I read the series, i didn't think it was that bad. I read at first because a lot of people were making fun of it and i like to form my own opinion so i put it on my kindle. I didn't know it started out as a Twilight fanfiction until after so i didn't judge it before reading it. I thought it was funny. She wasn't trying to be serious about it. I read the rest of the series but i didn't like the last book that much because of something that happened in it. I have read a lot of fanfiction so i know what bad writing is and I'm not a snob so i didn't go into it automatically hating it because other people did. I enjoyed it. I don't know how they would make it into a movie as it is literary porn so it would have to be M or at least R rated but whatever.
If you want to read it then read it. Don't hate it because other people do or try to force yourself to hate it because people don't know how to let people enjoy what they want to enjoy without putting them down and being a snob.
Okay, I can't write this without spoilers, so I'll put them in Hide tags.
I read these books because I had to, and George Takei convinced me to start reading. The fact that everyone I knew who had read them called them things like "modern day Kama Sutras" gave me hopes of reading something new.
Honestly, the most enjoyable parts of the series were when the quotes Takei read popped up and I mentally heard him read them again, and a few e-mails between Christian and Ana that I found funny.
For the rest, I was seriously let down. I heard it was about BDSM, but all I read was that the main male character is a psychotic bastard
SPOILERX
who likes bitch-slapping the shit out of brunettes who have signed a never-talk-about-this contract and passing it off as BDSM
, and the main female character has absolutely no personality of her own, she's just a bundle of adoration for Christian. The "modern day Kama Sutra" ended up being more or less the same sort of vanilla sex over and over in different locations, occasionally throwing in a
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"playroom" scene which always involved Ana letting Christian push her over her limits and crying and generally only resembling BDSM scenes because they involved whips and chains. Also, during vanilla sex they almost always "find their release" simultaneously and it's always more mind-blowing than the last time, because maybe that'll make it sound less repetitive, right?
. Oh, and I just couldn't relate to the story or any of the characters in any way. The only character who has a little depth is Christian, and I couldn't stand him and his misogynist ways. I tried reading this as the writer's erotic fantasy about having an obscenely rich boyfriend at first, but then it quickly became too dull to keep that up.
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Also, didn't anyone else find it annoying that almost every female in the books has the hots for Christian and almost every male wants to get into Ana's panties, who in turn thinks she's sooo ugly but is a "total babe" as per her friend?
Here's another thing that made me want to put this book away and never open it again: 50 Shades teaches people that
SPOILERX
severe childhood traumas that have twisted your personality to the disgustingly misogynist, stalkery, utterly negative person you've become, can be completely undone by spending a few weeks with your girlfriend. Who was, by the way, selected because she had brown hair and Christian likes to hurt brown-haired girls because they look like his "crack whore" mother and he wants to hurt her through them, which makes perfect psychological sense, amirite?
Newsflash: if spending billions on all kinds of psychiatrists and therapists to help you deal with your trauma won't make it go away, having a girlfriend won't magically make your issues disappear either. If it would, everyone with issues would just get a partner and loads of therapists would lose their jobs. I understand 50 Shades is fiction, but Christ, at least make it less blatantly ignorant concerning basic psychology.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiverpass
We all have our own different tastes and there are people who think certain books are good and certain books are bad. (...) It bothers me when people talk down on it though. Some people are just too critical about something so mainstream/popular.
Are you saying that people can think certain books are bad, but shouldn't voice that opinion? What does the popularity of a book have to do with someone criticizing it? Harry Potter is hugely popular and I loved those books when I was younger. A Song of Ice and Fire is becoming really popular thanks to Game of Thrones, and I'm happy for it because it means I have more people to talk to about the books AND I can now get merch.
No, the 50 Shades books being popular has little to do with my opinion, except that it spreads the wrong image about a certain lifestyle to an audience that's way bigger than I would like. What makes me dislike the books is the blatant ignorance toward psychology I already described, the blatant ignorance toward BDSM several others have brought up in this topic, and the other reasons I listed in the beginning of my post.
I have not read this book... but from my experiences hearing about it... I can't understand why people would read this in public. I mean especially if this is even slightly accurate:
A lot of people seem to be walking in on family members reading this...
In all my opinion I loved Twilight, atleast it didn't have sex scenes looming up behind every signle corner...
I've read 50 Shades of Grey, and since I do not like leaving a series hanging behind I decided to read (Book 2 & 3 I guess) but I don't think I would have ever finished reading without bleeding my eyes so I gave up, eventually XD
Heard so much about this book.. I haven't read it yet tho.. my sister said it's a very good book but I'm not into that kind of reading I'm a fussy reader... I need to be interested in something for me to want to read it and it needs to hold my attention for me to finish a book.. I guess I should do some research and check out reviews and stuff and if it grabs my attention that much.... then I might just read it and see for myself how good it is lol
