slaves, tell me about 50 Shades of Grey

How many copy-editors still read this side of the site? Somebody wanna drag Maura in here?

Is the whole thing written in present tense?

isn't everything now

Does this have anything to do w Girl w the Dragon Tattoo? Aren't those books about a rape victim or something?

Gal protagonists...

right, everyone loves mr. darcy (although they also love liz bennet, is the thing, don't they?) but this stuff seems to take that scenario into an extreme of helpless emotional isolation on the narrator's part and controlling coldness on the lust object's part. i mean maybe i haven't read enough romance novels because i basically haven't read any, but i've flipped through some stuff where the girl's in love with a pirate or whatever and the girls were at least a little spunky. in fact part of the thrill is the way the girl's spunkiness is challenged by the guy's coldness/indomitability, right? there is none of that here. idk maybe i'm out of my depth but i'm just curious is all cuz this shit has been blowing up my facebook.

as i understand it, 50 shades is a hybrid of the traditional romance and the bdsm erotic novel. in the wake of the story of O, bdsm novels in which the heroine achieves or learns something through total, self-negating surrender to sexual dominance have become fairly common. it's perhaps unsurprising that the breakout sexy e-books would tell a story of this sort, as it seems a natural extension of the more "tempestuous" type of traditional romance. and the heroine's lack of agency and self-confidence is consistent with the twilight novels, right?

wild orchid as a cinematic precursor to this? relatively blank female protagonist submits to the "dark desires" of a powerful, wealthy and controlling man, hoping in the process to heal the psychic wounds that fuel his kinky commands.

contenderpedia

those of you defending the prose in these books

I just want to point out that those of us who loathed that stupid blog post about the writing WERE NOT defending the prose in the books. We were pointing out that the blog author was attacking *the wrong things* about the writing.

I was trying to say that the that attack revealed more about the author of the blog post than the things being attacked, things that I would imagine it was not the author's original intention to reveal.

Okay, fair enough.

These are useful maxims for beginners. They reign in a lot of bad writing, but they are over-taught and they are not the end-all and be-all of rhetoric and style.

I wouldn't ordinarily mention this, but in the context of the present discussion it seems appropriate to point out that you mean "rein in."

"Fanfic author has mediocre prose style" is the least interesting aspect of this whole story imo.

With a half-smile, he reached for the laces of his braies. She noticed the tremor in his hands, and that he did not work so quickly as he had at the laces of her kirtle. She brushed his hands aside and unlaced him herself, darting her hand inside the parted cloth, against the coarse gold hair that lead in a line from his navel and disappeared beneath the fabric. His cock leapt at her palm, and she could not help the flush that suffused her face even as she closed her hand around him.

http://thumbs2.modthesims.info/img/6/5/2/1/3/8/MTS_Aligeth-1158425-Braies07.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1008/1478145217_aa27586203_o.gif

These are useful maxims for beginners. They reign in a lot of bad writing, but they are over-taught and they are not the end-all and be-all of rhetoric and style.

Uh, dude...?

We need to somehow steer this thread back towards discussion of the "Butt Drawer" and speculation of contents therein.

cigar box within the butt drawer xzibit recursive

so this is 100% CHEAP FANFICTION

It is OBVIOUSLY TWILIGHT fanfiction if you have read Twilight (sadly, I have)

Anastasia=Bella, Obv
Christian Grey=Edward
Kate Kavanagh=Rosalie
Eliot (Christian's brother)=Emmett
Jose=Jacob
Anastasia drives a blue beetle that her step father gave her=Bella Swan drives a red truck that her dad gave her
Anastasia works at a DIY Home Depot esque store that's family owned=Bella Swan works at a sporting goods store that is family owned
Christian plays piano=Edward Cullen plays piano
The PORN BITS are not at all enthralling. I am a dirty perverted motherfucker and none of this gets my gears cranked. I think this really is for people who have barely had sex before. Or the last time they had sex that was exciting, it was 15 years in the past. I am actually REALLY FUCKING DISAPPOINTED that this is a best seller.

^^^ SOMEONE has not seen the author posing with handcuffs. HANDCUFFS.

I had to stop reading the excellent blog posts Laurel linked because the contents of the actual book was really bumming me out. It's so terrible, you guys.

i have read some bondage fan fiction before (cough) and this seems to be very similar in quality. the only nice thing i can say about it is that it is not designed to be read, but to be skimmed over.

Yeah the bits on that blog left me with a bewildered empty feeling. Like. ok, revoltingly bad writing, shit plot, but on top of that I had no real idea what either character really looked or seemed like, they were just empty wank vessels.

cigar boxes?

deathdrone joek (if that is still meaningless, be very happy)

the conductor on my quiet ride train last friday, shouting at the top of her lungs at a co-worker: "I'ma have a good weekend! I got that 50 Shades of Grey. I'ma take me a bath and read the shit outta that! They tell me it's like Twilight!"

read the shit outta that! classic

So we sold out of the first 2 volumes of this today which meant that every time a customer came to the counter with the 3rd one - 50 Shades Freed- I had to explain that it was the 3rd one. Half the customers were like "oh crap" and then went and chose something else, but the other half were like "Really? Oh well don't suppose it matters" and bought it anyway.

wait, there are three books?

is there actually a continuing plot arc or is it just "here is some more sex, that we had"

1-Grey 2-Darker 3-Freed
I have no idea if there's a continuing plot arc. I imagine so. They're selling like nobody's business.

"Fifty Shades Freed" is such a fucking ridiculous title

especially since Fifty Shades Freed Parts 1 and 2 will prob be #1 at the box office for 4th of july/christmas weekends in 2016

alan freed?

i want you to play my record
there are strings... attached

fifty shades of grey freed from bondage through the healing power of accidentally knocking up his girlfriend

wait guys I have another one

Automatic ugly bump. This buttplug's results are now in (your pooper).

I wrote briefly about all the hacly knock-offs of this already hacky knock-off of a hacky book here: http://causticcovercritic.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/50-shades-of-shamelessness.html

hilarious, great work putting that together

THRE ARE THREE OF THESE BOOKS!? How very VC Andrews.

sometimes a cigar box is just a cigar box

http://www.theawl.com/2012/06/50-shades-of-argh

http://casualhardcore.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/charlie-brown-argh.jpg

Jeez . . . argh!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lypqzV2YFfs

Jeez cried out with a loud voice saying "Argh! Why have you foresaken me?"

honestly I've been cracking up for a couple of weeks over "ARGH, MY HYMEN" but seeing the actual excerpted sentence is even more amazing that I could have imagined

also "Argh . . . jeez!" is a comedy 1-2

(obv y'all know what I meant)

My head is too cloudy, cloudy with issues.

Needs more argh

http://www.regretsy.com/2012/06/05/its-on-like-donkey-kong/

http://static.regretsy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/craigslist3.jpg

50 Levels of Gray

My inner-Princess Toadstool.

Fifty Shades Friedman: Macau Summer

argh it up fuzzball