chick lit

[ lit ]

noun

1. literature that appeals especially to women, usually having a romantic or sentimental theme.

chick lit

noun

1. 1. a genre of fiction concentrating on young working women and their emotional lives
   2. ( as modifier )

      chick-lit romances

Word History and Origins

Origin of chick lit¹

chick (in the sense of “woman”) + lit ³

Example Sentences

“Valley of the Dolls” was panned upon its release in 1966, and Collins’ output has been derided as beach reads and chick lit.

From Los Angeles Times

The “chick lit” icon, who is married to her business manager, Henry Wickham, also offered thanks to her family and close friends for supporting her, and to the doctors and nurses who treated her.

From Los Angeles Times

If it’s attached to any other kind of boot, it’s green juice, chick lit, drag queen.

From Slate

Both books were widely acclaimed, even as some critics dismissed them as “chick lit,” a term that Ms. Bank found “denigrating to both readers and writers.”

From Washington Post

Despite the fact that critics compared her spare, exacting language to that of any number of male writers, including Hemingway and Salinger — The Los Angeles Times called it “like John Cheever, only funnier” — her book was quickly corralled into the growing herd of woman-centered fiction derisively labeled “chick lit.”

From New York Times