Between Black and White, There Is 50 Shades.

Yes, I know, I am a little late to the table when it comes to 50 Shades of Grey but I still feel that I should add my two pennies to the pot.

I have a confession to make… I LOVE a bit of drivel! Strong male and female characters from different ends of the spectrum falling in love under unusual circumstances. Throw in some cheek heating sex scenes and a splash of supernatural, then pigs in muck have nothing on me.

My Better half rather crassly calls it my vampire porn but either way I have no shame in my little habit. I am certainly not one to hide my books amongst the covers of a more intellectually prestigious book. I would quite happily read them on the train to work or in the office on my lunch break and if people asked me what I was reading, I would simply say "porn" or "drivel" depending on my mood. So, considering my love for the obscene, naturally I was looking forward to reading 50 Shades of Grey even if it did lack otherworldly creatures.


Don't get me wrong. I like other genres and I have a small collection of books that are sat tapping their fingers impatiently, waiting for me to pick them up again. However, after a long hiatus from reading anything other than stories I found interesting in the media, I decided that I would ease myself back into the world of fiction with a bit of drivel (50 Shades of Grey).

I was utterly disappointed.

With all the hype that surrounded this book I had expected the story to be ground breaking. The 'Sex and the City' of this era…this, it was not…not even close. After every couple of chapters I found myself putting the book down, exasperated and ranting at my Better Half about how irritating it was. The female character was simpering. The male role lacked dimension. The sex scenes are firstly unbelievable and secondly, well, actually quite dull after a while. It was like "oh look they're having sex again, whoop-de-friggin'-do!" and lastly the writing itself was just irritating. I'm dyslexic and so I don't always notice spelling and grammatical errors but they smacked you in the face like a wet kipper. For those of you who are the spelling, punctuation and grammar police I can imagine this was positively cringeworthy.

However, saying all of this, I do have to bear in mind that I am part of a generation that is not easily shocked and crudity is part of every day life. What I find mild and relatively inoffensive, other generations may see as the equivalent of being punched in the boob and being called "the forbidden" C word.

I have noticed a distinct number of the more mature ladies have been asking me what I think of 50 Shades with a little bit of a twinkle in their eye. Desperate to read it but still too nervous about buying it while people are looking. I've been wondering if they are seeking approval to buy the book or if they just want to know what it is about without having to read the smut. On the other hand you have the more liberal mature ladies who have read it and have, indeed, felt it necessary to divulge explicit details about their sexcapades with their spouses. This was usually the point when I would sit there and think of England. As I said, I am not easily shocked but it is often a little unnerving when suddenly someone you thought of as being quite reserved tells you about what is hidden in their underwear drawer!

So with the tedious sex scenes, the poor writing and the ridiculous amount of product placement, you may ask why on earth did I keep reading it if it was so terrible?

I had to. I didn't want to fully judge the book until I had read the whole thing. After all, if you critique a book but haven't read it all the way through, how do you know that your judgement is justified? I also wanted to see why it had been criticised for it's 'glorifying' of domestic abuse because, other than him being an overbearing control freak (which never came across as malicious to me), I don't see how it can be seen as a tale of abuse.

*SPOILER* Yes he hits her. (Ok that part probably isn't a spoiler, it is a book about BDSM after all.) But, from the beginning of their encounter, Anastasia is aware that Christian is into BDSM. She makes verbal agreements to be his submissive and what a surprise, she finds the 'softer' acts very exciting but she is scared of being hurt. He tells her he has a dark past and because of that he actually enjoys inflicting pain as well as pleasure. She then goes on to manipulate him into inflicting said pain in order to get more information out of him about his past. He agrees, he belts her. "Oh what a surprise" she doesn't like it and leaves. Not exactly what I would call abuse. If I asked my Better Half to hit me and he did, I could hardly blame him for it if I gave my consent for him to do so. In my opinion that is, others may see it differently I'm sure.


No, I don't think I could do better but with this genre of books becoming so
popular I can think of better authors to try; J. R. Ward, Kresley Cole, Gena Showalter and Sherrilyn Kenyon to name a few of my favourites but there are so many out there, it would make it difficult to choose just one.  E. L. James is not a bad writer but if I was to give her a report card it would probably say, "Good start, but must try harder".

I'm  afraid to say that after a couple of chapters of the second book I became quite
outraged and so I did a Joey Tribbiani. But instead of putting the book in the freezer I removed it from my tablet. I may get back to reading it one day but in the mean time my
stack of 'must reads' have given up tapping their fingers and have taken to throwing themselves from my coffee table to grab my attention. Little do they know that their impatience will go unrewarded as I will be researching the concept for my own little bit of drivel…