Tuesday, 7 August 2012

Fifty Shades of Poor Editing

After weeks of hearing the world and his wife either praising or destroying E L James' novel Fifty Shades of Grey, I decided that the only fair way for me to be able to comment would be to read it for myself.  I finished reading it yesterday.

I found the book to be a real contradiction.  Despite being quite poorly written (SOMEONE GIVE THE AUTHOR A THESAURUS PLEASE!) I did find it a page turner.  There were some clever literary references in the narrative, which made the protagonist Ana Steele - a student of literature - a little more believable.  That said, I fail to see where the controversy lies.  Nothing in the book was particularly shocking and I found a lot of what went on a little unrealistic and actually, rather tame considering the hype.

Had a proper editor given this book a damn good proofreading, it might have been a much better read but as it stands, I have an enormous urge to go through the whole thing with a red pen and send it to the author, with a grade F and a long list of targets for improvement!

Should I read the rest of the trilogy?  The jury's out.

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