What I’m reading ~ 50 Shades of Grey ~ E. L. James
Posted: March 7, 2012 Filed under: What I'm Reading | Tags: 50 Shade of Grey, E.L. James, what I'm reading 6 Commentsor at least I tried to.
I know that the book is about Dominance and Submission, I was prepared for that, and honestly it wouldn’t have been my first book on the theme. If I were really honest, it probably wouldn’t have been the 50th (though, admittedly I haven’t counted.)
So why couldn’t I make it through 50 Shades of Grey? Because I found it so poorly written I couldn’t stand to read it any longer. It was like Stephanie Meyer wrote a BDSM novel. *gag* Only worse.
First problem? The story is told in first person, present tense. Why is this a problem? Because it is REALLY, REALLY hard to do well. And this wasn’t done well. I felt it was shallow, stilted and emotionless. I read about five chapters in and I rolled my eyes and wanted to spork my eyes out about twice a page (screen, I read on a kindle.)
The characters had about as much depth as Bella Swan. By that I mean no personality at all. I wanted to slap Anastasia at least once a screen for some stupid or childish thing.
About the fifth time I wanted to throw my kindle across the room and tell them both to get over themselves I found a new book to read.
Well makes sense since 50 shades is originally a twilight fan fiction. Lmao.
That explains so much about it. It really gets me that such poor examples of writing are not only being published but are making it to huge popularity. Is this what story telling in our country has fallen to?
Thank you for saying this…I felt exactly the same way! For me it is akin to the Emperor’s new clothes…everyone is going on about what a fabulous outfit it is..and I’m like “but he’s not wearing anything at all.” People are saying I am crazy but I just can’t get through it. Sex for sex’s sake is not what makes good reading.
I’ve heard there’s gonna be a movie too. I’m wondering how they’ll manage it without the movie being rated X? Also who will they get to act in it? Didn’t they get all the actors capable of doing shallow, one dimensional characters to play in Twilight?
Nice 🙂 I had a similar reaction, if you’re interested in reading about it, you can check it out here http://wp.me/p20SuK-1a. I work for a self-publishing company called Kbuuk, you can visit our home page at http://kbuuk.com
Personally, I feel like one of the problems with 50 Shades is that its an easy read, and it’s entertaining for most readers because it’s so taboo, so it excites them and they want to talk about it, proving again that word of mouth is still the most effective marketing tool available. Then it just becomes a curiosity and people have to read it just to know what all the fuss is about. That’s why I read it. I stopped at book 1 though. I’m one of those have to read it cover to cover, even if it feels like torture and someone is sporking my eyes out kind of gals.
Argghhh! I hate typos, I missed an apostrophe. My bad, c’est la vie.