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I gave into peer pressure and read all three books.

It was like going to the dentist, a necessary evil.

After reading them, I felt like a snob but I just couldn't giggle with my friends about how great they were. When I told one of my friends how much I struggled to get through them because the writing was SO TERRIBLE, she looked at me like I kicked her puppy.

Downloaded it to my kindle because of all the hype. (And I don't do "romance" novels). Started off good, but I have expectations . . . . come on, "let's get it on" . Too much foreplay! I read a little more today at lunch hoping to get to the juicey part and it was more high school "Oh Grey!! He's so electric!! He makes me swoon!!" I found myself swiping past hundreds of pages at a time!! Let's get to the point, shall we?!! And still, it was all this hot and bothered silliness between the two. . . . Not sure if I can stick with this one, please email me the Reader's Digest Cliff notes.

I was handed this book and told to read it while carpooling to the southern parts of the east coast, knowing that I couldn't keep my mouth shut while I did so.

So for awhile there was ferret fisting, tinfoil confusion, swollen breasts and halfhearted pirate orgasms. I had meant to inject rancid donkey flogging in there somewhere but forgot to. I was kind of surprised at how not-graphic or very interesting the sex scenes were but I guess as a dude I lack the appropriate romantipendix glands required to properly digest this stuff. It was kind of like reading a Skinamax after-hours flick that went full frontal nudity with occasional penetration shots.

Damn, rancid donkey flogging could have gone into the contract somewhere. I didn't read that part out loud though.

For all of you that enjoyed reading the Fifty Shades books, you should check out Bared To You by Sylvia Day, and the sequel that will come out soon Deeper Into You. I enjoyed it much more than Fifty Shades.

I just started this book and last week I accidently locked my keys in my car and when I called a lock smith, there were several people gathered around my car trying to help get my keys out when I noticed lying on the front seat was my copy of Fifty Shades of Gray......I was mortified!! And to make it worse, they were almost all men except for 2 women and they both go to my church!!

I was like...God help me out here! But my subconscious was just laughing her butt off and pointing at me!! I wanted to throw myself on the windshield and scream!

[This message edited by whensitover at 10:13 AM, June 27th (Wednesday)]

I was like...God help me out here! But my subconscious was just laughing her butt off and pointing at me!! I wanted to throw myself on the windshield and scream!

Epic!

DD got a hold of mine and handed it to my father when he was over. Yeah, we did NOT discuss that particular piece of literature.

Ladies, ladies, this is why god created e-readers.

Ok, I finally read these sons o' bitches. They were much more tame than I had expected. The repetition drove me crazy. I wanted to punch her inner goddess in the mouth.

I did vicariously enjoy the books for portraying that being taken care of aspect that so many of us are looking for.

But for the most part, not well written and quite predictable.

Going to look up that Sleeping Beauty thing.

[This message edited by punky at 6:57 PM, June 27th (Wednesday)]

Seriously, if somebody wants to clutch the pearls/bro-beads over something I have dozens of abduction and enslavement books for them, and recently read a sweet, sentimental little thing that was full of pegging and anal fisting. Pitcher was a girl, though, so you know, small hands.

I was talking to NA recently and we mused that there is a great similarity between Regencies and the whole sekrit BDSM society thing. Both have very rigid social structures in place, rules of deportment, etc. One does not simply *walk* into Almack's, march up to some blushing thing in her first season or some arch widow or whatever and ask her to waltz. One must have an invitation from the patronesses, one must first be introduced to the lady in question, the lady in question must be someone the patronesses have given permission to waltz, and she must have a waltz open on her dance card, and everybody knows that two dances at one ball gets the side-eye and at three you just got engaged or called out by the Duke her brother. Similarly, one does not simply walk into the BDSM club and start tying up and flogging anyone that catches one's fancy, there are collars and rituals and sometimes color-coded bracelets and you guys know, all that stuff. So anyway, in each case, you've got strict guidelines for social interaction that must be followed. A dance at a ball = a scene at a club. Yadda yadda. There aren't really any rules for courtship these days. The BDSM world, as imagined in romance novels, is old fashioned and courtly. I imagine all that reads as quite comforting.

[This message edited by ladyvorkosigan at 9:50 AM, June 28th (Thursday)]

I just finished with the 3rd book.

Ok. I was so tired of hearing about her inner goddess...and I also wanted to punch her in the mouth.

The lip biting thing got old for me too, as did the "don't roll your eyes".

I enjoyed the parts of the story where he actually opened up about Mrs R...and his birth mother. I thought there could have been more story there.

I hated, HATED how stupid Ana was in the 3rd book re: Jack.

The scenes were............descriptive, and my fiance may or may not have benefited from my reading those.

All in all....I guess for what they are, they were ok. The characters were shallow....I mean she only ever describes Kate as being a hard core journalist, but that was supposed to be Ana's best friend? There just could have been more depth.

But then again, if there was more depth, there would have been less sex.

And really....WHO the fuck has sex 5 times a day? REALLY? And she wakes up at 2 or 3 in the morning, EVERY morning, ON WORK DAYS even, and has sex for 2 hrs, then goes back to sleep, then goes to work? Uh, yeah right. That's the fantasy part, I guess.

I have LOTS of friends who are all jelly kneed about how "romantic" the books are. And I just roll my eyes. (and hope I don't get spanked.)

Read them all over a week. I laugh that they have so much conflict and fan addiction with them at the same time.

They sucked me in, but I wasn't reading them for literary purposes.

