No

I love reading Keyes chick lit novels, and with her sense of humor I do believe she is a Moz fan!

Good lord, that woman is horrid! I had the misfortune of getting one of her books as a gift when I was in hospital. Awful, awful, awful. Plus, have you ever heard her speaking voice? Even worse.

Who cares if she's a frickin' Morrissey fan? Aren't we all? Morrissey inspires people: artists, musicians, writers. Unfortunately he also seems to inspire insipid, girly news posts like this one. 'Chick-lit'? Sounds like a snack food.

There are people who would happily have lumped Wuthering Heights, Sense and Sensibility and Anna Karenina into the chicklit category. Would it be so improbable, along with Taste of Honey, At Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, if they were written today? As soon as women exercise a degree of dominance in a field, society generally seems bent on slurring its merit. Diane Shipley says laugh all you like ‘cos sisters are doing it for themselves!

  - In defence of chick lit, by Diane Shipley, March 15, 2007

What is wrong with fiction written for women, by women, about women? And why do the critics never seem to have read any of the books they profess to hate?

For a genre that's supposedly just about sex, shoes and shopping (more on that misconception later), chick lit certainly stirs up controversy. Maureen Dowd recently realised it's not 1994 and expressed shock at the number of books in the shops with pink covers - pink signifying literary unworthiness, clearly.
I always find that the people who criticise chick lit, both in the press and to my face (when they discover I edit a chick lit website) are those who know the least about it. "I know chick lit's rubbish because my girlfriend hates it," someone told me last week. My ex-boyfriend hated War and Peace, but did that put me off reading it? No. (The length did.) Of course there's bad chick lit out there; that doesn't make all chick lit bad.

But if literary types hate it so much, why keep writing about it? Writers who claim chick lit is facile or that it's "hurting America" trade on the success of the very thing they claim to despise. This was taken to a ridiculous extreme with the publication of This Is Not Chick Lit. In her most patronising of introductions, the book's editor Elizabeth Merrick says that chick lit is about "...the protagonist's relentless pursuit of money, a makeover and Mr Right." OK, what chick lit is she reading? Don't answer that, I know: none.

It's true, those once were the main preoccupations of chick lit novels (and what's wrong with that if readers enjoy it?) but the genre has evolved: my favourite chick lit book is Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes, about a young woman's recovery from drug addiction. Keyes, who arguably invented chick lit with her debut novel Watermelon in 1995, has also covered cancer, infidelity and depression. And one of the biggest chick lit successes of 2006 was Dorothy Koomson's My Best Friend's Girl, about a woman left to care for her dead best friend's child. Frivolous!

Another myth about chick lit is that it's all a chick lit fan ever reads. Yes, my bookshelf is skewed in favour of fiction about modern women's lives. But I also read classics, non-fiction, and even - gasp - books by men! No one is wise to stick to one type of book. I just don't see what's morally or intellectually wrong with reading a book you enjoy and relate to, that might not draw deep conclusions about the future of humanity but might cheer you up after a bad day, or see you through your own health problems.

But as much as I love to prove chick lit's critics wrong, maybe it's not worth it. Moreover, it's probably not necessary. Chick lit authors are making millions, having their books made into Oscar-nominated films and receiving fan letters by the sackload. The genre's thrived for 12 years and counting and dominates bookshops all over the world. Chick lit doesn't need me or anyone else to defend it - its success speaks for itself. –
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/03/in_defen ce_of_chick_lit.html