I was chatting with a male patron recently, and he wanted to know what makes a book "women's fiction". As a non-librarian, non-book industry person, he wanted to know, was it simply books about women? Well, it's a little more nuanced than that.
As we talked, one of the points that came up was that the majority of readers of women's fiction seem to be female. This may simply be a generalization, but it's held true in my experience and at the libraries I've worked at. And one thing I've also noticed — women read across the board, while men don't. I often see women reading a Harlan Coben thriller, a recent nonfiction blockbuster, or a hard-boiled detective story, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find a male reader who counts Nora Roberts, Jennifer Weiner, or Sophie Kinsella among his favorite authors.
So, if women will read just about anything, what's the special appeal of Women's Fiction?
Women's Fiction is that catch-all term that covers fiction focused on the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of contemporary women. It's difficult to call it a genre, because the story can blend with so many other genres — there can be mystery or suspense elements, it can take place in a different era, it can be funny, or sad, or often both. For example, Maeve Binchy is straight-up Women's Fiction, no matter if her stories take place in contemporary Dublin (Quentins, 2002) or small-town Ireland in the 1950s (Circle of Friends, 1990). And even though Jennifer Cruisie's novels are laugh-out-loud funny and have great sex scenes, I think of them more as Women's Fiction than as Romance, because the heart of the story is a strong, sassy heroine, her friends, and her life issues rather than just revolving around getting the guy.
However, when a reader picks up a Women's Fiction novel, what she is really looking for is a sense of recognition. As a reader, I love being able to identify with a character. From sad moments to happy celebrations to "thank goodness that never happened to me" — it's pleasurable and comforting to escape into a story that you connect with on a certain level. If I had to boil it down, I would say — we read nonfiction to learn something; we read suspense to get a thrill; we read science fiction and fantasy to take ourselves to another world; we read Women's Fiction to identify with someone and feel a satisfying sense of recognition. You could say that means "Character" is the appeal, according to the Saricks and Pearl models; but goes beyond that—it's not just interesting characters, but those with whom we feel a certain camaraderie and rapport.
As I explained some of this to my patron, he of course then wanted to know, "So, what makes something "Men's Fiction?"". Well, that's a little harder to pin down. Is there such a thing as "Men's Fiction"? I jokingly told him that everything else was men's fiction, and that women just choose to read it, too! But is that really true? The Adventure genre is to men as Romance is to women, and once upon a time, Adventure novels were even categorized as "Male Romance". Is there a contemporary equivalent to "Male Romance"? All the books I could think of right off the bat were books that I know have female readership as well. Is there a sense of recognition in typical "male" books? Are our male readers even interested in that factor?
REBECCA VNUK is currently the Adult Services Director at the Glen Ellyn (IL) Public Library. She is the author of two Reader's Advisory nonfiction titles for Libraries Unlimited, Read On…Women's Fiction, and Women's Fiction Authors: A Research Guide. A long time reviewer and collection development article writer for Library Journal, she was named Fiction Reviewer of the Year in 2008. She is currently the chair of the Adult Reading Roundtable, a premier Readers' Advisory group based in Illinois, and was recently made chair of the ALA RUSA CODES Reader's Advisory Committee.