Top 5 Chick Lit Picks for 2009

Scoff, ye literary critics, if you will, but there’s something about cozying up with a steaming cappuccino and a Jennifer Weiner book that warms the soul. The chick lit genre is a comfortable vice for feminine readers worldwide, connecting with real women’s issues like love, marriage, friendship, career and personal growth. So if you’re looking for a cup of comfort and a book to curl up with as the year winds down, here are the top five chick lit books of the year.

5. “The Wedding Girl,” by Madelaine Wickham explores a variety of complicated issues, like marriage, business, religion, abortion and homosexuality. Milly has a dark secret. She was once married to a gay man to help protect his image. She is currently engaged to the love of her life, Simon, and when a wedding photographer who took the pictures at her first wedding resurfaces in her life, she fears the worst. Simon has his own worries to contend with, including becoming a better businessman and husband than his millionaire father. Wrought with internal turmoil, family tension and secrets, how could this not be a gripping read?

4. Lisa Jewell’s “The Truth About Melody Browne,” digs into a young woman’s dark past to reveal hidden secrets she’s been keeping not only from the world around her, but herself as well. A tragic house fire struck Melody’s family, wiping out her memories. Grown now and a single mother, she begins experiencing fainting spells and flashes of memory that untangle the web of her childhood. Nothing she imagined about her past is like it seems, and now Melody must come to terms with who she really is. There was a lot of question about whether or not Jewell’s latest book would deliver, but “The Truth About Melody Browne” is a real page turner, and you won’t want to put it down once you start reading.

3. Liane Moriarty’s “What Alice Forgot,” will tug at your heartstrings from page one.  Alice Love hit her head in the gym, and when she came to, she’d lost ten years of her life. She wakes up thinking she is 29, pregnant and madly in love with her husband. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. At 39, she is a mother of three with an exhausting social calendar. Her relationship with her sister is on the fray, and she and her husband are going through a divorce. As the memories begin to resurface, and Alice comes to terms with who she is, she can’t help but wonder where she went wrong, and if there is still time to be the woman she knows she was meant to be.

2. In Sophie Kinsella’s “Twenties Girl,” Lara Lington is seeing ghosts. The spirit of her Great-Aunt Sadie haunts and speaks to her, but no one else can see or hear Sadie. Lara believes she can help her aunt rest in peace by finding a lost necklace, but as she digs deeper into the past, she begins to question her own family and the nature of her aunt’s death. Was Sadie murdered? Dark secrets, mystery and a twist of romance will have you flying through the pages of this book to find out how it ends.

1. I still remember my very first best friend. In fact, I even chat with her from time to time, but life drives a wedge between even the best of friends, and things are no different for Addie and Valerie. Reunited at a high school reunion fifteen years after a major falling out, Addie finds herself embracing Val, who is on the down and out. In “Best Friends Forever,” Jennifer Weiner will have you questioning the quality and resonance of your own lifelong friendships, and longing to get in touch with your youth. Weiner is definitely the “Queen of Chick Lit,” and she never disappoints, so grab a copy of “Best Friends Forever,” and find out what all the buzz is about.