I will not be reading Fifty Shades Of Grey.
This is not because I am embarrassed at reading erotica (I'm sorry but George R.R. Martin took it there. I thought I was just getting a fantasy book... anyway, nothing moves you after him and Jackie Collins) and it's not because I think I'm too good for the books... it just doesn't interest me. Take away the erotica and all that's left is a romance. I'm not interested in romances unless there's something else to the plot, something substantial, hence why I don't mind supernatural romances. Even Twilight - yes, it was written badly, but the vampires gave it an edge so different to normal romances, and look where that ended up. Hey hey hey.
But when you're me, a young writer living in West London who used to write fanfiction and struggles with putting science fiction or fantasy books together, and then you find out that E.L. James has a bestselling trilogy with the film rights already snapped up and SHE also used to write fanfiction, and SHE lives in West London and she based her book off of TWILIGHT (?! Unbelievable shit!) Well. It was time to have a sit down and find out what the hell was going on.
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Fifty Shades tops 1m Kindle sales
Press Association – Tue, Jun 26, 2012
Racy publishing phenomenon EL James has seen her debut book Fifty Shades Of Grey become the first to sell more than one million copies for Kindles.
Online retailer Amazon.co.uk said she has already become its best-selling author of the year and the book is the biggest Kindle ebook yet.
James - whose real name is Erika Leonard - has had colossal sales for her erotic fiction books, with the paperback version of her debut achieving the UK's highest weekly sale for a paperback.
Amazon said the Kindle edition of Fifty Shades was outselling the print book at a rate of more than two to one.
Her trilogy of saucy Grey books was published in March. The film rights have already been snapped up.
Gordon Willoughby, director of EU Kindle, said: "EL James's books have become both the fastest-selling and the best-selling series ever on Kindle - that's an exceptional achievement for a debut novelist and we're excited to see her pass the one million sales milestone."
According to Wannabe A Writer by Jane Wenham-Jones, it's okay to have Writer's Jealousy. Honestly, Fifty Shades Of Grey is not a book I would want to be famous for writing - it's not my style - but it's also the fastest selling fiction book of all time, surpassing even Harry Potter (- !!) so E.L. James must be doing something right.
Working in a bookshop, it's hard not to notice that I'm selling one of the Fifty Shades trilogy books every five or so transactions. It's literally flying off the shelves. At the start of the day, the shelf is full, at the end, there's barely a few copies left. And yet, the highest reviews on Amazon only gave it one or two stars, claiming it to be badly written. I can't help but share the ones that most amused me.
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FROM AMAZON.COM
10,274 of 10,659 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I really don't like writing bad reviews. I admire people who have the courage to put pen to paper and expose themselves to the whole world, especially those writing erotica. Having just finished this book, however, I feel compelled to write a review.
About half way through the book, I looked up the author to see if she was a teenager. I really did because the characters are out of a 16 year old's fantasy. The main male character is a billionaire (not a millionaire but a billionaire) who speaks fluent French, is basically a concert level pianist, is a fully trained pilot, is athletic, drop dead gorgeous, tall, built perfectly with an enormous penis, and the best lover on the planet. In addition, he's not only self made but is using his money to combat world hunger. Oh yeah, and all of this at the ripe old age of 26! And on top of that, he's never working. Every second is spent having sex or texting and emailing the female character. His billions seem to have just come about by magic. It seriously feels like 2 teenage girls got together and decided to create their "dream man" and came up with Christian Grey.
Then come the sex scenes. The first one is tolerable but as she goes on, they become so unbelievable that it becomes more laughable than erotic. She orgasms at the drop of a hat. He says her name and she orgasms. He simply touches her and she orgasms. It seems that she's climaxing on every page.
Then there's the writing. If you take out the parts where the female character is blushing or chewing her lips, the book will be down to about 50 pages. Almost on every single page, there is a whole section devoted to her blushing, chewing her lips or wondering "Jeez" about something or another. Then there's the use of "shades of". He's "fifty shades of @#$%% up," "she turned 7 shades of crimson," "he's ten shades of x,y, and z." Seriously?
The writing is just not up to par, the characters are unbelievable, and the sex verges on the comical. I don't know what happens in the remaining books and I do not intend to read them to find out. But given the maturity level of the first book, I imagine that they get married, have 2 perfect children, cure world hunger, and live happily ever after while riding into the sunset, as the female character climaxes on her horse causing her to chew her bottom lip and blush fifty shades of crimson. Jeez!