I don't ever venture into the book club, but I saw this thread a while ago, and I just read the first book last week and wanted to put my thoughts out there.

I enjoy romance novels, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was a romance. I usually don't care for modern romances, and yet the characters seemed so out of sync with modern time, except for all Audi's and helicopters.

It ran typical of a romance. Experienced and rich older guy, meet virgin. Can I just say it's so annoying that virgins in romances just can't get enough of sex and the first time is just mind blowing and orgasm after orgasm, really?? That's not realistic is it? I'm biased the first time is bad, but maybe those are my jaded lens I have on.

I honestly thought the sex scenes were "vanilla." So was all the BDSM. Something I'd consider lady friendly porn...there's a plot and story line, not just (rough) sex.

At first I felt I could identify with Ana, I'm a submissive at heart, even though I do not have any formal experience in that sexual culture, I do know myself and where it comes from and have explored that side, safely and in a healthy manner.

And then halfway through the book...I realize I'm not Ana at all, I'm 50 shades of fucked up. I've only read the first book. And as a survivor of sexual abuse, and how that has shaped my sexuality, it ended up triggering me. I wish there had been a warning that Grey is the way he is and it's not normal, just normal to be seriously fucked up. Great, tell me something I don't know already. All the hype was about the BDSM, not this broken person with such darkness and pain inside.

So while I want to read the other books, I don't. I'll end up reading them just to see how (I) end up. And I have no idea what to say when someone asks me if I read it and how did I like it.

"Oh I could identify with both characters. Submissive Ana and fucked up Christian." Bleh.

Ah, I guess some of us will have to watch Guilty Pleasures on July 12th on PBS:

http://www.pbs.org/pov/guiltypleasures/

"...Guilty Pleasures" portrays five romance devotees who must, ultimately, find their dreams in the real world."

-JD

I loved the books, the first 2 were my favorite, in fact I read them 3 times.

I am right now reading Bared for you. I dont think its as good as the Fifty books.

Can I just say it's so annoying that virgins in romances just can't get enough of sex and the first time is just mind blowing and orgasm after orgasm, really??

I've often wondered why authors, who are almost exclusively not virgins themselves, choose to write about virgins except where necessary, i.e. historical context.

I never felt sentimental about my virginity. I really don't take my body all that personally, which is probably worth about a decade of therapy, but I never felt like I was a virgin even when I was a virgin because I just did not make a good virgin at all. Nobody seemed at all concerned with my virginal state in any way, for good or for ill. No creepy dudes trying to divest me of it, no creepy dudes trying to foist purity rings on me etc etc. I was a rather disconcerting, solemn acting child, so I think they just didn't associate me with anything innocent that needed protecting.

May I say that while I was a terrible virgin, I'm an awesome Mother, and I plan to be the Best. Crone. Ever.

But I digress.

Just musing, I think perhaps for women who don't share my weirdnesses, they can identify with the virgin's body in question since they used to be in something similar and probably also associate that with a time of freshness and innocence when they were protected and etc. etc.

I personally could not write a virgin. I don't know how they think. I don't know how they feel. They're totally alien to me.

So now they want to make 50 shares into a movie. I know ratings these days stew pretty liberal and production companies will do everything they can to stay out of an R rating. Well at last that's true in Canada, we have 18+ which keeps the door open for a larger audience; more money. So it's either going to be rated R *2 or black screen....eating....black screen....Charlie tango.....black screen?

Also they've made a sketch of Christian grey and it's not Ryan Gossling so I don't know what they're trying to do here. Ok maybe not Ryan, I thought Grey had darker hair and I don't know if Ryan could pull off the dye although in not saying it's not worth the try

ETA: I'm having some picture paying troubles from the phone. Just google it

ETA * 2: my new vote is Ian Somerhalder

[This message edited by tsol25 at 12:43 PM, July 10th (Tuesday)]

oh my ... finished the 1st one this past Sunday ... absolutely 10000000% addicted to them ...

Will get the other this weekend ... I didn't read through the thread cause I don't want to spoil anything ....

I will say there were a few times in the book I would have liked it written better ... But that is just semantics to me, I didn't read it hoping for great writing ...

I got everything I wanted from the book and then a lot I didn't want ... never the less my addiction to the love story/romance is strong ... Yes I said romance, I think Christian is FAR more romantic than his brother Elliot ...

AND I just learned they are making movies ... I am very displeased by this ... it is just going to ruin the books, ruin the story, the romance, the electric current ... I won't watch the movies, but you know how the media is it will be everywhere who the actors are and so on ...

I think it will go one of 3 ways ...

Get all Twilight like, as far as movie ...

Turn into some Lifetime movie thing ...

Or they will go to far and it will feel like a cheap rated porno ...

erotic and porno are 2 vastly different things for me anyway ...

Anyway I don't post in here hardly ever, but thought I would since I can ...

http://jezebel.com/5924957/james-deen-is-well-aware-that-he-looks-just-like-christian-grey

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Don't do it James, don't do it! It's bad enough that kink.com has you leading what amounts to gang rapes, but *this*?! This will ruin you!

t/j A guy I went to school with is going to be one of the producers for this movie. We were friends in elementary school! He also did The Social Network. It was very cool seeing him on tv when that movie won all those awards! end t/j

A guy I went to school with is going to be one of the producers for this movie

Dude. I would so be calling in any favor I could to get on that set.

Classy favors of course - coffee girl? Orrr, um.... errand runner? Administrative assistant? Nail filer? ANYTHING!!!