This Is Not Chick Lit: Original Stories by America's Best Women Writers

The stories in this collection range from dull to pretty good. I was correct in expecting good contributions from the likes of Aimee Bender, Samantha Hunt and Judy Budnitz, but the pleasure was, and as is desired when reading a short story collection like this, finding new future favorite authors. Dika Lam's story about two sisters and a 72oz steak-eating challenge and divorce was probably the funniest, leanest, and most substantial story there and I look forward to her first book, which at the time of this review, is not yet published. I also enjoyed discovering Roxana Robinson. Some of the more politically bent stories were just boring. Two of the stories, I couldn't stand for their pretension : Holiday Reinhorn's "Gabe", and Lynne Tillman's "The Recipe." ( )

The title of this book promises a great deal, but I don't think it quite met my expectations. A few of the stories were good, but the rest were just ok at best, and tiresome at worst. A few of them even seemed to be quite close to the genre they claimed to *not* be. Oh well. ( )