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FROM AMAZON.COM
8,678 of 9,034 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
I enjoy erotica and heard so much about this book that I had to give it a shot, but I'm five chapters in and just can't take it anymore. This has to be the most appallingly atrocious writing I've ever seen in a major release. The pseudonymous British author sets the action (such as it is) in Washington State... for no reason than that her knowledge of America apparently consists of what she read in "Twilight"... but the entire first-person narrative is filled with Britishisms. How many American college students do you know who talk about "prams," "ringing" someone on the phone, or choosing a "smart rucksack" to take "on holiday"? And the author's geography sounds like she put together a jigsaw puzzle of the Pacific Northwest while drunk and ended up with several pieces in the wrong place.
And oh, the repetition...and the repetition...and the repetition. I'm convinced the author has a computer macro that she hits to insert one of her limited repertoire of facial expressions whenever she needs one. According to my Kindle search function, characters roll their eyes 41 times, Ana bites her lip 35 times, Christian's lips "quirk up" 16 times, Christian "cocks his head to one side" 17 times, characters "purse" their lips 15 times, and characters raise their eyebrows a whopping 50 times. Add to that 80 references to Ana's anthropomorphic "subconscious" (which also rolls its eyes and purses its lips, by the way), 58 references to Ana's "inner goddess," and 92 repetitions of Ana saying some form of "oh crap" (which, depending on the severity of the circumstances, can be intensified to "holy crap," "double crap," or the ultimate "triple crap"). And this is only part one of a trilogy...
If I wrote like that, I'd use a pseudonym too.
Like some other reviewers, what I find terribly depressing is that this is a runaway bestseller and the movie rights are expected to sell for up to $5 million. There are so many highly talented writers in the genre... and erotica is so much more erotic when the author has a command of the language and can make you care about the characters. For examples, check out the "Beauty" trilogy written by Anne Rice under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure, or any stories by Donna George Storey or Rachel Kramer Bussel. Just stay away from this triple crap.
*UPDATE*: Thanks to the many other perturbed readers who have shared their own choices of the most annoyingly overused phrases in this masterpiece. Following up on their suggestions with my ever-useful Kindle search function, I have discovered that Ana says "Jeez" 81 times and "oh my" 72 times. She "blushes" or "flushes" 125 times, including 13 that are "scarlet," 6 that are "crimson," and one that is "stars and stripes red." (I can't even imagine.) Ana "peeks up" at Christian 13 times, and there are 9 references to Christian's "hooded eyes," 7 to his "long index finger," and 25 to how "hot" he is (including four recurrences of the epic declarative sentence "He's so freaking hot."). Christian's "mouth presses into a hard line" 10 times. Characters "murmur" 199 times, "mutter" 49 times, and "whisper" 195 times (doesn't anyone just talk?), "clamber" on/in/out of things 21 times, and "smirk" 34 times. Christian and Ana also "gasp" 46 times and experience 18 "breath hitches," suggesting a need for prompt intervention by paramedics. Finally, in a remarkable bit of symmetry, our hero and heroine exchange 124 "grins" and 124 "frowns"... which, by the way, seems an awful lot of frowning for a woman who experiences "intense," "body-shattering," "delicious," "violent," "all-consuming," "turbulent," "agonizing" and "exhausting" orgasms on just about every page.
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FROM AMAZON.CO.UK
2,291 of 2,357 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Oh My, I mean really, Oh my, oh my, oh my......No readers, I have not just been whipped (pardon the pun) into a bosom heaving wreck by the size of my partner's "impressive length". I have in fact, just dragged myself through to the final page of this ludicrous nonsense and found myself almost speechless. Almost...
The main character, Christian Grey, is quite obviously deranged. This does not however, deter Ana, who for some inexplicable reason, has spent so long with her head in a book that she has never looked in a mirror and noticed that she is a "total babe". A "total babe" who also happens to be a 21 year old virgin. No, Ana, in the space of 3 weeks, falls so crazily in love with "Mr Grey" that she manages to bypass the whole deranged thing and instead concentrates all her efforts on a) going from virgin to porn star faster than Hussain Bolt off the blocks and b) deciding whether to let him hit her with stuff. As you do.
