Last summer I went on holiday with the girls that I lived with. I brought three books with me and had them all read a few days into the holiday. So we decided to swap around the books that we'd brought. However, the one that I ended up with, as you can probably guess, was Fifty Shades of Grey.
Last summer this book just exploded onto the market. Everyone was reading it. On the plane, on the bus, by the pool. It was crazy. I knew what was in the book because when my friend was reading it, she would read us passages aloud when it got to a particularly "interesting" bit.
Now I'm quite partial to a good innuendo, I have my mother to thank for that. I'm in no way 'prude' but this book just had me curling my toes... and not in a good way.
Here are some gifs summing up my facial expressions.
As I got further through the book, I just ended up skipping over those bits because they just became boring and gratuitous. I never finished it, despite a few people who have read the whole series telling me that the writing/story gets better in the second two books, it had lost it's appeal and I was in no way interested in reading a single page more.
Now there seems to be a whole lot of erotic novels that have been springing up (pun absolutely intended) in book stores but Fifty Shades has completely turned me off venturing any further into the Erotica genre.
Have you read the series, and if so, what did you think? Was 50 Shades just a bad part of Erotica pool to dip my toes in?
Sarah x
Would you let one book keep you from continuing to read fiction? I wouldn't give up on it all together. Try my book "Going off Dreams" on Amazon.
ReplyDeleteGreat post-I totally agree with you! I only downloaded a sample and couldn't get past the first few pages. The quality of writing was what turned me off. I never even bought the book. I don't mind sex scenes, but they have to be tasteful and included inside good literature.
ReplyDeleteThat last gif cracked me up!
ReplyDeletePopped by from the AtoZ Challenge.
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No, I didn't read it and don't intend to, mainly because it's not the genre I'm interested in spending my time to read. I think your gifs said it best! LOL.
ReplyDeleteI haven't jumped on the 50 shades bandwagon, nor can I say that I'm really tempted to since I've heard so many people say it was so badly written. Mind you, many people said the same thing of the Twilight series and although I've only begun the first book, I don't see what's so wrong with it.
ReplyDeleteI loved the pictures depicting your facial expressions! Thanks for the laugh.
Have fun with a-z.
I have read all three books (with my husband) and we enjoyed them, and the story behind them. It is the classic, good girl meets bad boy, bad boy falls for good girl and good girl falls for bad boy, good girl changes bad boy, they live happily ever after. Could the books have been written better? Absolutely. The books are riddled with grammatical errors, but these aren't the first poorly edited books I have ever read, and they certainly weren't the worst. I think the type of sexual content (BDSM) is offensive to some people and I think some of the poor reviews were bases simply on that basis. Overall I would rate the writing as fair to average, the content explicit, and the story slightly better than average. I also did think the story did get better with the second and third books.
ReplyDeletePortraying S&M as something that should turn a woman on turned me off. We've worked too hard & come too far for that.
ReplyDeleteKathy @ Swagger Writers
I'm pretty sure 50 Shades will be the book most often found at a yard sale, used bookstore, or trash bin. Lots of people bought it, and the sequels, but I know so many people who didn't finish. I mean, bad writing is bad writing. Most people who kept with it did so because of the "naughty" parts.
ReplyDeleteThe good thing is that writers who've been writing erotica for years have gotten some attention because of this flash-in-the-pan series. So hopefully more readers will find the good books that aren't just a fanfiction gimmick!
Sidenote: I don't read erotica but there are some authors who write it tastefully: Roni Loren and Tiffany Reisz, if you're interested.
DeleteI just didn't like how they called it a romance book when it's porn. I've read books one and two, and I will read book three just to finish the series. Book one was the worst. Book two was worse. I'm guessing book three is bad. At least, it improved a bit. Still, it's all about a dumb woman and an abusive man. No romance in that. Buying a woman a lot of material things and then hurting her is not supposed to be in the category of a romance novel. But I guess, the author got her money, so who cares now. People bought it.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog.
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