Chick Lit

Not a genre I make a habit of reading, but I figure that any book by the fifth-generation niece of the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope has to have a certain gravitas.

I rather enjoyed Daughters-in-law, by Joanna Trollope. She must have got halfway through and heard someone refer to her book as chick lit, because she came to a screeching halt, switched style and put in her application for a Booker with this sentence:

She was sympathetic to Petra, Petra knew that, and anxious to help and even to ameliorate some of the exigencies imposed by sharing your life with someone who could take imperviousness to extraordinary levels.

I’ll take great, great, great, great Uncle Tony anytime.