As for Mr Grey, obviously, readers can't be allowed to see him as simply a deranged, manipulative psycho so let's give him smouldering good looks, a few zillion quid to throw around and hey, and this is the clincher, the ability to love art and music (y'know, like Nazi's do in the war films). (Note - the bit where he plays the "haunting" piano piece, semi naked, with his eyes closed actually made me laugh so much that I almost wet myself - in a non-orgasmic way. Check it out....enjoy! ). As if that wasn't enough he also has a personal and financial interest in saving the world from famine. Just that old world peace and cancer to sort out and then hey, job's a good `un. I mean really, how did the world ever shamble along without him? So what made this beautiful, charismatic and talented man so brutal? Could it be a traumatic childhood perhaps? Why, yes I think it could...yaaaaawn....
So, the 2 beautiful people come together (Oh my, another pun) and the rest of the book is basically about Ana wondering if she should let him hit her with stuff and then letting him hit her with stuff and Mr Grey wondering if he should stop hitting her with stuff but still hitting her with stuff while she whines on about wanting "more" love and less of the hitting stuff and he whines on about how he doesn't know how to give "more" cos he has only ever hit people with stuff.
In between these nonsensical blatherings they have lots of sex, which, like piano playing, speaking foreign languages and making zillions of quid, he possesses boundless expertise. Obviously. Luckily, virginal Ana also has her "inner Goddess" to guide her on the art of sex play and soon becomes an orgasm machine, chucking them out all over the place in a rampant, fevered haze of lust. So much so that she overlooks Mr Grey's general bastardry and bends over nicely for a few beatings. She is also too enraptured to take much notice his incessant stalking, which would have got lesser men arrested. Oh, and his `feeder' tendencies that, if successful, would have surely added a good 10 stone onto Ana's lovely buttocks which in turn would have incurred the cost of a refurb' to the `red room of pain' when his ceiling shackles needed reinforcing. Luckily he can afford it.
As many other readers have noted, the writing is appallingly poor and, if you removed the sex bits, would resemble a love struck teenager's diary. It's all been said before so I won't dwell on it. I will just say, if you are looking for erotic fiction, look elsewhere, if you are looking for an unintentionally laugh out loud bit of fluff and nonsense then crack open a bottle, put your feet up and prepare to be amused. Personally I would just say that there goes a day of my life that I will never get back. Oh my!
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FROM WIKIPEDIA.ORG
Background
The
Fifty Shades trilogy was developed from a
Twilight fan fiction originally titled
Master of the Universe and published episodically on fan-fiction websites under the pen name "Snowqueens Icedragon". The piece featured characters named after
Stephenie Meyer's characters in
Twilight,
Edward Cullen and
Bella Swan. After comments concerning the sexual nature of the material, James removed the story from the fan-fiction websites and published it on her own website, FiftyShades.com. Later she rewrote
Master of the Universeas an original piece, with the principal characters renamed Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele and removed it from her website prior to publication.
[8] Meyer commented on the series, saying "that's really not my genre, not my thing ... Good on her – she's doing well. That's great!"
[9]
This reworked and extended version of
Master of the Universe was split into three parts. The first, titled
Fifty Shades of Grey, was released as an e-book and a
print-on-demand paperback in May 2011 by The Writers' Coffee Shop, a virtual publisher based in Australia. The second volume,
Fifty Shades Darker, was released in September 2011; and, the third,
Fifty Shades Freed, followed in January 2012. The Writers' Coffee Shop had a restricted marketing budget and relied largely on book blogs for early publicity, but sales of the novel were boosted by word-of-mouth recommendation.
Film adaptations
It was reported that
Mark Wahlberg's production company was in the middle of buying the film rights to the trilogy
[36] until several studios, including
Warner Bros.,
Sony,
Paramount, and
Universal Pictures entered bids for the film rights,
[6][37] with reports stating that James was requesting to retain some control during the movie's creative process.
[38] On March 26, 2012 it was announced the rights had been secured by Universal Pictures and
Focus Features.
[39] Actors
Ian Somerhalder and
Ashley Benson have expressed interest in acting in the film.
[40] In June 2012, it was reported that
Angelina Jolie was interested in directing the film and was currently in talks to direct the adaptation.
[41] American Psycho writer
Bret Easton Ellis publicly expressed his desire to write the screenplay for the film stating, "I'm putting myself out there to write the movie adaptation of
Fifty Shades of Grey..."
[42]
Did I mention? I didn't give up my day job.
Good thing too. I'm putting this whole writing thing on the shelf.
Once, I thought it was worth the stress, but... that was before I
started cutting myself. I say that now, but I will probably write
something tomorrow.) Anyway, ce n'est grave pas. I'm tired now.
All this thinking makes my head hurt.
Star xx
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