Remember that time your face broke out and you went to your boyfriend’s house and his roommate called you scarface? Or remember that time when you got all dolled up in Mazatlan and you were strutting down the sidewalk turning heads and you tripped over a crack and ended up face down on the pavement? Or perhaps you remember the time you finally screwed up the courage to call that guy from work only to realize two minutes into the conversation that your friend was wrong, this guy couldn't be less interested in you?

We’ve all had these kinds of humiliating moments. Even today, years later, we think about them and cringe. An unzipped fly noticed only after you taught that class, smudged mascara noticed only after a presentation to a client, a burp in a job interview, a ripped seam at prom.

No matter how many humiliations you may have had, however, the protagonist of any chick lit novel, and I mean ANY chick lit novel, has had oh-so-many more. Therein lies one of the charms of the genre, what I call The Cringe Factor. As you turn the pages of one of these novels, you are comforted by the fact that somebody has had more humiliations than you have, a lot more.

With the recent release of the Dell mass market paperback edition of Can You Keep a Secret?, author Sophie Kinsella delivers just this kind of medicine to thousands of American women. Emma Corrigan, a mere marketing assistant who yearns to be a marketing executive, flubs her first big meeting when she pours the product she’s hawking, her company’s sports drink, all over the client. Of course, this particular beverage just happens to be fizzy and very, very red. “No matter what I’ve done," we all sigh in relief, “I’ve never done anything that bad."

Chapter Two brings yet another series of crushing events. As Emma endures a turbulent flight back home after her disastrous presentation, she confesses to a stranger sitting next to her all her darkest secrets – including such gems as her dislike for Woody Allen films, jazz, her boyfriend, her cousin, and G-strings. Even the novice romance novel reader – and chick lit novels are nothing if not romance novels – can see that this stranger will show up in Emma’s life soon, and show up he does, as the billionaire head of the very corporation she works for.

As we follow the budding romance of Emma and her boss, Jack Harper, Kinsella offers us ever more cringe-worthy moments. For instance, Emma pretends to have read Great Expectations and bluffs her way – quite badly, of course – through a conversation with her co-workers and Jack. In yet another horrifying moment, Emma’s friend and co-worker Katie comes into the marketing division to ask if Emma will go over some numbers with her. The problem? Emma is being observed by Jack who already knows – due to the plane confessions – that “go over numbers" is a code that means “let’s skip out and go get coffee at Starbuck’s."

If the one-note, chatty-conversational-breezy style of chick lit bores you, if pratfalls never were your thing, if you simply cannot face another Cinderella story – even if it does have modern, working girl twists, this novel is definitely not for you. If, on the other hand, you relish the light, humorous prose that characterizes this genre and a good romance novel defines page-turner for you, Kinsella definitely delivers. You’ll root for the hapless heroine as she struggles for promotion and her Cinderella ending.

And then there’s The Cringe Factor bonus. What a relief to know that somebody, albeit a fictional somebody, has had far more humiliations than even you.

March 2006

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