Monday, January 7, 2008

The Woman Who is Always Tan and has a Flat Stomach


The Woman Who is Always Tan and has a Flat Stomach, Lauren Allison and Lisa Perry. Grand Central Publishing, March 2008.

I have to admit that I’ve stopped attending PTA functions, ceased accepting invitations to book clubs and scrapbooking parties, and have firmly decided not to attend the school gala this coming spring. Why, you may ask, have I become a hermit in my own backyard? Truth be told, it’s all the other moms; you know, the Alpha moms who never have a hair out of place, dress impeccably (even at morning drop-off) and can bake fifty cupcakes while developing a plan to end world hunger. Although I consider myself a pretty confident woman, when in the company of these perfect females, I pale and slither back into my shell. It’s easier to just stay away and hang with all the other turtles.

Lauren Allison and Lisa Perry address these annoyances and others in their humorous collection of essays, The Woman Who is Always Tan and has a Flat Stomach (Grand Central Publishing, 2008). There’s the “nutrition mom” who has a heart attack when she discovers you’ve fed your child trans fat; the “scrapbooking mom” who spends her hours documenting every action of her well manicured children; the “knitting mom” who crafts clothing out of yarn; and the woman who never gains an ounce, her stomach perpetually flat, her face always tan. Allison and Perry are not sexist in their diatribes – a good portion of the book focuses on husbands who ask or give inane instructions or the man who chooses to repaint the house right before company arrives. A light-hearted read, the book is one we can all relate to, for surely we’ve met one of these caricatures along the road.

Insightful and funny, these authors write what most of us (I’m speaking for myself here) want to say but don’t…because of course, we’re the woman who is always nice on the outside but is seething on the inside.

Midori by Moonlight


Midori by Moonlight
Wendy Nelson Tokunaga
St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007

Midori Saito has always dreamed of marrying an American man; so when Kevin, an American teaching in English in Japan asks for her hand, Midori follows him to San Francisco. Unfortunately, Midori’s dream soon becomes a nightmare when Kevin breaks off the engagement, leaving her to fend for herself. In Midori by Moonlight, author Wendy Nelson Tokunaga delivers a funny, heart-warming take on the typical “fish out of water” story.

Midori, determined to stay in America, calls upon the assistance of Shinji, a friend of Kevin’s and a Japanese ex-patriate working and living in the city. Like Midori, Shinji favors American woman especially his current girlfriend, the Japan obsessed Tracy. Although Shinji offers Midori a share in his apartment, he is clear that she must pay the rent. Unable to get a job as a pastry chef (throughout the novel, Midori creates exquisite deserts and downs huge quantities of pastries), she takes a job as a hostess in a karaoke bar in Japantown: a job that humiliates her but pays the bills and does not require a green card. While the odds are clearly stacked against our heroine, she refuses to give up and soon finds that she has chosen (even in the face of difficulties) the path she was always meant to take. The fish soon finds that the American dream can be grasped by anyone determined to reach for it.


Tokunaga explores the life of an immigrant and the nature of the dream of freedom, both internally and externally, in this work. Via a plot that is certainly a chick lit format, the work delivers on its goals

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy StatementThis is the web site of Literature Chick.
Our postal address is 71 Roundtop Road, Yonkers, NY 10710We can be reached via e-mail at efeig@hotmail.comor you can reach us by telephone at 914 484 4688
For each visitor to our Web page, our Web server automatically recognizes no information regarding the domain or e-mail address.
We collect no information on consumers who browse our Web page.
The information we collect is and .
With respect to cookies: We do not set any cookies.
If you do not want to receive e-mail from us in the future, please let us know by sending us e-mail at the above address.
From time to time, we make the e-mail addresses of those who access our site available to other reputable organizations whose products or services we think you might find interesting. If you do not want us to share your e-mail address with other companies or organizations, please let us know by calling us at the number provided above.
From time to time, we make our customer e-mail list available to other reputable organizations whose products or services we think you might find interesting. If you do not want us to share your e-mail address with other companies or organizations, please let us know by calling us at the number provided above.
If you supply us with your postal address on-line you will only receive the information for which you provided us your address.
Persons who supply us with their telephone numbers on-line will only receive telephone contact from us with information regarding orders they have placed on-line.
Persons who supply us with their telephone numbers on-line or not applicable.Please provide us with your name and phone number. We will be sure your name is removed from the list we share with other organizations
With respect to Ad Servers: To try and bring you offers that are of interest to you, we have relationships with other companies that we allow to place ads on our Web pages. As a result of your visit to our site, ad server companies may collect information such as your domain type, your IP address and clickstream information. For further information, consult the privacy policies of:www.adify.comwww.advertising.com
From time to time, we may use customer information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at some time in the future we will contact you before we use your data for these new purposes to notify you of the policy change and to provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses, we will post the policy changes to our Web site to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our Web site periodically, we will post the policy changes to our Web site to notify you of these changes and we will use for these new purposes only data collected from the time of the policy change forward. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our Web site periodically.Customers may prevent their information from being used for purposes other than those for which it was originally collected by e-mailing us at the above address.
Upon request we provide site visitors with access to no information that we have collected and that we maintain about them.Consumers can access this information by or can not access informaiton.
Consumers can have this information corrected by sending us e-mail at the above address.
With respect to security: We have appropriate security measures in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of information that we have collected from you at our site.
If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us at the above addresses or phone number, The DMA's Committee on Ethical Business Practices at mgoldberger@the-dma.org, The Federal Trade Commission by phone at 202.FTC-HELP (202.382.4357) or electronically at http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/complaint.htm.

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our Web site. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here: http://networkadvertising.org/consumer/opt_out.asp