Hey guys,
Today when reading the Internet (yes that’s how im going to refer to my useless internet surfing from now on. Reading the Internet) I came across this article that announced very cheerfully that Fifty shades of Grey author E.L. James is going to be publishing a self-help book for aspiring writers.
To which I could only go
I realize that for a supposedly conservative girl – i mean, i’ve got the whole checklist: christian girl, pastor’s daughter, recently baptized and all – I talk about the series Fifty Shades of Grey way too much on this blog. I don’t know, I just have a lot of feelings about the series- I had to write a term paper on feminism and cars and the treatment of gender equality progression in Fifty Shades last semester and I genuinely hate the book because it is just so badly written. It just generally confuses me that E.L. James would have the cheek to write a self-help book about writing – pray, tell, what are you helping aspiring authors with? How not to use basic spell check in your books? How to write essentially the shittiest book on erotica in the history of ever and get all your facts on BDSM wrong? How to not have a plot? How to describe things with an amazing and effective vocabulary that basically consists of the phrases “holy cow” and “holy fuck“? How to basically be completely unrealistic about romance and pretend that unhealthy abusive relationship patterns are actually romantic as hell? How to completely have no character development whatsoever over the course of three entire books?
I don’t get it.
I wouldn’t have so much of a problem with all of this, except the series won like, a bunch of awards and outsold Harry Potter, which means that people are actually BUYING INTO THIS SHIT and this just makes me lose a lot of faith in humanity. And now E.L. James is actually going to write a self-help book – i can’t tell if she’s taking herself seriously right now, or she’s just the highest level troll any of us have ever met.
I really have too many things to say about this book. The way this is headed, I’m going to end up writing a ranting angsty-pants graduation thesis paper on the series, which means I’m going to have to analyze and say a lot of academic sounding things about this shitty series of books. I’m getting a migraine just thinking about it. Or maybe i’ll just do Shakespeare.
x
♥jem
Helpful English Major Post Script:
Instead of reading Fifty Shades of Grey and wrecking your brain and possibly ruining romance for you forever, here are some titles you can look at instead:
Written on the Body / Jeanette Winterson
Eating Animals / Jonathan Safran Foer
The Other Boleyn Girl / Philippa Gregory
The Handmaid’s tale / Margaret Atwood
Dance, Dance, Dance / Haruki Murakami