Women's Fiction/Literature, Chick Lit or Adult Fiction: What is your preference?

Jennifer from Crazy for Books is having a discussion and I agreed to participate with my opinion.

From Jennifer's blog - If you've read my blog for any length of time, you probably know that I love "women's fiction". Lately, I have been struggling with what to actually call it. Is it offensive to female authors to call their books "chick lit" or "women's" fiction? Should I just call it contemporary fiction or literary fiction?  To continue reading her post, go here........


Women's Fiction, Women's Literature or Chick Lit????  (Participate in Poll on my sidebar please)


I think Women's Fiction and Women's Literature is the same but Chick Lit is completely different.  Can you imagine if non readers thought all female authors only wrote Chick Lit :-0  I wrote non readers because obviously we know different, right?

I consider Women's Fiction to be by a female author that has a main character that is female in the story and usually the story is about family - the way families deal with issues, abuse, illnesses, mainly emotional storylines.

I consider Chick Lit to be funny, light, nothing serious, just a straight forward what happens in women's lives that is 'girly'.

And there are many female YA authors that write about extremly dark situations, Chick Lit, I think not.  Would I say Women's Fiction, no, Young Adult is the perfect genre name.

Maybe we should just call it Adult Fiction.  I say this because there are books I read this year that could have been written by a man or woman in my opinion.  Here are immediate one's I can think of.

The Weight of Silence - female
The Wednesday Letters - male
Still Alice - female
Letter to My Daughter - male

I would never put Jodi Picoult in the category of Chick Lit, would you?   And what would you say about Nicholas Sparks?  If he was female I would still put it in a different category again - Romance.

So in the end my opinion is that Women's Fiction and Chick Lit should be categorised seperately.  I prefer Fiction to Literature because to me that sounds more 'professional, almost doctorate level' so to speak.

My final answer is: Adult Fiction

This was my response to Jennifer's post....

Good idea Jennifer. I would not say I enjoy Chick Lit, maybe 1 - 2 a year but I would definitely say I love Women's Literature or Women's Fiction. I would never put them in the same category, they are completely different to me. I will have to think about this further.


Men's Fiction = Porn, lmao, that is hilarious. (read her post to understant comment)

I can immediately think of these 2 books which I really enjoyed and they are so different.

Still Alice or Firefly Lane (I consider Women's Fiction)


and


Secrets of a Shoe Addict (Chick Lit)

 
Join in on the conversation here and over Crazy for Books with Jennifer.
 
Thanks for visiting Tea Time with Marce