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Popular romance, in whatever media it may come, is often an expression of a frivolous or silly social mythology, and a value judgement on the social mythology is likely to be more relevant to criticism than a value judgment on the literary merit - Northrop Frye, The Secular Scripture

Or as as the novelist George Elliot in the Westminster Review essay "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists (1856)" so daintily described it as 'a genus with many species', including the "frothy," "prosy", "pious," and "pedantic," and condemns it all to witless.

Everyone who knows me, also knows that I do not do romantic, often chick lit potboilers, very well. In fact, I prefer to save the chickerati as well as their books from disaster by not reading it and then not reviewing it. I'm doing them the favor of the century, sort of (that's a little bit of my massive egotism on display, humor me, please). Not that they need my humble favors at all. For instance, an estimated $137 million rattled the banks through chick lit sales in America alone in 2005. Bridget Jones and her stiletto sisters, get the female groupies to laugh, love and live happily ever after in astounding numbers. Where an average chick lit novel may sell 5000 copies, author such as Marian Keyes, with her novel The Other Side of the Story sold a whopping 488 508 copies in 2005. Get my drift? My ego is seriously over inflated in trying to do them a favor!

Remember the old song 'Little Boxes by Pete Seeger? It goes something like this:

"Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes
Little boxes
Little boxes all the same
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same
And the people in the houses all go to the university
And they all get put in boxes, little boxes all the same
And there's doctors and there's lawyers
And business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same
And they all play on the golf course and drink their martini dry
And they all have pretty children and the children go to school
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university
And they all get put in boxes, and they all come out the same
And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family
And they all get put in boxes, little boxes all the same

Different Little Boxes have different buyers and there are many to choose from. The Little Box with a picture of a glass of martini and/or stilettos stuck to it, is the chick lit number. Also called Shoe Lit. Inside, a protagonist, a young professional woman who is trying to make it in the corporate world will be found, with relationship issues, financial woes, a shopping addiction, and circle of like-minded friends. She is on the hunt for Prince Charming in her pursuit of her modern fairy tale ending.

Life is tough and time is precious. We carefully choose our Little Boxes in which we want to climb and escape reality, right?

So why do I expose Jojo Moyes to this fate of being reviewed by me? Well, the author convinced me to spend a few valuable hours on her writing with her book Me Before You, thanks to the raving reviews encountered on GR by my highly respected friends. Jojo Moyes got me reeling in different directions at once. It was a magnificent read. Most importantly though, Jojo Moyes redefines chick lit by adding a little more substance and soul to her tales. And she doesn't have the stilleto and martini-duo on the cover at all! Neither the pearls and the lipstick applied to perfect lips.

Sooooo, it was time to try again. I do have the follow-up book, The Girl You Left Behind but prefer not to read it. I chose One Plus One instead.

From the blurb:

Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied and your math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you can’t afford to pay for. That’s Jess’s life in a nutshell—until an unexpected knight-in-shining-armor offers to rescue them. Only Jess’s knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has big problems of his own, and driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages . . . maybe ever.

The reason why this often very funny novel worked for me is that it was the perfect antidote to my recent dark and stark reads of the past several weeks. I wanted to read something light, but not necessarily fluffy. This book was a perfect choice. It's still not a genre I want to pursue often. Formulaic and just too boring in general.

The tale is oh so chick chick chick lit for sure. The bone structure of this genre is perfectly and safely intact. However, with her journalistic background, she adds meat to the bare bones with real issues challenging the outcome. The reader's journey becomes much more than a satirical take on Pete Seeger's Little Boxes. There's an oomph to the tale which even convinces a chick lit-phobic like me to nod in approval and instead of punching the air with a Torquamadian middle finger, I conclude the experience with a four star thumbs up!