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This past week, I walked into a Chapter's to calm my nerves and soothe my psyche. Walking through the fiction section, I noticed that every fourth or fifth shelf contained a batch of books coloured in hot pink, bright yellow, and orgasmic orange. What other book genre would boast such colours? Chick-lit!

What is chick-lit? Chick-lit is an abbreviation for "chick literature", or girly novels. Some examples would be the Shopaholic series, and the "Something Borrowed, Something Blue" books. I would even group in some romantic, dramatic novels, such as "The Time Traveller's Wife". Since I was bored with nothing to do, I picked some of them up and started reading a bit.....who am I kidding? I picked them up because I was insanely interested.

VS
As a guy's guy, let me tell you: this is a no-brainer.

I admit it, I love novels that deal with issues that are considered girly: most notably, love, dating and romance. Unbeknownst to many of my peers and family members, I've read, and own, several dramatic novels that can be considered chick-lit (think again if you think I'm going to list the titles!).

Although the interest is there, I can't read the extremely girly books (the one's covered in the aforementioned colours). Not only because I'll have to surrender my balls at the register when I voluntarily pay for these books, but because they approach the topics of interest from the female psyche. Wanting to read a chick-lit, I was faced with a dilemma. So I did the only thing I thought I could do--I immediately went home and started googling "girly novels for guys" and putting in the appropriate queries on amazon.ca and chapters.ca. And I found some interesting things.

I stumbled across a blog of a (female) romance writer, who states that "22% of romance readers are male.", although the percentage of these male readers who are coerced into reading them by their girlfriends/wives is not mentioned. Second, in England, dick-lit, or "lad lit", as it is referred to over there, is a surging literary genre. Hence the rise of UK lad lit writer Nick Hornby, who wrote "About a Boy" and "High Fidelity", books that may be considered girly but approach the subjects with the male psyche in mind. Third, on amazon.ca, there are several guy readers who have posted their lists of favourite dick-lit books (I'm sticking to my own label for the genre).

It's great that there are more dick-lit books coming out, but..more, more I say! Hell, there are some of us that want to read up on all that dating/romance stuff too. We deserve it. And if you're laughing it up with the revelation that I'm a dating/romance junkie, suck my dick-lit.