I’ve been meaning to talk about the Fifty Shades of Grey series for a while now, since I’ve finally fought my way through the third book.
Oh dear lord, why is this famous?
I will reluctantly give it this – and those who haven’t read both series may be surprised to hear this – it’s BETTER WRITTEN THAN TWILIGHT.
Significantly, actually.
That doesn’t mean it is GOOD.
“Better than Twilight” is like saying “better than having your eyes removed with a melon-baller”. You could still be referring to a root canal or stepping on a piece of lego in your bare feet.
To briefly compare, let’s go over all the things wrong with Twilight, shall we?
Okay, well, let’s briefly sum up the WORST things about Twilight:
1. Protagonist is dim witted and a terrible person.
2. Protagonist is a weak female who promotes all those unhealthy stereotypes of the fainting, delicate, door-mat princess who tries to look feisty by occasionally having an opinion about her own fate.
3. Love interest is a domineering, condescending, power hungry bad boy who repeatedly puts his own desires first.
4. Poor plot structure – story consists of purple prose romantic fantasy briefly interrupted by a random action climax completely unrelated to the previous 200 pages of story line.
5. Cardboard cut-out characters who often act against their directly-described characterization (e.g. a character is described as terse but then goes on long rambling diatribes).
Now, let’s compare that to its spawn, Fifty Shades of Grey (for those who might be unaware, Fifty Shades originated as Twilight fan fiction which took Edward’s creepy bossiness to a whole new level):
1. Protagonist seems aware of her surroundings and doesn’t repeatedly lie to her father, flirt with someone she is uninterested in for the express purpose of extracting information, or blow off people who try to be nice to her.
2. Protagonist is still a weak female who promotes all those unhealthy stereotypes of the fainting, delicate, door-mat princess who tries to look feisty by occasionally having an opinion about her own fate. Also, slight hints at an eating disorder.
3. Love interest is a domineering, condescending, power hungry bad boy who repeatedly puts his own desires first… but at least the protagonist recognizes that this is a problem.
4. Poor plot structure – The first book ends at the climax, and you don’t get the denouement until you pick up the second book. Then a random action sequence is inserted to create further tension in later books but seems constantly tacked-on to the main storyline
5. Protagonist and her love interest are actually surprisingly three dimensional. The rest of the characters are simply extras with no depth, however.
So, as you can see, it is MARGINALLY better.
If you put a gun to my head and said I had to re-read one of these two series, I’d pick Fifty Shades, hands down.
If you want, I can do a Twilight vs Fifty Shades series at some point, although it would sort of be like pitting Cow Pats vs Dirty Diapers.
Fifty Shades has elements that, in the right hands, could actually have made it good. It brought the world of BDSM into the light (albeit in ENTIRELY THE WRONG WAY), which is refreshing if also worrying. Although it’s also annoying because suddenly bondage is a fad and I’m like “lol wut?”
Either you’re into it, or you’re not, right? Why is it suddenly hot when previously it wasn’t? If women have been longing to be tied up all these years, why didn’t they just go to their husbands and say “hey, tie me up, would you?” And besides, the BDSM style it brought into the light was female-submissive, male-dominant, which single handedly took feminism back 100 years.
Anyway, the character of Christian Grey is actually interesting, if not likeable.
But then there’s the unalterable fact that it’s badly written. It provides a hideously unhealthy relationship example – remember kids, if he’s controlling, domineering, and seriously screwed up, you should put up with it as long as he’s good looking and says that he loves you – and it has creepy subliminal-messaging-style references to anorexia.
Check it out (spoiler warning – if one can “spoil” something that is badly written erotica to begin with):
The Main Characters:
Meet Anastasia Steele.
Her nickname is Ana, which also happens to be the name given to the personification of anorexia by people who think that anorexia is JUST WONDERFUL (yes, those people exist).
Coincidentally, Ana rarely ever eats. She never openly refers to purposely starving herself. Instead she just “forgets” to eat when people don’t directly suggest it. In the beginning of the second book she goes a whole week without seeing Christian and doesn’t eat at all during that time.
