Armchair Travel

I'm not a big chick-lit kind of girl. From time to time, I pick one up for a little fun. But in most cases, if I wander past Meg Cabot, I get annoyed. The writing is artificial and the plot is Disney with a bit of "Adult content" thrown in. Everything is contrived and overworked and unrealistic.
Every once in a while, though, I come across a more bearable one. I think the thing that makes these books more enjoyable is when the offer some little multi-cultural twist. Frangipani succeeded because it's a study of cultural and generational differences. (Though some would argue that this belongs in the group of books unpleasantly labeled "mum-lit", not chick.)

Coffee and Kung Fu made it only because of this. In most ways, it's your typical young-woman-in-the-big-city-with-a-boring-dead-end-job. Her grandpa is the only one who understands her. And she's dating a guy who's obviously a jerk.

But she's a missionary kid and she grew up in the Phillipines, and despite the books title, she's really more of a perfectly-prepared-jasmine-tea-served-ceremonially kind of girl.

And the ending - I trust none of you are really going to run out and read the book - is satisfying, because the girl dumps her stuff on her parents, buys two plane tickets with the money her grandpa leaves her, and jets off to Hong Kong, expecting the barista guy she hardly knows to follow her in a few days. Which we all know he will.

But that's not the point. The point is, she goes somewhere to be happy. So despite the love lesson that is necessary in every chick-lit novel, I find this one to be a bit more realistic. I guess it's just closer to home for this reader.

I finished the book, finished my tea, and rushed off to school to finish the draft of the analysis section of my IRP. As you can probably guess, it isn't going that well. No one really wants to read about people stopping caring about consequences and rushing off to do something exciting and gutsy when they have to put on their coat, walk across a common room with gluey floors from last night's birthday party, and sit in a computer lab that is hospital-like in its whiteness.

I'd much rather fly to Hong Kong.

And then you'd all be reading about something more interesting than my ventures into chick-lit reading.