Skip The Fifty Shades

I know that I haven't written very much lately so what I'm about to say may sound a bit like sour grapes but I just read yet another article about the "Fifty Shades of Gray" trilogy and I just don't get it.  Well, I get some of it but I don't understand the furor.  

I admit, I bought the first book because what 45 year old woman with a pulse could resist the tickle of something described as, "mommy porn"?  

And the first book was an easy, entertaining read.  It wasn't going to win a Pulitzer any time soon and a disconcerting portion of the dialogue had me cringing with the cheese factor but still, it was a fun, beach read.

So, I bought the second book, wondering if E. L. James had done any research in the Harlequin aisle since the classic romance genre was followed to the letter.  You know how it goes: boy meets girl, boy and girl have an attraction, boy and girl experience a misunderstanding(s) all with a fiery sexual tension undercurrent,  boy rescues girl (from her irrational, unsafe self, apparently), girl accepts boy in spite of the fact that he is tortured by an unspeakable past, boy and girl shag and finally, boy and girl live happily ever after.  Ick.

I haven't made it very far into the second book.  I hope it gets better because I am incapable of starting a novel and not finishing it.  To do so would be literary sacrilege.

Again, like I did after reading the Twilight series, I found myself following the sales figures of the trilogy in the news and shaking my head in disbelief.  While honestly thrilled for the two writers (because I'd give anything to be in either of their shoes), I couldn't help but wonder how it is that the universe sees them enjoying huge literary success while a genius like Gabriel Garcia Marquez will never grace us with another written word now that he is lost to his dementia.  Kurt Vonnegut is dead.  So is Christopher Hitchens.  

I digress.

I'm going to pick it up again tonight and try to plow through a few more chapters.  I wish I could say, "at least the sex is good," but alas, there are only so many euphemisms for the human orgasm and since the main characters are shagging every other page, the list has pretty much been exhausted.  

I'm bored.