In fact, you never see her eating unless being urged to do so by someone else (although one time she anticipates this and goes to get a cookie so that later she can say “yes” when Christian asks her if she has eaten). Sometimes she is told that she is too thin, especially after the week of starvation where she dropped a billion pounds, but she assures the readers that she likes “being this thin”.
The food stuff gets even weirder because once she is actually bullied into eating she suddenly discovers that she is ravenous despite protesting moments before that she was not hungry at all, then tends to lose her appetite a few bites in, usually as an emotional reaction to something, such as a change in Christian’s mood, a new plot point being revealed, a slight draft, whatever.
Oh, and Christian Grey’s sister just happens to be named Mia, which also happens to be the name given to the personification of Bulimia.
BUT WHATEVER, I’M SURE THAT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING.
Ana has a lively mental imagery in her thought processes. She has broken her inner conflict into two sections – her Subconscious, who tends to raise eyebrows at her when she acts incautiously, and her (I swear to God, I am not making this up) Inner Goddess, who just dances around and gets really excited at the thought of sex.
I don’t have a problem with that PER SE, because I think it’s actually healthy to break up your self-talk a little bit. When you can say, “oh, that voice is the depression/anxiety/ANOREXIA talking” it is easier to address.
But I can’t respect or take seriously anyone who talks about their “inner goddess” when they really mean “the part of me who likes sex and who I must therefore distance from my main sense of self”. Also, her Inner Goddess is highly annoying and sometimes I want to punch it.
Ana fills the Madonna-Whore role by being both innocent and sex-mad. She claims to have never masturbated or ever been attracted to anybody ever, but explodes multi-orgasmically into the world of sex without so much as an “oh, that smells strange”.
Meet Christian Grey.
He’s Edward without the vampirism. In substitution for his vampirism he is a more realistic sort of monster – a seriously effed up guy with some major fetishes and control issues.
His backstory is elaborate and vaguely interesting. He’s somewhat three dimensional, in a stomped-on-cardboard-box kind of way. He’s a damaged, multi-faceted character who I actually find slightly believable and decidedly interesting. In order to make him seem more attractive, he is obscenely wealthy and good looking.
Ana is always insisting that she doesn’t like him for his money, but if he were unemployed, on the dole, and living in a basement apartment, do you think she would have stayed with him?
Throughout the story he roars around bullying and controlling everyone and everything while Ana rolls her eyes and calls him mercurial.
The main deal with Christian is that he’s into a hardcore BDSM lifestyle, complete with slave contracts.
I think that right here we have the primary reason for the series’s success, because the vanilla housewives of the world are so titillated to learn about what they could have been doing in bed all these years (although I don’t know why THIS book, since there’s lots of BDSM romance out there).
And then they freak out about a grown woman shaking her booty on the VMAs.
*sigh*
Moving on…
The… Er… “Plot”
So, Fifty Shades of Grey is primarily a romance story. It’s about the tension between Anorexia, I mean, Anastasia, and Leather Boy as she tries to negotiate a vanilla relationship while he tries to convince her to try being a submissive.
Ana scores two points over Bella Swann by a) recognizing that her boy toy has a problem with control and b) laying down some limits about what she is or is not comfortable with and actually insisting on having them respected. Whereas whenever Bella lays down limits, Edward completely ignores them and Bella just whines.
The two of them have a lot of playful email banter – very Bridget Jones – and they spend a lot of time trying to work out their differences. Occasionally they take a break to have kinky sex. Ana rolls her eyes and pouts a lot. Her inner goddess does a wide variety of dances. She gets upset when Christian spanks her.
It’s half decent character conflict, really.
The first book actually has quite a satisfying ending because it culminates with Christian going too far and Ana storming out. It’s like A Doll’s House. But with whips.
Then the next book happens and things get REALLY boring.
Christian immediately goes from “I want you to be my sex slave” to “I lurrrrve you. I ADORE YOU. We can scrap the BDSM stuff!”
Much like Rochester from Jane Eyre, he has discovered that he actually likes an aggravating woman who stands up to his crap every now and then.
…And somehow that doesn’t end the story.
