Rather silly and implausible, but a fun and quick read. ( )

ZERO stars. Absolutely TERRIBLE! No plot to speak of. Stilted dialogue. Just a waste of time. It was on the shelf in the cabin we rented and I'd finished the books I brought along. I'd have been better off watching TV.

It felt like the book was about 15 pages too long.

What is the point of a climax if you need another 20 pages to resolve all of the open story lines???? Some of which really did not need to be in the story in the first place. ( )

New York writer Lola Somerville is a bit annoyed. Her recently published book, Pink Slip, took hard work and putting herself on the line while all the other writers she knows seem to be achieving much more success with far less work. But when authors of successful chick lit books start being murdered, Lola gets involved in finding the killer, hopefully before the killer targets her.

Selecting a book based purely on its title and knowing nothing else about it rarely works out well for me but this one provided a satisfactory number of chuckles and a decent couple of hours entertainment. Having visited the place only once twenty years ago I've no clue if the New York depicted in the novel is realistic but it certainly was amusing, and some of it certainly had a kind of universal realism. Society's obsession with celebrity and the fact that in some circles every second person you meet does seem to be writing a book about not very much were just two of the things I recognised from my own environment.

The plot wasn't terribly complicated and I'm not sure that providing a really puzzling whodunnit was the author's primary aim here. There seemed to be much more emphasis on depicting the publishing industry and Lola's social set. That said, it was a logical plot and if the ending was more than a little unrealistic it was fun and in keeping with the tone of the book. At times though the book did verge on becoming exactly the kind of chick lit it was presuming to satirize with Lola agonizing over the most ridiculous nonsense. In fact I didn't find Lola as engaging a character as her husband Doug or her best pal Annabel.

Death by Chick Lit is a light, quick read that pretty much offers what it promises on the cover (not a foregone conclusion these days). It certainly provided me a pleasant distraction from a grim winter day. ( )