\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was kind of a bummer to see more \u2018literary\u2019 female authors sort of joining in the condescension,\u201d says Weiner, the scare quotes around \u201cliterary\u201d almost audible. She likens the women who railed against chick lit to the female apparatchiks\u2014apparatchicks<\/em>?\u2014in the Trump administration. \u201cThe closer you are to power, which is white men, it\u2019s like you align yourself with the voices that are pointing at someone else. And by extension, you are not that thing. But the thing about that kind of power, I guess, is you only have it until the people who are giving it to you decide to take it away.\u201d<\/p>\n And eventually, like all trends, chick lit did fade away. Perhaps it\u2019s because publishing is characterized by boom-and-bust cycles. Perhaps, as Weiner points out, the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession dimmed the public\u2019s appetite for frothy stories about the pursuit of Birkin bags. Perhaps crossover YA hits like Twilight<\/em> and The Hunger Games<\/em> ate into the genre\u2019s core demo.<\/p>\n The final nail in the coffin may have been Gillian Flynn\u2019s Gone Girl<\/em>, a 2012 juggernaut that primed the public for twisty, femme-centric thrillers\u2014a hunger that still hasn\u2019t faded<\/a>. To sell a chick-lit-adjacent book now, you\u2019d need a dead body. Weiner and Sykes have both seen the writing on the wall, following their chick lit classics with murder mysteries of their own.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n