Instead, this happens:
1. The sex gets much more boring, and even more frequent. I mean, the story is constantly interrupted by yet another sex scene. It’s like “Oh, dear god, they’re at it again. Didn’t they JUST HAVE SEX two pages ago? Can something interesting happen now? Oh, okay, they’re done now. Whew. Maybe now they’ll… oh, no, they’re going again…”
2. Ana constantly obsesses over the fact that she isn’t fulfilling his “needs” and suffers from debilitating inferiority and worry that he’ll leave her for a slave girl despite his CONSTANT WORSHIP.
TWO BOOKS OF THAT.
To interrupt the monotony of “I love you and I don’t want that lifestyle any more” vs “but your neeeeeeeds! I can’t fulfill your neeeeeeeeeeeds!” and miraculous amounts of ecstatic sex, E.L. James had to fabricate something else to create, you, plot.
So she invents a flirty boss to harass Ana who Christian then fires (because he bought the company that Ana worked for just so he could interfere with her work affairs YES THAT’S RIGHT). This guy then suddenly becomes psychotic and starts trying to assassinate Christian/kidnap Ana.
The evasion of this dude and his eventual capture are completely accessory to the main story line, which is the aforementioned push and pull of “should we have kinky sex yes or no??”
Meanwhile, Christian blazes around being unreasonably controlling/furious then fluctuating to apologetic and adoring while Ana rolls her eyes and goes “lol he is SO mercurial!!”
Again and again.
Seriously, look:
His name’s Christian. He’s beyond handsome. He’s wealthy.… too wealthy. He’s very complicated and mercurial.
Oh, the many faces of Christian Grey. Will I ever be able to understand this mercurial man?
Oh, he’s so mercurial . . . his mood swings are like a metronome set at presto.
How mercurial you are.
Holy cow, he’s switched again. My Mr. Mercurial.
“Eat,” he orders, his voice soft.
How does he switch so quickly from one mood to the next? He’s so mercurial… It’s hard to keep up.
My sweet, mercurial, controlling Fifty.
And no, that is not ALL the instances of the word “mercurial”. It comes up in every second chapter.
Eventually, they resolve their problems by agreeing to have kinky sex, but not living the full lifestyle, which was the obvious solution the whole time.
The Writing
Here’s where it really falls apart. Because if the repetitive and mind numbing plot weren’t bad enough, some of the writing just makes you want to *headdesk* so hard that you smash the screen of your Kobo (because I would never own a paper copy of this drek).
Perhaps the most obvious and glaring problem is the fact that the author hails from Buckinghamshire, but decided to set her book in FREAKING SEATTLE.
You know how EVERY aspiring writer is told “write what you know”?
Yeah. About that. People in Washington state shouldn’t talk like they’re from England.
I would never try to set a book in Buckinghamshire because you can’t just plop a story into a place you’ve never been and try to fake the language based on what you have heard on TV.
If you can turn the characters from Twilight into non-vampire residents of a different town in Washington, why not move them over to England? Set it in freaking London or something.
Superficially, you think it’s okay at first.
If I DID try to write a book that took place in England, I would know to use “trainers” instead of “sneakers”, “boot” instead of “trunk”, “lorry” instead of “truck” and so on. Most people can manage that and E.L. James has paid attention to these fairly major details for the most part.
But she didn’t proofread carefully enough.
In the very first book, Ana comments slightly obscurely “I rarely throw the toys out of my pram.” I took this to mean that she rarely makes a fuss. But it sounds bizarre coming from someone who was supposedly born and raised in the U.S. where NO ONE USES THE WORD PRAM.
But I could even try to ignore that. Ana is a real bookworm obsessed with classic literature, and obsessed with England in general. So I would give her leave to occasionally use British terms in a sort of fan-girl way.
But the rest of the characters also talk like British people who are trying to pretend they are American. Sure, they say “pants” instead of “trousers”, but then they talk about “ringing” each other and describe a nice dress as looking “smart”.
They say “shall” instead of “will” and they don’t use their contractions in an American way – they always say things like “I’ve not had sex before” instead of “I haven’t had sex before” the way a North American would. Words like “haven’t” or “isn’t” are rare in these books. It’s always “I’ve not” or “he’s not”.
