Fifty Shades of Grey

edwin August 08, 2012 0 Comment

It’s the fastest-selling novel for adults of all time – and it’s very adult in content. EL James has now sold 4 million copies of her Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy via her UK publisher, Random House, to add to the 15 million (it beggars belief) that have been shifted in the US and Canada. In three months.

So you might ask yourself the question what’s this ’50 Shades of Grey’ thing you keep seeing everywhere and why is it selling so fast ? Women all around you are reading it — ladies on the buses and trains, nurses at work , and even some of my female friends all taking a huge interest in the book. The trilogy features Anastasia Steele, who falls in love with Christian Grey, a troubled young billionaire who likes sex only if he can accompany it with quite formal, stylised corporal punishment. The narrative drivers are pretty slack – improbable dialogue (“I’m a very wealthy man, Miss Steele, and I have expensive and absorbing hobbies”); lame characterisation; irritating tics (a constant war between Steele’s “subconscious”, which is always fainting or putting on half-moon glasses, and her “inner goddess”, who is forever pouting and stamping); and an internal monologue that goes like this … “Holy hell, he’s hot!”; “No man has ever affected me the way Christian Grey has, and I cannot fathom why. Is it his looks? His civility? Wealth? Power?”

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