I just finished the book "Bound South" by Susan Rebecca White. The novel tells the first-person stories of three Southern women who live in Atlanta. The main character is a middle-aged Southern belle and mother of two, the second character is her daughter and the third is the daughter of the main character's cleaning woman. It's classic chick lit, my favorite genre.
People (like Jeff) are always teasing me for reading these books. It's not real, my critics say.
Well, sure, technically the characters aren't real, though I bet they're loosely based on real people. And I'll admit that the circumstances in the books are just a bit too tidy to have happened in real life. But these chick-lit novels often focus on real issues.
"Bound South" explores issues of racism, classism and sexism in a humorous and intellectually honest way. The feelings and thoughts are real, though fictional characters are doing the feeling and thinking.
Maybe the best way to express a true – but unpopular – feeling is through fictional characters. No one wants to admit to the world that she feels something that could fit into one of those "ism" categories, but we all know those feelings exist.
Sometimes nothing is more real than fiction.
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