Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Why I (Probably) Won't Read 50 Shades of Grey

I know, I'm a little behind - 50 Shades of Grey was like, sooooo last month, right? Well, anyone who reads this blog regularly knows I'm always behind the latest craze. Trendsetter is not a word anyone who knows me would use to describe me.

The other day, the Hubs and I were sitting out on the deck, while the kidlets played in the pool. He was reading Stacia Kane's Sacrificial Magic and I had my nose buried in my Kindle, reading A Night Like This. I don't know how it came up, but he asked me if I was going to buy 50 Shades (okay, that's it, I'm not typing it out any more. It will heretofore be known as FSOG.)

No. I don't plan on it. I have no desire to read it. Ever. I've heard the writing is awful and the oh-so-steamy love scenes? Yeah, not so much. Vanilla at best is what I've heard. And I'm not about to part with my hard-earned buckage to read something that I've yet to hear anything good about. I have nothing against erotic romance, or even straight up erotica. I've got quite a few really good ero-rom books on my Kindle. I'm not much into Erotica itself, but if someone recommended something, I'd probably read it. Just to see.

But FSOG is not on any TBR pile in my house. Not in paper. Not in digital. I have no plans whatsoever to rethink that. My TBR pile is big enough (you should see my Amazon wishlist. My husband goes pale when he sees the number of books on it. :D) and I'm not about to add something I really don't care about reading.


Then there's the whole "It began as Twilight fan fiction." I have nothing against fan fiction. Hell, I wrote it before I even knew what fan fiction was. But I'm not paying for glorified fan fiction (not to mention, the author's whole diss of the fan fiction writers and readers kind of burned me a little. You shouldn't really forget where you come from and you certainly should never dismiss the people who read your work, loved your work, and helped you go from self-published fan fiction writer to commercially-published novelist.) when I've yet to read anything positive about it. And I've never read Twilight, nor do I ever plan to read it, either. I don't care about Bella and Edward, nor do I care about Christian and Anastasia. I do care about my free time, though, and I'm not going to waste it on this book.

So maybe I'm missing out on some great literary treasure. I don't think I am, but if it turns out otherwise, that's okay. Somehow, I don't think I'll mind all that much,



6 comments:

Maria Zannini said...

I won't be reading it either. I find BDSM a little too demeaning--regardless what the advocates insist.

Kim said...

From what I understand (and this is coming from a few other writers I know who write BDSM) this story isn't true of the lifestyle, so it turns a lot of people off (no pun intended.) I've only ever read a handful of light BDSM-themed books, so I can't judge, but they really aren't my cup of tea, either.

Anonymous said...

If you want to avoid paying for it, I have a PDF of the original fanfic if you're interested. I tried to read it and would've wallbanged it if it weren't on my Kindle. However, I may try it again simply to analyze it (when I stop liking a book, I read more analytically to figure out why it works for so many people).

Kim said...

How bad will my eyes bleed if I read the original??? :D From what I hear, it's pretty rough.

Janet said...

I'm not reading it either. I think it's all hype, and no substance. This trend of FSOG and then the bad bad movie of Magic Mike has to stop. I at least want QUALITY! It's like someone feeding you a bad dessert... you wasted all those calories for nothing!

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