Smart women can make strange decisions. Sometimes it's best not to question them. For example, when one agrees to marry you.

But when a former French/International Affairs major buries her latest copy of Foreign Affairs under a mini-library of pink-covered, narcissistic, booze-dripping, Prada-pushing, yuppie, neo-Harlequin chick lit, well, what's a husband to do?

Mock his wife incessantly, for starters. Then, when months of ridicule lead only to larger paperback stacks, a few nights of exile to the couch and a jealous suspicion that the sales guys at Barnes & Noble are invading his marriage, start to wonder, "What does she see in these things, anyway?"

And then, he might actually read some of them.

I took home a box of what the folks in our books section call chick lit and I call fashionista porn. These are the literary descendants of Sex and the City - the book and the television show. They are Cosmopolitan magazine in long form. They appeared, to me, the Perrier of books: overpriced, trendy and, in the end, devoid of all nourishment.

I stacked them up as high as the arm of our futon couch and got busy reading.

The basic chick-lit plot will be familiar to anyone who's ever bought something with a ripping bodice on the cover: Stubborn, independent woman secretly pines for a man, The One man, who will sweep her off her feet and into a life of constant romance, adventure and page-turning sex. Woman meets man, runs through series of complications, including all-out despising him at least once, before ending up in his arms.

Take that woman, plop her in Manhattan or London or the California Coast, give her a Lemon Drop, a hip-but-dead-end job and a Manolo Blahnik shoe fetish and voila! Chick lit.

The books paint what I'd call an updated-but-still-antiquated picture of women: They're bold and strong, but they're all unfulfilled. And in nearly every case, fulfillment means the perfect guy. Not that the guys are better now: They're either arrogantly roguish (like dozens of screenplays written for Colin Farrell) or earnestly sappy, or roguish-turned-sappy.

Worst of all, they enjoy a fantastic existence like the sort you dream up in high school, when it seems entirely possible that most of the sports/political/entertainment world could end up being run by people from your graduating class.

Who really becomes a Washington Post sports editor straight out of college, then marries a Capitols goalie? Who really has one older sister who's a pop-feminist icon and another who graces the Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover?

Why was I reading these?

Well, I was partly trying to have fun at the authors' expense. Partly I was hoping to learn something about writing good sex scenes for that Great American Novel I'm cooking up somewhere between writing political stories.

Mostly I was hoping to learn something new about my wife. Don't our guilty pleasures reveal a lot more about us than we think?

The immediate revelation, once I'd plowed through a few of the books, was that my wife has bad taste. I diligently finished one book after enduring an entire chapter about the main character's breasts - not so hot. It was very self-absorbed - and had about (I think) 8 million (I'm not exaggerating here) parenthetical clauses (really).

I ditched another book on page 30 of nearly 400, after guessing the entire plot based on the first chapter-and-a-half and a quick, confirming glance to the final page. (What do you know: She ends up with the best-friend guy who's been under her nose all along.)

The others bleed together: The boyfriends mistakenly thought to be cheating when they were with a cute young relative, the office assistants shagging their bosses but wishing for more, the snarky friends and the supportive friends and the sappy ends.

These books weren't the only evidence that my wife has bad taste. She loves *NSYNC. She doesn't care for Star Wars. She married me.

On the other hand, she's a fantastic decorator, a ballet buff and she basically dresses me, but I chose to overlook that.

When I hinted this was my early conclusion - bad taste - she smiled and nearly killed me.

"You're reading the wrong books," she said, thrusting Sushi for Beginners and Confessions of a Shopaholic my way, looking like she'd beat me with them if I didn't grab hold.

"Writing this story without reading these books," she continued, "is like reporting on bicycling without talking about the Tour de France."

The woman knows how to kick me where it hurts. I took the books.

Then I sat her down for an interview that was months overdue. Why, I asked, do you like these things?

They're a guilty pleasure, she admitted, but one you can relate to.

"If books are like outfits," she said, "this is your going-out-to-dinner-with-the-girls-and-going-clubbing-on-Friday-night outfit. This is tall boots and purple nail polish and a great pair of chandelier earrings."

Then she turned the questions on me, lover of John D. MacDonald and his sleuthing, houseboating hero, Travis McGee. Why do I like those books, she asks?

Escapism, sure, I said. Fistfights and sunshine and casual sex. But there's more: McGee is a tortured loner, forever introspective, wondering if he's slowing down or missing out, if a lack of intimacy is killing him. He's searching. And it ignites the searcher in me.

Me, too, my wife said. The characters in these chick-lit books - especially the good ones - are all searching in a way she relates to.

"It's becoming more complicated" to be a woman, she said. "You now have to have a successful career and a relationship all at once . . . with all those roles, I think that a sense of identity and how to define yourself - I think it's very tough."

Halfway through Shopaholic, I realize she's right on a couple of counts. All chick lit is not created equal. Shopaholic is fun and light, yes, but the character is believable and sympathetic. The writing's even pretty good.

And the character is searching for something - in a way that makes you ache and search with her.

By the end of the book I'm rooting for her. I'm eyeing the sequels lined up on our bookshelf. I'm thinking I might tackle another one.

Wonder what McGee would think of that.

A few of Jim's hits and misses

I HATED

• A Little Change of Face, by Lauren Baratz-Logsted. Implausible and utterly self-absorbed. I even hated the chapter on breasts.

• Tart, by Jody Gehrman. Unfun and unsexy enough to nearly spoil my memories of Santa Cruz, the book's setting. At least it has a moral: If you see your hot beau with a slinky young woman, don't assume he's dating a high schooler. They could be related.

• Sleeping with Beauty, by Donna Kauffman. She ends up with the nice guy. I just saved you 416 torturous pages.

I REALLY, TRULY LIKED

• Confessions of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella. Fun, flirty, with a sympathetic (and - gasp! - layered) main character. The writing is lively, the pages breeze by, and it's even spawned sequels, which my wife assures me are just as good.

Jim Tankersley recently left the News for a position as a political reporter at The Blade, in Toledo, where he hopes to spend the long winters catching up on his reading - preferably not chick lit.

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