Okay, so here we are, a week and a day after I started the
Fifty Shades Trilogy. I read Fifty Shades of Grey in about two nights, Darker
in three and Freed in about four…I read it slow because I didn’t want it to be
over.
That’s not to say I loved everything about the books. I did
not. The writing was an absolute abomination. I’ve never read a book that was
so poorly written. What’s more perplexing is that I was addicted to the story
while at the same time cringing at the writing style (or lack thereof.)
The first sixty pages or so were a snore fest, as is the
case with most books I read. After that the story line improved, greatly. The
writing, however, did not.
Here’s what I found so astonishingly wrong with this series:
1.
Over
usage of words. Every character in this book “murmured” each time they
opened their mouth. Very seldom did someone “giggle”, “yell”, “cry”, or did any
other version of sound coming out of their face. The whole book was people
murmuring. Now, if they really are going to make a movie from this book (aside
from leaving out the best parts), it’s going to be awfully difficult to
understand everyone. I had to mentally change each “murmur” to “said” just to
keep reading on. The other words the author used far too often included, but were
not limited to “crap”, “jeez”, “fifty”, “lip”, “subconscious”, and phrases such
as “sharp intake of breath”, “oh my” and “turned on his/her heel”.
2.
The
choice of words. Now, each word that was over used in this book was a word
that wasn’t too common to begin with, at least in the United States (more on
that in a minute.) if you’re going to pick a unique word to use, use it
sparingly or else it will lose its power. I caught myself rolling my eyes after
reading the same weird words or phrases over and over and over and over and
over and…
3.
The
descriptions. I’m a very detail oriented person but I found myself skipping
over the long, pointless descriptions of every little thing. By the third
paragraph, I was so sick of hearing about Christian’s every little detail…he
has long fingers, I GET IT. Move on for the love of God.
4.
The
writer’s lack of knowledge about where the story takes place. It’s fine
that the writer is from England. It’s fine that she wanted to write a story set
in the United States. What’s not fine is that she did absolutely no research on
how we speak or what we say. I don’t know about you but I know for a fact you
won’t catch a “shall” sliding out of my mouth any time soon. We also never use “arse” and we most certainly
do not call underwear “knickers” (or “panties” for that matter, gross.) I could
move past this this if the characters moved to Seattle from London…but they
didn’t. In fact, Christian Grey hails from Detroit (as all babies born to
crack-whores), my hometown, so I know a thing or two about the dialect.
The Acknowledgements in the beginning of the book thanking
her editors was a joke on us, right? There would be some times that two pages
would get stuck together and I wouldn’t even notice until the page was done.
The book repeats itself so you can pretty much skip whole pages and still have
a good idea of what’s going on.
What infuriates me even more is knowing that EL James is
making bank on this book series while far better writers out there don’t even
get a chance. I know this whole thing started as Twilight Fan Fiction (gag) and
gained popularity, but how on earth could
a book company even consider publishing such awful writing? Even if I knew for
a fact that a book would make a ton of money as is, I would never allow a book
written so poorly to go to press if I were a publisher (or even the girl who
gets coffee for the meetings. Seriously, I’d sneak in and edit it the night
before it got sent to the Copiers.)
And another thing…am I the only one who thinks it’s weird
that Ana was 21 years old; graduating from college and never owned a computer
or had an e-mail address? And even more, she was a virgin, slept with one of
the richest, most beautiful men on the planet and had no problem walking away?
I find that extremely hard to believe. (This may be a moot point since not very
much of this story is believable.)
Alright, the thing I have the hardest time accepting about
all this is that I actually liked this book. If you can get past (or used) to
the repetition, the story line is actually entertaining. I found myself (and
still find myself) in love with Christian Grey, even with all his flaws. That
is, after all, why women like this book so much, right? We can fix him! We can
be the one woman in the world who will save him from himself. He changed for
Anastasia, he’s smart, witty, attractive, and makes $100,000 per hour. Coming
up for air form this book to a sink full of dishes and a puking puppy is a rude
awakening, let me tell you. I was honestly sad when this series was over and I
wish there’d be a fourth book…if someone would help EL James write it.
I don’t agree this series gives women a bad name like some
people think. Ana clearly loved him (although, doesn’t every girl think they
love their first?) and he loved her. She didn’t have to stay if she didn’t want
to. The beating and all that was done mostly
in the bedroom, it wasn’t like he picked her up kicking and screaming on a
busy street because she didn’t listen to him. Oh, wait.
Ana held her own, for the most part. I, personally, wouldn’t
deal with my husband being so overprotective to the point of embarrassing me in
front of my colleagues and family but to his her own. I also didn’t
agree with everything Ana did, like apologizing when Christian was in the
wrong, but I don’t think I would ever agree with 100% of any other human’s
choices.
And I know this probably has something to do with Twilight
(I can’t say, I never read it) but I find it odd that her best friend marries
her husband’s brother and her best friend’s brother sort of dates her husband’s
sister [exhale]. All of their friend’s last names are either Kavanaugh or Grey.
Thank goodness most of them were adopted.
I cannot wait to see the movie, given the directors have
more sense than editors and publishers and pick the right actors for the job. I
wouldn’t want that duty, having to pick a man that is the most gorgeous, god
like (or to use another overused word from this book, “Mercurial”) on Earth
according to ALL women. Can we all
just agree that Robert Pattinson with a big toe where his head should be is not
right for the job?
I know someone
who’s getting a thesaurus for Christmas… J
.JPG)
