addiction to cream cheese frosting, causing her rear end to expand alarmingly.
Harding is a skillful writer who is able to transcend and even exploit clich. Kerry may be one of the most self-loathing heroines in recent popular literature, but she does evolve over the course of the novel. ''The Journal of Mortifying Moments" is light fiction executed by a writer who knows her craft.
Jennifer Weiner's ''Little Earthquakes" is laced with the seemingly effortless humor that made her first two novels, ''Good in Bed" and ''In Her Shoes," so appealing. Her third novel is another bittersweet comedy, but this one has a soap-operatic plot involving four very different young mothers. ''Little Earthquakes" has a contrived quality, and sometimes the structure seems a bit unwieldy. But Weiner manages to hold it all together with a thick mortar of melodrama. This novel is mommy lit, aimed to appeal to other women who, as the publisher's blurb puts it, are on ''the journey of new motherhood."
Four women, each very pregnant with a first child, meet and bond at a prenatal yoga class in Philadelphia. Rebecca Rothstein-Rabinowitz is an acclaimed chef, happily married to Andrew, a doctor. Her only real problem is her manipulative monster of a mother-in-law, who wants her son all to herself. Perky Kelly Day is a super-organized event planner who has made financial security her top priority. She can't understand why her husband, Steven, recently laid off from his corporate job, won't get off the living room couch and start looking for a job before her maternity leave begins. Ayinde Towne, glamorous biracial broadcast journalist, suspects that her NBA superstar husband, Richard, is playing around. Beautiful movie actress Lia Frederick is the fourth woman. After a child-related tragedy she fled Los Angeles, leaving behind her husband, Sam, and her career. Grief-stricken, she has come home to her estranged mother.
Weiner's characters aren't exactly realistic, but they all have genuine human qualities that make them sympathetic. Readers of ''Little Earthquakes" probably won't be surprised, or disappointed, to learn that each of the stories in this novel ends happily, if improbably, tied up with a little pink or blue bow.
Sophie Kinsella introduced Becky Bloomwood, a charmingly ditzy young woman who lives to shop, in ''Confessions of a Shopaholic." The book became an international bestseller. A series was spawned. Now we have ''Shopaholic and Sister," the fourth volume of the Shopaholic chronicles. It's at least one volume too many. The joke has worn thin. Becky's chirpy voice, at first amusing, has become tiresome. Her out-of-control spending, her lying, her reckless meddling in other people's affairs have come to seem less like the zany antics of a postfeminist Lucy Ricardo and more like pathological behavior.
In ''Shopaholic and Sister" Becky is back in London after a 10-month-long globe-trotting honeymoon with her ''perfect" husband, Luke Brandon. For Becky, the trip was one long secret spending spree, but her secret is revealed when two trucks full of expensive souvenirs pull up outside the Brandons' building. Becky has no job and no money, and all her credit cards are maxed out. Luke puts her on a budget. It's Shopaholic hell.
Meanwhile, Becky's parents reveal that she has a half sister, the fruit of a brief encounter on her father's part, before he married. Becky is thrilled to have a sister until she meets Jessica, a dowdy, penny-pinching geologist/environmental activist who hates to shop and is, in her own way, almost as annoying as her silly sister.
Kinsella has a genuine gift for comic writing. (Are the Shopaholic novels meant to be a satire of capitalism run amok? Is it possible?) She's a chick lit star, with a huge fan base. She has already written one non-Shopaholic bestseller, ''Can You Keep a Secret?" Surely others will follow. It's time to put Becky out to pasture. New readers will continue to discover and enjoy the Shopaholic series. But Becky must be stopped before she has a baby, which she's threatening to do at the end of this novel.
Diane White writes every month about new light and popular fiction.