A British person might not notice these tiny differences, but living just three hours from Seattle, I sure do.
I mean, I’m sorry, but no American would ask “how shall I fuck you?”
It sounds hilariously British to a North American ear. “Oh, pip pip and all that miss, terribly sorry to be a bother, but how shall I fuck you – shall we do it over tea and crumpets? Just lie back and think of England.”
WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW, PEOPLE.
And if you DO write something you don’t know, use Google to CHECK IT.
For example, say you know NOTHING ABOUT SPORTS. I’m not saying that E.L. James doesn’t know anything about sports, but if she does, she must some day explain to us how the hell Ana’s inner goddess managed a triple axel dismount off of the uneven bars.
That’s right. Somehow, the inner goddess manages to use a figure skating jump as a way of dismounting from some gymnastics equipment.
USE GOOGLE. Find a real dismount name. It takes two seconds. I found one. The Hecht Dismount. Or Korbut Flip. WHATEVER.
On a similar note, what on EARTH is with the Medulla Oblongata? Ana repeatedly refers to her subconscious self as rising out of her Medulla Oblongata. Did E.L. James pick up on this part of the neurological anatomy from an Adam Sandler movie? What the hell does the Medulla Oblongata have to do with your SUBCONSCIOUS?
Your Medulla Oblongata regulates your breathing (maybe Bella Swan is missing hers), decides when you vomit etc. I’m pretty sure your Medulla Oblongata does not in any way sit around reading classic literature and then look severely at you over its spectacles when you think about sexy times.
E.L. James was a History major. I have said this before, but if you are an Arts major, don’t try and incorporate science into your book without a quick stop at Google.
AND GET AN EDITOR.
The Feminism
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Yeah, there’s none of that.
Oh, sure, good ole’ Anorexia occasionally has flares of feistiness and objects to, say, her boyfriend buying the company she works for and then changing company policy just to stop her from going off to New York to attend a conference she’s really interested in, or when he hits her to the point where she is bawling her eyes out.
And some third-wave feminists might try to point to the fact that she enjoys sex as liberating, but honestly, aren’t we past that stage? The woman who likes sex is well represented in fiction of all varieties, probably to the point of setting unrealistic expectations for women who think it’s just ok.
Besides, if you really want a book about a woman taking control of her sexuality, write a book where the WOMAN is the dominant and the MAN is the submissive. Why does it have to be the man in control and the woman all tied up? That’s just called HISTORY.
And the fact that Ana rejects the role of submissive doesn’t make her a feminist heroine. We’re talking about someone who is constantly berating herself for pissing him off, even as she complains to him about how bossy he’s being.
Look how spunky she is:
and still so bossy, but I can’t complain, he’s in my bed. I don’t quite understand why.… maybe I should weep more often in front of him.
It’s liberating to be out, relaxing, enjoying Kate’s company. I contemplate texting Christian then dismiss the idea. He’ll just be mad and make me go home like an errant child.
My heart sinks. Oh shit! I really am in trouble. My subconscious glares at me, then shrugs, wearing her you-made-your-bed-you-lie-in-it face. What did I expect? I contemplate calling him, but it’s late and he’s probably asleep . . . or pacing.
I decide a quick text may be enough.
*I’M STILL IN ONE PIECE. I HAD A NICE TIME. MISSING YOU—PLEASE DON’T BE MAD*
Eat,” he orders. “You didn’t eat yesterday.”
Oh, bossy Fifty!
“That’s because you were being an arse.”
Mrs. Jones drops something that clatters into the sink, making me jump.
Christian seems oblivious to the noise. Ignoring her, he stares at me impassively.
“Arse or not—eat.” His tone is serious. No arguing with him.
“Okay! Picking up spoon, eating granola,” I mutter like a petulant teenager.
I cannot believe how fond I am of Taylor, but I really don’t appreciate being scolded by him—he’s not my father or my husband.
NEED I SAY MORE?
In Summation
I don’t blame E.L. James for inflicting this book on us. She wasn’t trying to create great literature. She was clearly just masturbating with her computer keyboard.
…Publicly.
