Oh where to begin? It seems that this book is blowing up blogland.
At first, I was like, "Oh, I have to read it." Then I was like, "Well, I'm cheap. I hate spending money on books I won't like. Will I like it?" Then some friends were like, "Don't waste your money." Then I was all in Target one day and had $12.76 just burning a hole in my pocket. And I bought it.
So, aside from the fact that, as a teacher, I was flat-out insulted by the fact that Ms. James apparently needs an 8th grade English class review....I kept reading. I ignored her silly use of italics (because I never do that, right?) and poor character development.
I began to wonder..
"Are the people who read this the same people who like Nicholas Sparks movies?"
Still, I kept reading.
And then I noticed something.
It seemed like, maybe just possibly, there was a parallel between this book and the Twilight series. Same setting. Same poor character development. Same general rainy, gloomy mysteriousness surrounding it all.
This was a profound recognition on my part.
And then I read this hullabaloo. Fifty Shades started as fan fiction? Based off of Twilight? And the characters are, like, the same? No wonder it's so poorly written. It reads exactly like fan fiction! (Many [like me] say that Breaking Dawn reads like fan fiction, but that is neither here nor there...)
So I guess you can say that if you're a straight-up fan of Fifty Shades, you won't like my review.
It was silly, silly book. Many people might disagree with the premise of the book or the ideas it throws out there. But that's not why I don't like it. (That'd be like saying you don't like True Blood because of the nudity. True story.) I don't like it because it's a poorly written book.
I find Christian to be annoying. Like, stop being an asshat, Mr. Grey. Stop trying to make Ana eat all the freakin' time. That's the kind of crap that Edward pulls. (Oh-em-gee. Ana is short for Anastasia. Bella is short for Isabella.)
Clearly this is Twilight for adults...Bella worked at that stupid outdoors store in Forks. Ana works at a damn hardware store.
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There's many more parallels I can draw here, just in the first half of the first book. But just looking through the pages for examples is ticking me off.
Ms. James clearly just wanted more than what Stephenie Meyer had to offer, so she went off on her own little trilogy of a tangent.
A random comment from a website that sums up my feelings nicely:
I didn't even finish the book. This is literally all I have to say about it.
If you want my copy, I'll mail it to you. First person to email me their address gets it. Woo-hoo.
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And because I was so caught up in my 50-Shades-of-Grey-discontentment, I forgot to mention this: the copy of The Snow Child that I'm giving away is an AUTOGRAPHED copy. Maybe that'll make entering the giveaway worth your while??
