My Latest Grievance **1./2
By Elinor Lipman
Elinor Lipman follows the chicklit formula--smart, sassy chick rolls her eyes and learns to deal with people to whom she is clearly superior, but nevertheless loves.
In this case, the chick is a high school student being raised by stereotypical Boomer professors at a small women's college with socialist/utilitarian ideals they're trying to pass on to their hip chick high schooler.
Equally stereotypical is the dad's first wife, a flaky dilettante who comes to work at the college, ostensibly as a house mother, but is on the prowl for Husband #2.
Hip Chick is taken with Wife #1 and each tries to mentor the other with just one damn thing following another to a crescendo of mayhem that is supposed to be a humorous take on real life, but gets kind of grim, if you ask me.
Of course, Hip Chick turns out being the smartest cookie in the jar, and the other characters benefit from her smart-ass wisdom, and are dispatched pretty summarily in the final chapter.
This book is too long--chicklit editors really need to keep their authors to a strict 200-page minimum so that the kvetching doesn't overbalance the wisecracking and turn into a great big whine--but was readable, unlike "The Devil Wears Prada."
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