wish fulfillment

I read Big Girl Panties by Stephanie Evanovich recently. It has a humorous and intriguing title and, of course, Stephanie Evanovich comes from a famous writing family, so I had high hopes. ;) In a nutshell, this is the story of a thirty-two-year-old widow with weight issues who meets a handsome single personal trainer... It's a romance, so you know what's going to happen. Evanovich does a nice job; this is well-written.

To me, this read like a wish fulfillment fantasy for overweight women. The overweight woman meets the perfect man and he helps her discover the healthy woman inside and they fall in love along the way. I'm reminded of another famous author, Stephenie Meyer. IMHO, Twilight was a wish fulfillment fantasy for teen-aged girls. Basically, you can be an average girl and hot exceptional guys will fight over the opportunity to love you.

In my unscientific survey, I deduced a lot of novels involve wish fulfillment fantasies. And a lot of them sell very, very well.

What do you think? Do you like reading wish fulfillments? Writing wish fulfillments? If so, you're not alone. ;)