I blame the WORLD for the success of this book.
The fact that this book caught on just makes me wonder if people use their brains.
I mean, I’m sure all the BDSM stuff titillated the millions of sexually starved vanilla housewives who think OMG RIDING CROPS THAT’S SO EXOTIC, but come on, REALLY? First of all, couldn’t they have been titillated by some sexy literature that DIDN’T present the man as the dominant, bossy one?
The sex isn’t even well written! It’s worse than Jean Auel’s sex scenes, full of inherently unsexy words like “groin” and “clench” and “moisten”. And the vocabulary is bizarrely random. Ana seems comfortable using words like clitoris and vagina, but always refers to her anus as “there“.
To top it all off, she constantly says “oh my” during sex, which I can’t help but hear in George Takei’s voice.
And sometimes, I hear it all in Gilbert Gottfried’s voice, thanks to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K1RcKJVbHA
Here are some of my favourite laugh out loud moments:
I found some baby oil. Let me rub it on your behind.” Christian squirts baby oil onto his hand and then rubs my behind with careful tenderness — from makeup remover to soothing balm for a spanked ass, who would have thought it was such a versatile liquid
I eye Christian’s toothbrush. It would be like having him in my mouth.
“Hold on to the sink,” he orders and pulls my hips back again, like he did in the playroom, so I’m bending down.
He reaches between my legs and pulls on the blue string… what! And… gently pulls my tampon out and tosses it into the nearby toilet. Holy fuck. Sweet mother of all… Jeez.
I have wanted to do this to you for some time now, Ana.”
I groan. And I feel something cool, metallically cool, run down my spine.
“I have a small present for you here,” Christian whispers.
An image from our show-and-tell springs to mind. Holy cow. A butt plug.
I’ll just stop there because you’re probably squirming from ALL THE SEXINESS.
Just remember: THIS SOLD BETTER THAN HARRY POTTER.
If By Yes 
Yup.
I have never read Fifty Shades (I’d heard it was badly written and this blog confirms that) but I do like Twilight! I do agree writers need to write about what they know, and being English myself, even thought we are exposed to a lot of North American lingo, would never presume to write accurately in an American style. (Please tell me though that you know nobody in England EVER says ‘Pip pip’ or ‘What ho!’, although I will at least admit to having a crumpet for breakfast) x
If you like Twilight, the bad writing probably won’t bother you, because it’s no worse/slightly better than Twilight :-p
Yes, I definitely know that the average British person doesn’t say “pip pip” but I wish they would. EVERYONE should say pip pip.
I’ve not been able to bring myself to read Fifty Shades and I don’t think I will.
Don’t ask how I can read Twilight and not this, but it’s true.
I won’t ask, but I’ll wonder :-p The prose is slightly less purple and it’s more grammatical, and there’s a lot more tension. But it’s still pretty bad.
Also, I’m amused that you said “I’ve not” instead of “I haven’t” and yet aren’t British. Way to prove me wrong!
If my grandmother was British, does it count? 🙂
Maybe. Good save!
“She claims to have never masturbated or ever been attracted to anybody ever, but explodes multi-orgasmically into the world of sex without so much as an “oh, that smells strange”.”
*slow clap* Gold. Pure gold.
*curtsy*
I was looking forward to this post. I can’t and won’t read those books despite your “glowing” admittance that they’re better than Twilight. Most books are better than Twilight so I’m not surprised that the fanfiction that got published is better. Someone told me that the “Alice” character gets described as “tall” but also has other adjectives like “spunky” that are normally reserved for short characters so it was like E.L. used the find and replace function to change short to tall for her when she decided to publish it. There are so many better romance stories out there and erotica. Why did this one get so famous?
I HAVE NO IDEA. Yeah, don’t read it. You would find it a highly upsetting read. it should have big trigger warnings on it for anyone who has ever been in an abusive relationship or been a subject of sexual violence.
It got so famous because of the Twilight connection, and also due to all the crazy publicity. Women were also hearing from each other how “good” it was, and going out and buying it without knowing really what it was about. Or, in the case of my friend, her husband downloaded the ebooks for her after hearing they were bestsellers but not knowing what they were about. Ha! (She gave us a thorough review of all the ridiculousness. Hilarious.)
