When this series first came out it was almost liberating. Women could be seen reading it on the tube, the train or hunched over it at lunch. Now however they have gone into hiding.
Critics have completely rinsed E. L. James’s 50 Shades of Grey Trilogy. Their reviews are either hilarious or angry. They rip in to the poor prose, the unlikely pairing and the stereotypical nature of the sexual fantasies.
Some even say this book has pushed feminism back slightly by the piggy-tailed virgin protagonist Ana who becomes the wife of a billionaire sex pest.
Now yes it may be a tad trashy, the story IS fanciful and unsophisticated but…. WHO CARES?
Since when were we only ALLOWED to read books which directly reflected reality or were written with such complexity that you need to couple reading time with a thesaurus. Do we have to read books that only describe appropriate fantasy’s?
Now my review of the book would go something like this:
“I picked up the book not knowing its context. Read the first book in about 4 days. It was exciting, liberating to read in public and not too graphic that I read it in the bath only…but that did happen. I read the second book slowly, I lost interest as the story line wasn’t strong enough to carry me through without increasingly graphic sex scenes and I became a desensitised and annoyed by all of the ‘oh my’s that continued every time the protagonist saw a bit of flesh. I was pretty horny though so a little treat all round.”
What’s annoying is that I bet a lot of the critics felt the same yet they blast both the book and its readers for being, let’s face it, stupid.
This is what makes me mad.
You have to remember that this was originally published as an E-BOOK printed on demand. The demand was so great it was published. So technically we VOTED for the series. Approximately 31 million copies have been sold worldwide, the book rights having been sold in 37 countries and the series has set the record for the FASTEST selling paperback of ALL TIME.
OF ALL TIME!
Now it’s not Shakespeare, it’s not well written chicklit (god I hate that term) but its vanilla, mainstream erotic fiction.
Women are not stupid. They don’t need to be kept away from this novel in case they all start sewing up their hymens and chasing after men who are disturbed and like to spank us. Don’t patronise us. If a book is crap we will put it down not act it out, we aren’t children.
It’s a FANTASY. I can bet you that when those critics fantasise it is something a little bit embarrassing to admit, a little bit weird and little bit ‘wrong’. All feminists don’t go home and masturbate over being the dominant and they don’t have to say no to any submissive act in fear of being hung up and pelted with tomatoes for letting down feminism.
Maybe you like the white knight submissive fantasy or maybe you like to dominate. Whatever you want to read or do is absolutely fine and if you don’t like what you read buy another one that you might!
It’s no bad thing that millions of women who may never have been brave enough to pick up an erotic novel are now reading and having an opinion on what they would like to read. Sexy times!
So to the women who are now ashamed of reading their 50 shades book I say to you: FLICK your way through all three!
Holly Peacock-Goodwin 