Someone seriously needs to invent a term to replace chick lit, mostly to take how derogatory it sounds off of it. What I mean is that I want a genre name for a work of fiction that depicts what goes on inside a woman's head, but that can't make it out to be a bad thing either. It doesn't necessarily have to be light reading, it can be serious, of course. It just cannot make it sound like writing about a woman is a horrific thing to do and is only dedicated to other women.

On top of the quest for this term, there is also the quest for the perfect book, and trust me, it's not Fiona Gibson's words that are going to put an end to the search.

It's not a bad book. It got fairly good reviews everywhere and better reviews than most books this genre I've read. It just wasn't for me.

I suppose that when you pick your books at random like I do, you're bound to find things you don't like and books you will not want to finish. But I'm not a quitter.

The story in a few words is the one of Charlotte Bristow, a woman on the verge of a mid-life crisis. Her husband is unemployed and it doesn't seem like he wants to do anything else than cooking and gardening, and her daughter Rosie is enlisted by a model agency. I don't even know what to say about this book, to be honest. I think I found it fairly bland and uneventful and uninspired and if the mid-life crisis theme could have gone well, in my books (pun not intended), it just didn't.

If this book had been turned into a movie, it would be one of these German romances you see on television on Wednesday afternoons. (Is that an international thing or is it just in France? Also, I haven't watched television in months, are they still a thing?) Not exactly my cup of tea.

If I have to delve into the book in more detail, I'd just say that Charlotte is a frankly annoying character. It seems that every chick lit (lacking of a better word, sorry) lead has completely forgotten that the basis to a healthy relationship is communication, and then they spend half the novel wondering why things go wrong with their husbands or children. The husband, Will, is just as annoying, and it seems that in every chick lit novel, parents have completely forgotten they have been teenagers themselves in the first place and can't quite comprehend why their kids are not their babies anymore when they hit sixteen.

There was, thank God but also Jesus, a little bit of comic relief in there, with the new neighbours - parents that are young at heart and dress as if they were going to a Motorhead gig, accompanied by a teenage boy in a band - and Charlotte's boss, the kind of slightly eccentric character that distracts you from how dreary and dull the book you're reading is for about two pages.

It qualifies as very light reading but not even that distracting, and I suppose it also qualifies as the kind of book you'd read on the beach or in an airport. I'd say don't bother. Or something.

The endless quest for the perfect chick lit novel, therefore, continues.

(Regarding the quote, it made me smile and it is something I could say about myself, and, quite frankly, the way I feel after a hungover)