I remember being in the bookstore once and came upon two forty-something women standing at the Fifty Shades display, thumbing through them and asking a young male employee what they were about. Poor kid. I quipped “BDSM” as I was walking by. They turned to me and asked what THAT was. “Bondage” was my quick answer. Clearly, they weren’t the type to be LOOKING for that type of book. They were just drawn in by the hype. But maybe it opened new doors for them, so to speak.
Honestly, when you think about, the author must be some sort of genius! I wouldn’t mind having her bank account right about now. 😉
I know. It’s like she vomited gold.
Oh. My. Gawd.
I’m crying. Seriously. I had to go back and read that twice because it’s so bloody hilarious.
I confess that I tried to read the first book and gave it to a friend about a third of the way through. Pure drivel. I forced myself through the entire Twilight series but I just couldn’t do it with Fifty Shades.
Oh jeez I have absolutely nothing worthwhile to contribute here… I’m still laughing too hard!
This might be even more hilarious than your Twilight posts, and that’s saying something.
I read about a page of the sample of 50SOG and decided I had better things to do with my life, such as watching paint dry. I’ve read enough excerpts of it elsewhere to know I made the right choice!
The Inner Goddess thing is just embarrassing. I read a review that picked out all of the Inner Goddess moments and it was cringemaking whilst also being hilarious.
Oh, and as a Brit, trust me, I can still spot speech patterns that aren’t American. E. L. James is not representative of Brits in that regard… She really is just THAT clueless.
People who know better than I tell me the BDSM stuff isn’t even accurate/representative of the kind of relationship they supposedly have.
I really despair that this was published, never mind got successful, made the author a big heap o’ cash and will be a film. WTF. Ah well…
Yeah, the bdsm stuff is super hard core. There are people who live that extreme a lifestyle, but it’s reeeeeaally rare.
I don’t know if I would notice Americanisms slipping into British speech, but maybe I would…
I couldn’t agree more … and you didn’t even mention the typos and bad grammar!! I really wonder about the state of the world when such extremely bad writing is published at all, never mind selling millions of copies of it! It really ranks as the worst thing I’ve ever read … and that includes cereal boxes!
Pfft, next to Twilight the grammar was barely noticeable!
The BDSM activity as portrayed in the book is not an accurate representation of people who practice the lifestyle. Christian *actually* uses bondage activities to punish Ana for everything from going out with her best friend for drinks to travelling to visit her mother. In BDSM, there is no malicious intent to punish or hurt your partner.
Also, anyone responsible in the BDSM world does not ‘play’ while one or both participants have been drinking, and he OFTEN makes sure she’s good and tipsy before he starts in.
The sad truth about these books is that they DO NOT portray a healthy or normal BDSM relationship – they are instead a portrait of an abusive relationship that is so accurate I’ve heard of people being badly triggered by them. As I went through the trilogy I got more and more uncomfortable with the idea that both men & women think this is the way to explore kink.
There is a fantastic blog at jennytrout.com, where an actual professional author of adult erotica has been posting a chapter-by-chapter recap of all three books, and it’s brilliant. The comments from her readers are equally thought-provoking. I highly recommend it.
I heartily agree. Although I have seen partners were into the SM part of it use spanking to “punish” the submissive so I am not sure I can really call that inaccurate, especially since I don’t since know anyone who is that hardcore. For example, I know the contract stuff is real – hardcore people often use contracts – but no one I know is that into it. So I can’t really say what contract-type folks would or would not do.
But it is definitely unhealthy because Christian is seriously messed up. You’re right on the tipsy thing, too.
I read The Big Book of Kink, because I was curious. And yes, contracts are definitely a part of the scene, although they tend to be worked on together, not presented to the sub as a fait accompli as they were in this book.
And punishment is for infractions that occur during playtime, not when the sub is off doing their own thing. 24/7 sub/dom relationships are, as you pointed out, incredibly rare – and clearly E.L. James did no research and knows nothing about them. I think it’s sad that her notions about the lifestyle are now seen by so many people as fact, when it is just way off base.
