Thursday 28 June 2012

50 Shades of Twilight

I had to do it, all my facebook friends were talking about it, laughing about it, giving each other cheeky winks about it. I needed to know what the fuss was about, I felt like I was missing out, and I don't like missing out. So I bought and downloaded 50 Shades of Grey. I hurtled through the first 9 chapters desperate to see what was so good about it, but came away feeling disappointed. The main characters did not appeal to me at all and it felt as though the book was aimed at 15 year old girls. Then came the erotica and basically it felt like a readers story in a porno magazine, not that I'm prone to reading porno mags but I may have seen one or two ;-) Maybe it's just me, but I'm not impressed.
Then I found out that the book actually started out as a Twilight fanfic. (Fanfic/fanfiction is a piece of writing by fans using the same characters or settings from an original piece of work, book, film or tv etc) So Anastasia was first Bella Swan and Christian Grey was Edward Cullen. The writer began her story on a fanfiction web site but was soon asked to remove it as it was too raunchy. Then the characters where changed and 50 Shades was born. The original draft was believed to have been called The Master of the Universe.
Reading through you can still see a lot of similarities between the main characters, for example Edward and Christian were both adopted, both have dark secrets, both have lots of money, both give their woman a car, both play piano.
I'll admit I did read all of the Twilight books, mainly because I'm a big fan of fantasy fiction. There were parts I liked but overall I had trouble with the series because I didn't like, or couldn't relate to the main characters Edward and Bella. I'm thinking now that this is the reason why I am not enjoying 50 shades.
I'm more than halfway through now and will finish as I hate leaving a book unfinished, and maybe it will redeem itself to me. (Perhaps there may even be a plot?) I'm already thinking how on earth this has been stretched into three books. If, I mean, when I finish the book I'll pop back and let you have my final verdict. In the meantime do share your opinions as I know I'm in the minority here.



1 comment:

Allie said...

Hi Anne

As I've said elsewhere, I don't think you're necessarily in a minority apart from certain sections of FB (ie: those M35 & Ex M35 members!)
Well done you for being true to your opinions.

I haven't read the books but my impressions lead me to think similarly to you in some places,plus I hate anything hyped to infinity and with a 'bandwagon' mentality. For those who truly are enjoying the books ~ fine. The subject matter of the books does lead me to think they may well be meeting a need in some people ~ for fantasy/escapism/excitement.

Personally I have plenty I'm currently reading/want to read but with a very busy job/current family pressures, it's a struggle to put in the time to read anything at the moment!

Allie

(I like your blog, you write very well :)