First Published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Suzanne Ferriss is Professor of English at Nova Southeastern University. She is co-author of A Handbookof Literary Feminisms and co-editor of two volumes on the cultural study of fashion: On Fashion and Footnotes: OnShoes.
Mallory Young is Professor of English and French at Tarleton State University.

Acknowledgments Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young, Introduction The Hatching of a Genre: Origins and Influences Cris Mazza, Tome of the Unknown Chick: A Short History of Chick-Lit and the Perversion of a Genre Stephanie Harzewski, Tradition and Displacement in the New Novel of Manners Juliette Wells, Mothers of Chick Lit?: Women Writers, Readers, and Literary History Suzanne Ferriss, Narrative and Cinematic Doubleness: Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones's Diary Free Range: Varieties and Variations Lisa A. Guerrero, 'Sistahs Are Doin' It for Themselves': Chick Lit in Black and White Elizabeth Hale, Long-Suffering Professional Females: The Case of Nanny-Lit Heather Hewett, You Are Not Alone: The Personal, the Political, and the 'New' Mommy Lit Joanna Webb Johnson, Chick Lit Jr.: More Than Just Glitz and Glamour for Teens and Tweens Elizabeth B. Boyd, Ya Yas, Grits and Sweet Potato Queens: Contemporary Southern Belles and the Prescriptions That Guide Them Nóra Séllei, Bridget Jones and Hungarian Chick Lit Sex and the Single Chick: Feminism and Postfeminism, Sexuality and Self-Fashioning A. Rochelle Mabry, About a Girl: Female Subjectivity and Sexuality in Contemporary 'Chick' Culture Anna Kiernan, No Satisfaction: Sex and the City, Run Catch Kiss, and the Conflict of Desires in Chick Lit's New Heroines Jessica Lyn Van Slooten, Fashionably Indebted: Fashion, Romance, and Conspicuous Consumption in Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic Trilogy Alison Umminger, Super-Sizing Bridget Jones: What's Really Eating the Women in Chick Lit Shari Benstock, Afterword Selected Bibliography Contributors' Notes