Holy Crap. Oh my. Um ... Jeez

[helygen]

I’ve been resisting the “50 Shades” bandwagon because of the comments that friends have been making about the book. My summary of their reactions to the story is:

• Readers seem to be split 50/50: half love/like/enjoy it, half can’t understand what the fuss is about.
• Writers can’t understand how the hell it got published.

I felt that if I read the book and discovered that the latter was true, then I’d be beyond annoyed, so I took the decision to ignore peer pressure and simply wait for the fuss to die down.

Curiosity finally got the better of me at 3 o'clock this morning (oh the joys of insomnia) and I began to read the preview on Amazon. It quickly dawned on me that I’d read the opening chapter before - possibly on Live Journal, but definitely before all the hype - and once more I found myself skimming it. I read beyond the extract I’d previously read, but skimmed even more as I became increasingly irritated by the repetitive dialogue (Jeez, Holy Crap, Um, Oh my, etc).

Despite my best endeavour I gave up before the end of the preview, so I don’t even know if any of the notorious sex scenes are included in that. If I’d paid for the book I’d have felt ripped off within a page or two, and I’m not just saying that to justify my disdain for this series - the preview is all the justification I need.

Whilst on Amazon, I took a look at the reviews summary. This is how it looked at 3 a.m.:

3.2 out of 5 stars

5 star:

41%

(3,617)

4 star:

10%

(869)

3 star:

8%

(667)

2 star:

9%

(776)

1 star:

32%

(2,827)

If you translate the rating system as I do, then
5 star = excellent
4 star = good
3 star = okay
2 star = poor
1 star = shite

The mathematicians among us will quickly see that the okay/poor/shite ratings aren't far behind the excellent/good ratings (49% vs 51%)

The headline comments are:

• “The books are not well written, incredibly repetitive, there is little character development, and the sex scenes are, well, vanilla.” sailorgirl27 | 1,807 reviewers made a similar statement
• “This book had me turning the pages and wanting to know what happens in the end.” Nix | 781 reviewers made a similar statement
• “I am not even talking about the sex, which at 58% read, is getting really boring, how many times can someone say "crap" or "oh my"???” ctwain | 683 reviewers made a similar statement

A very telling (4 star) review is entitled “Loved it, HOWEVER all the bad reviews are true!”

I admire the PR team behind E L James, and her obviously influential circle of fanfic fans online, because together they’ve broken the publishing mould. What this says about acceptable standards of editing, proof-reading and story-telling is matter for another discussion entirely.

For now, I can only shrug my shoulders and agree with the old adage that “Sex sells”

*To blow my own trumpet, my book has received 7 reviews with an average 4.7 rating on Amazon.com, and 4 reviews with an average 4.8 rating on Amazon.co.uk