Have you read Fifty Shades? Do you want to?

I read all three books, only for the sake of being able to critique and review them thoroughly and fairly. They are poorly written with an unlikely plot full of holes, fraught with crutches for weak writing, redundancy, ignorantly used lofty synonyms, cliches, inconsistencies, and a veritable myriad of other problems. For those who don't know, the story was originally published as a serialized fan fiction project based on Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. It seems it gained enough popularity to be changed just enough to render it able to stand alone for publication in its own right. The characters are weak, flat, static and inconsistant. Those looking for a story about BDSM will be disappointed. This series paints BDSM and practitioners thereof as damaged, unhealthy people needing to be saved from their darkness by true love. BDSM and D/s relationships are portrayed as the very antithesis of a loving, healthy relationship. The author also propagates the popular myth of "natural" submissives and the idea that those who are not "natural submissives" will never be capable of happily submitting or serving. The love story that evolves is controlling and borderline abusive, but largely vanilla with a sparse peppering light bondage and other play, which the characters call "kinky fuckery", just one of the many grossly overused phrases throughout the books. The author has done both the literary world and the kink/fetish/leather/BD SM community a huge disservice. The unfathomable popularity of this series has not only set the effort to promote acceptance and understanding of BDSM back but will likely spawn a new "generation" of newcomers to kink who will have a warped misconception of the lifestyle. less

I read all three books, only for the sake of being able to critique and review them thoroughly and fairly. They are poorly written with an unlikely plot full of holes, fraught with crutches for weak writing, redundancy, ignorantly used lofty synonyms, cliches, inconsistencies, and a veritable myriad of other problems. For those who don't know, the story was originally published as a serialized fan fiction project based on Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. It seems it gained enough popularity to be changed just enough to render it able to stand alone for publication in its own right. The characters are weak, flat, static and inconsistant. Those looking for a story about BDSM will be disappointed. This series paints BDSM and practitioners thereof as damaged, unhealthy people needing to be saved from their darkness by true love. BDSM and D/s relationships are portrayed as the very antithesis of a loving, healthy relationship. The author also propagates the popular myth of "natural" submissives and the idea that those who are not "natural submissives" will never be capable of happily submitting or serving. The love story that evolves is controlling and borderline abusive, but largely vanilla with a sparse peppering light bondage and other play, which the characters call "kinky fuckery", just one of the many grossly overused phrases throughout the books. The author has done both the literary world and the kink/fetish/leather/BD SM community a huge disservice. The unfathomable popularity of this series has not only set the effort to promote acceptance and understanding of BDSM back but will likely spawn a new "generation" of newcomers to kink who will have a warped misconception of the lifestyle. less

I read all three books, only for the sake of being able to critique and review them thoroughly and fairly. They are poorly written with an unlikely plot full of holes, fraught with crutches for weak writing, redundancy, ignorantly used lofty synonyms, cliches, inconsistencies, and a veritable myriad of other problems. For those who don't know, the story was originally published as a serialized fan fiction project based on Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. It seems it gained enough popularity to be changed just enough to render it able to stand alone for publication in its own right. The characters are weak, flat, static and inconsistant. Those looking for a story about BDSM will be disappointed. This series paints BDSM and practitioners thereof as damaged, unhealthy people needing to be saved from their darkness by true love. BDSM and D/s relationships are portrayed as the very antithesis of a loving, healthy relationship. The author also propagates the popular myth of "natural" submissives and the idea that those who are not "natural submissives" will never be capable of happily submitting or serving. The love story that evolves is controlling and borderline abusive, but largely vanilla with a sparse peppering light bondage and other play, which the characters call "kinky fuckery", just one of the many grossly overused phrases throughout the books. The author has done both the literary world and the kink/fetish/leather/BD SM community a huge disservice. The unfathomable popularity of this series has not only set the effort to promote acceptance and understanding of BDSM back but will likely spawn a new "generation" of newcomers to kink who will have a warped misconception of the lifestyle. less

I read all three books, only for the sake of being able to critique and review them thoroughly and fairly. They are poorly written with an unlikely plot full of holes, fraught with crutches for weak writing, redundancy, ignorantly used lofty synonyms, cliches, inconsistencies, and a veritable myriad of other problems. For those who don't know, the story was originally published as a serialized fan fiction project based on Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. It seems it gained enough popularity to be changed just enough to render it able to stand alone for publication in its own right. The characters are weak, flat, static and inconsistant. Those looking for a story about BDSM will be disappointed. This series paints BDSM and practitioners thereof as damaged, unhealthy people needing to be saved from their darkness by true love. BDSM and D/s relationships are portrayed as the very antithesis of a loving, healthy relationship. The author also propagates the popular myth of "natural" submissives and the idea that those who are not "natural submissives" will never be capable of happily submitting or serving. The love story that evolves is controlling and borderline abusive, but largely vanilla with a sparse peppering light bondage and other play, which the characters call "kinky fuckery", just one of the many grossly overused phrases throughout the books. The author has done both the literary world and the kink/fetish/leather/BD SM community a huge disservice. The unfathomable popularity of this series has not only set the effort to promote acceptance and understanding of BDSM back but will likely spawn a new "generation" of newcomers to kink who will have a warped misconception of the lifestyle. less

All of this? Exactly why I won't be reading the books. I figure enough reviews are out or in the works that I'd rather not spend my weekend pissed off about a Mary Sue fanfic gone horribly, horribly wrong.

I guess I'm a little peeved why someone in along in the process didn't go "hey, maybe do some research...?" I get that it's fiction and hearing a "these are my hard limits" discussion or a "here's what I'd like out of the relationship" one isn't super kinky hot, but couldn't a *good* writer make it that way somehow? less

Oh, they talk about limits and boundaries and even include an entire confounded contract and pages and chapters of negotiations! All of that gets barely used in the first book and thrown out at the beginning of the second book. If you're familiar with the the idea that if you put a gun on the mantle in the first act, it should get used by the 3rd act, well, she shattered that rule into tiny little pieces. The contract talks about all sorts of yummy things that I was actually thinking, well, if the books include all this stuff, maybe it can't be all awful. But none of that stuff EVER came up! He had a whole rack of canes and other impact tools on his wall that she made him get rid of! But it all just goes back to horrible writing. It almost feels like the author chickened out of including all this harder stuff that she had planned. Just disgraceful.
And it's not about liking the book or not liking the book. There are plenty of books I flat out don't like and I can put them down and move on to things I do like. This one offended me. It blatantly disrespected and grossly misrepresented a gender, sexuality, relationship style, lifestyle and community. I happen to belong to all of those groups, but even if I didn't, it's just offensive and wrong to not only be so ignorant and, frankly, stupid but to make it public. less