Small wonder: The University of Iowa's Daily Iowan (registration required) profiles Small Favors creator Colleen Coover:

"I wanted it to be female-friendly without excluding men. Sometimes, there's a misperception that in order to write for women, you have to write down [to their level]. For example, [the notion] that all the female characters have to go to the mall or talk about how dreamy some guy is. It's forgotten that a female character is a character, not a version of a character who does girly stuff."