Fifty Shades of Grey

[Karla]

Phoned up my mother yesterday. She's a kindle author with several books to her name and she has read it for research. She says it's complete rubbish. Apparently the man is a  27 year old billionaire who has sex all the time and everyone is always going on about how handsome he is.

Sounds like it's just porn for women. I personally don't know why porn isn't ever written well but then I suppose it becomes erotica then. The only difference being that porn is bereft of all other qualities it seems existing to fulfill one purpose only.

[Dan]

Sounds like it's just porn for women. I personally don't know why porn isn't ever written well but then I suppose it becomes erotica then.

How do you know porn is never written well. I'm not familiar with the genre but I assume there must be some that is well written. Just because that particular author mastery of the language is even below that of Stephenie Meyer doesn't invalidates all erotica.

Is there anyone more knowledgeable that could enlighten us?

From what my female friends told me, Harlequin moved from romance to erotica/porn a while ago. If someone read one, is that any better?

[Infinity Biscuit]

So if you find yourself hating any of these books or films, you may argue that you hate what they represent. But if you think about it, doesn't that mean that you are in effect also hating the intended audience? After all, the books and films are designed to appeal to something fundamental about the audience's psychological character and doing it rather successfully.

I have no idea how you come to this step and it seems like a defensive knee-jerk, except you haven't read the books apparently so I'm not sure why it would be that so I'm confused :P

But regardless, while there are many people who unfortunately cannot dissociate criticism of things they like from criticism of themselves due to how much they're invested in it (whether it be sports teams, video games, television shows, or whatever), there's no connection between simply criticising something and disliking the people who do like it. I mean, I dislike stuff people I love like and I obviously don't hate them, and I'll even openly mock how terrible stuff I like is. Now, granted, if the criticism of this book is "people who like it must be stupid," then yes I can see where that'd be problematic, but simply "this thing is terrible for reasons x-z" is criticism and if you don't allow criticism of fiction then something's wrong.

I haven't read 50 Shades but most of the criticism I've seen has either been shock of "something this bad shot to popularity out of nowhere so quickly" or the more important "this book has a damaging message".

[Petrucio28]

Just an update, I read Fifty Shades of Grey, and got to the third chapter before I stopped reading it. Does it get any better?

[Mysterion]

Any thoughts?

Yeah, I'm disturbed at its popularity.

For those unaware of what that book is, there's this neat review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/340987215

Best ending to a review.... Ever.

[Petrucio28]

I have to admit that I don't understand how it could be so popular now that I've read the beginning of it. I very rarely read part of a book and then stop reading it, but this is one of the books that I felt I didn't think would be good enough to finish.
Would someone explain why so many people think it's good?

[Fitz1980]

I don't think it counts as new being Twilight fanfic. If Stephenie eventually writes her next book and people hate it, they'd still be hating pretty much the same thing.

No, it really is Twilight fanfic.  It started as a fanfic featuring Bella and Edward doing BDSM.  It was posted to a fanfic website and after several complaints over it's sexual nature the writer pulled it down and rewrote it as an original piece.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty_Shades_of_Grey#Background

[Stuart]

Anything that makes MILFs that little bit kinkier is ok with me 

[Zeraf242]

I just listened to the first ten chapters of the book. My opinions about it may offend many people.

[Stuart]

I just listened to the first ten chapters of the book. My opinions about it may offend many people.

It probably won't offend me, go for it.

[Zeraf242]

First of all when i was listening to it i was well aware that it was fake. More than a fiction should. In my opinion, Anne obviously was infatuated with Christian from the start but she insisted on not wanting to be involved. Then she keeps on trying to seem nice and trying not to make him mad. I would think that if you don't want to see anyone anymore you wouldn't care if you made them mad or not. Especially if they stalk you and always know where they are. I don't think anyone would want that. Then she finally breaks down with him and goes to Seattle. The reason why i think she did? She was "Hot and Bothered". She wasn't thinking about who Christian could actually be or what he might do to her. He could have been a psychopath who kills people in his basement. He already seems to have short violent outbursts when things don't go his way which indicate to me that he would be an abusive man. I thing that only reason she went along with it was because he was handsome. If he were unattractive he would have been slapped with restraining orders and labeled as a pervert.
Then two things when they were in Seattle scared me. First, was his line about how he doesn't "make love" but rather "F**k's". I would think that any girl hearing that would want to leave the house immediately. But she doesn't. Then he shows her the pain room but she still doesn't freak out. If i were a woman i would have ran out of there screaming. At this point, i completely believe that it was a miracle that she passed her final exams in college.
That was about all i listened to except for the sex scenes because the first one i went through made me nauseous and angry by the fact that he didn't use a condom and made me almost cry because she gave away her virginity to a guy she barely knows who only wants to use her body for relief. Then i know that she must sign the contract eventually which just makes me sad for her. I had to take a break from it for a little bit to collect myself because in my mind it was both emotional and physical rape.

After i reached chapter ten i stopped and probably won't start reading it again. The book just seemed unreal to me and too depressing.

And she needs to stop listening to her inner goddess because it has a reckless attitude that might get her killed. (Hope it doesn't.)

That's how i feel about it even though many others may not agree.

[Pitti]

I have read that the book will be filmed and Emma Watson is supposed to play the lead role.

[naturallynude]

For those buying the audio book.

[Anasui]

I want to read it because my sister has been telling me to read it. And the cover art is breathtaking (my dream job is to be an illustrator for books. Children's books in particular) and I can see a lot of work was put into it.

The sexual part of the book doesn't interest me at all, though. Just want to read the book to see why everybody is going crazy over it.

[nudetrail]

i dont think i will be reading it but a lot of women have and will be