The brightly colored spines of books that line the shelves in the Barnes and Noble "young adult" section create an appealing visual display vaguely reminiscent of the gummy section of a candy store.
And ironically, many of the books in the section are just as sugary as their candy store counterparts.
But while the writing in books like "Gossip Girl" and "The Clique" has been criticized for its superficial storylines and the unrealistic lifestyles it portrays, the books are accomplishing one thing that any literature-loving person should commend: they're getting teens to read.
And with literary reading rates among young adults ages 18 to 24 decreasing from 53.3 percent in 1992 to 42.8 percent in 2002, according to a study conducted by the Census Bureau for the National Endowment for the Arts, any reading should be encouraged.
But when students pick up "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" instead of spending their time with Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" or Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" it is hard not to ponder if there is a decrease in the quality of literature and how that affects the way students look at literature.
According to Beth Yoke, the executive director of the Young Adult Library Services Association, students shouldn't hold themselves to a certain standard of literature when they choose to read for pleasure.
"Teens are like adults in that they have a wide variety of reading tastes," Yoke said. "Adults don't read just 'Moby Dick' and that kind of stuff all the time. Adults read People Magazine, and that's really what the 'A-List' and 'Gossip Girl' is for older teens.
"It's more of escapist reading," she said.
But with society's infatuation with the lifestyles of the rich and famous, through television and celebrity magazines, comes the infiltration of that genre into the literature world.
Popular books like "The Devil Wears Prada" and "The Nanny Diaries" both take place in the ever-popular setting of New York City. But the protagonists in these books don't hang out in the Bronx or local neighborhoods in Brooklyn - Manhattan is the playground for many characters in the "chick lit" genre.
And it comes as no surprise that many of the books falling into the genre of "teen chick lit" use the same basic storylines and structure. The force behind these books is Alloy Entertainment, a powerhouse producer of all things "teen."
The company, which produces series such as "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" and "Gossip Girl," is located in New York City. According to an article written by Associated Press writer, Colleen Long, the staff of editors at Alloy takes care of every aspect of the book, and that includes finding writers to finish the book. The ideas for the novels are formulated by careful research on what girls eat, drink and wear, and the text is then written by the authors.
Molly Coniglio, who works at A Novel Idea Bookstore, 118 N. 14th St., said that publishers play a larger role in what types of books get published today than they used to.
"Everyone is always looking for the next great thing that is going to just break the art form wide open," she said. "When the next big thing is found, anything like it can sort of hop on and go. What sells, sells."
And these books sell.
The novel turned movie, "The Devil Wears Prada" stayed on the New York Times Best Sellers list for six months, and five of Alloy/Little Brown and Co.'s "Gossip Girls" books debuted at number one on the Times' list.
Maddie Morris, a sophomore nutrition and dietetics major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said she went through a phase where the teen chick lit books were the only type of novels she read, but, as she got older, she found other types of literature more worthwhile.
"I think everyone goes through the fluff-book phase," she said. "I don't think there is anything wrong with it, though.
"It's kind of like the book version of Laguna Beach. Everyone knows that what they're watching is trash, but they do it anyway. It's entertaining."
Maureen Honey, a professor of English at UNL, said that stereotyping romance novels and chick lit books as poor writing isn't fair because the books serve the purpose of entertainment and aren't meant to stick around forever.
"It's more complicated than saying this is good writing and this is poor writing," she said. "You have to look at to what market, to what audience are they writing.
"The mass audience writer writes very fast to a deadline and works to a formula. Early writers didn't do that."
The similarities between contemporary classics such as J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" and the chick lit books may be minimal, but the general consensus among professors and librarians is that the type of books students are reading doesn't matter just as long as they're reading.
"Teens have a lot of required reading for school and after a rousing read of 'Billy Bud', they want to pick up a graphic novel or magazine," Yoke said. "Not all of it has to be serious reading."