I agree. I guess that’s the thing – contracts and full on lifestyle do exist but they are seriously rare and not typical. Domestic discipline is much more common than full on leather lifestyle.
AND not only did she choose to show a male dominant, female sub relationship which is hardly groundbreaking for feminism, but the one female dominant who is mentioned is portrayed as a child molester, a sick weirdo.
Fifty Shades Of Grey really promotes the “I can heal my abusive, damaged boyfriend” trope which I think is a really terrible message to send into the world. It also promotes the idea that bdsm is related to childhood abuse which I don’t think has ever been proven.
Yes, exactly. This is dense but interesting reading: http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/jwh.2013.4344 Ohio State University researches analyzed the series and concluded that it romanticizes and glamourizes abuse.
Awesomeness. Yeah, and despite Christian’s assurances that the sub really has all the power, you rarely see proof of that. It conflates kinky sex with abuse.
Holy cow. I’ve never read any of the “50 Shades” series, any more than I read any of the “Twilight” series. Carol — reading popular crap so *you* don’t have to.
How about a review of “The Cuckoo’s Calling” next? I’ve read it, and can promise you a better time than you had reading this drivel. So, you know, in your copious free time, when you’re not working or tending to family matters, maybe you could…read a book….And write about it…..
{Looks left} {Looks right} I mean, some day. 🙂
And thanks for the Gilbert Gottfried video, which I will now toss on my Facebook page. Because I can’t get that out of my head anyway.
I think you’re very self-sacrificing and noble reading this stuff so we don’t have to:-) Very funny post.
By the way, as a British person, I’d be just as likely to say ‘I haven’t’ as ‘I’ve not’, possibly more likely. Do you read Separated by a Common Language? I don’t think she’s addressed that particular issue but it’s a great blog.
I view “I haven’t” as a much more common grammatical formulation in general, which is possibly why the I’ve nots stand out so much…
Oh my god, I LOVED THIS POST!!! My thoughts exactly about Fifty Shades of Grey. I, too, have been wondering for some time now why it always has to be the woman who is the submissive, and the man who is the dominant. Sure, we have Mrs. Robinson but still.
Yeah, but she’s put forward as the evil villain!
Unfortunately yes. Because good women are those who put themselves second to men. A leading woman can’t be good. At least in the worlds of Meyer and E.L. James.
I’m writing a story to change that!
Lol…
You know, when I encountered the book I knew nothing about it. Someone downloaded it because we two share an appreciation for Matt Bomer (no, not that kind, he is absolutely swoon-worthy in my opinion, but above all he is a damn good actor, therefore I am always interested in his projects), and I read into the first chapter.
My first reaction was: That reads like Twilight for Adults.
My second was: He is too good for this drivel
Thankfully someone else was cast. And my world is okay again.
Okay…..I’m a bit late finding this website and I apologise…. I’m still laughing after reading through this twice – I haven’t read such a great summary that completely echoed my own opinion……. I confess to giving up at the end of the second book (my Inner Goddess had died from sheer disbelief) so I don’t actually know what happened in the last er, thrilling, instalment….. No loss. As I put in my Amazon review : Christian asks Ana to draw up a list of her Hard Limits…. ie things that she was not prepared to do…… Book Three in this trilogy would be a Hard Limit for me…..
Oh and I’m English…. and I would always say ‘I haven’t’ instead of ‘I’ve not’.
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I just stopped myself writing in order to come back to this post and read the section where you talk about contractions in American vs British English. It’s been five years since I read this post, yet I still remembered it! ❤ I guess it stood out in memory because it's not something I've ever considered was a difference, but now I'm trying to write a character who's American, so it got me thinking about this post. Will have to go over his dialogue to see if I need to change anything. So thank you! 🙂
I'm still refusing to read this trilogy, because I drew the line at forcing myself to read Twilight, hah. Your post tells me all I need to know.
Haha yes best to get an American to read over your American speech. Little things can slip through otherwise!
Maybe some of it can sort of be excused because the character was born in 1915 and has done a lot of travelling? That’s how it works, right? 😳 (I let the Americans say “movie” instead of film, though!)