Chick Lit or Horror? – Gravity vs. the Girl review

Inbetween Sundays, one of the weekly podcasts I subscribe to, has this little fun little segment called Chick Flick or Horror Movie, where one of the hosts would say the title of a movie and its synopsis, and the other would have to guess if it’s a horror movie or a chick flick. Easy enough? Not for the hosts, both male, which is part of the fun: I find it hilarious to hear them think that Britney Spears’ first movie Crossroads is a horror movie. The thing that struck me about the game is the fact that there are few grey areas, since genres in Hollywood seem to be mutually exclusive. Most commercial movies are typically classified only under one specific genre: a comedy movie may be able to teach life lessons and bring some tears to but it won’t be classified as a drama, just like a horror movie cannot be a romantic comedy.

Books, however, are a different story. In literature more so than in cinema, genres evolve as more and more books are written and published. Nowadays, many books are a mixture of two or more genres. Of course, it’s not always easy to classify books into their respective mixed genres, especially if you're rather broad and loose with classifications, as I am: I only really divide books into two genres, fantasy and non-fantasy. Anything that falls out of the ordinary is fantasy for me.

Which brings me to my conundrum with Riley Noehren’s Gravity vs. the Girl. This Whitney Award winner for Best Novel by a New Author in 2009 reads like standard non-fantasy chick lit right from the opening pages: Female protagonist with high-powered job and a weakness for shoes and pretty things - check; female protagonist who suffers a breakdown and has to re-learn life on her own once again - check; attractive male lead that the protagonist hated at the start - check. All the way down to the pink cover, the first impression the book gives screams chick lit, except for one thing: ghosts. But not in the traditional undead sense.

Samantha Green has everything a single woman could want in life: a law degree, six-figure income, a nice high-class condo in Seattle filled with fancy furniture, and a very nice shoe rack. She’s smart, successful and independent -- or was, that is, up until a year ago. After experiencing a serious burnout, she quits her job and spends the next year in her pajamas locked up at home, eating Jello and sleeping the day away -- until a girl who seems very familiar bugs her to get up and ride a bike with her. In the next few days, Samantha meets a lot of other familiar people: a young teenager, an idealistic college student, an attorney -- all familiar because they are all Samantha, ghosts of her past out to haunt her because of the person she’s become.

Gravity vs. the Girl is an interesting novel. The focus was not, as I'd initially assumed, on a big revelation at the end as to why she left her former life -- the reasons are laid out throughout the book, if you read carefully. It's the characters who really carry this book, and the way that the story is told makes it feel like you're listening to an old friend talk about her life.

Samantha was a fun character: she’s admittedly wounded, and she knows that she doesn’t have anything to be proud of at this moment in her life. The supporting cast gave a strong impression too: Samantha’s dad is the loving yet awkward father who’d do everything for his daughter, including pay for her mortgage at a condo she doesn’t live in; Libby, Samantha’s cousin, is both annoying and eventually pitiful as her story emerges; Melissa, the ex-high school best friend who wasn’t really a friend at all. Alex Martin, the college nemesis-turned-boss-turned love interest, was well drawn, with a character that made the readers fall in love with him the same way Sam did. Even the TV personality that Sam learned to love, Starene, influenced the story.

The most important members of the supporting cast though, are the ghosts, who have their own voices, making them unique and almost like different people, but still with a common unity that comes from being, well, just personifications of different stages of Samantha. Most chick lit books focus on how a character changes over time, especially after a huge, often devastating event. Many use an "external" influence-- a guy, a therapist, a group of friends-- and that holds true in a sense for Gravity vs. the Girl… except the influence isn't really "external", in the tradition of the angel-and-devil over the shoulder, or the ghosts of past, present and future ala Scrooge (although all of Samantha's ghosts come from the past). The ghosts allow Noehren to tell Samantha’s story in a novel way, but the writer thankfully avoids turning them into magical problem solvers. The ghosts never give Samantha a direct answer or solution, but they provide her with companionship and memories, and ultimately, a reason not to regret the decisions of her past. Samantha still ended up figuring her life on her own, with the ghosts merely providing a helping hand. Just like stereotypical ghosts, too, they didn’t stay forever: once their unfinished business was done, they found their peace and disappeared.

I think the only thing I can’t quite figure out in is how Samantha managed to talk so often to her ghosts without other people around seeing her. She didn't really encounter stares and confusion of other people, which I found strange. Samantha did, however, get a glimpse of the ghosts that haunted her cousin, so perhaps others around her were dealing with their own "ghosts", but that wasn't established explicitly -- there was little of the world building you'd find in a regular fantasy.

Gravity vs. the Girl is clearly chick-lit, and whether or not it qualifies as fantasy (or paranormal, if you prefer) may be in the eye of the beholder. It’s a shame that not too many people know about this book--what with the lack of detailed reviews, although there are a lot of gushing comments on Amazon --since one thing that you can say for sure about this book, is that it is an excellent read. Isn't that all that matters in the end? As one of its few reviewers said, Gravity vs. the Girl is sheer delight.

The book is available in an Amazon Kindle edition that currently sells for USD4.99 (P228).

[Image source: rileynoehren.com. Copyright holder/s maintain appropriate rights.]

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