h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"I must be the colour of the communist manifesto"

My copy of the Communist Manifesto is white.

Oh, it really is very VERY badly written. I used to think that that didn't matter to me - I do not read great works of literature as a rule - but actually, no. I like my books to display craftsmanship, thank you very much.

Even if they are about vampires.

I read a few pages - L had borrowed it from a friend (and no, she didn't get any ideas) - and it really is trash.

I fought my way through it (on my Kindle, if you want to know) and it was painful. I definitely will not be reading the sequels.

For me the most interesting exercise was spotting the bits where she hadn't rewritten the fanfics* and it was so obviously a Twilight fic that it made me laugh. Out loud.

*oh - we have a fanfic entry you could link to...

If you're interested in a very sarcastic review of the sequels, I can highly recommend the hilarious Dorkcast.

The two ladies doing the review (Sharon Shaw and Leah Haydu) aren't 50 Shades fans. It is abundantly clear.

http://gamerdork.net/dorkcast-2/dorkcast-special-1-50-shades-worse

Highly recommended listen.

I'll give that a listen (you seem to know a lot about this...)

I'm a Dorkcast fan. Although they usually cover things like computer games and The Walking Dead.

I am studiously not watching The Walking Dead because I have no time for stuff like that. Unfortunately.

oh and my copy of the Communist Manifesto is red. It's a parallel text - english and Russian. And i bought it in Moscow.

The reviews are the best thing about 50 Shades. It's worth reading to get much more out of it. I couldn't link to some of the best ones in the entry because... well, because of the rampant swearing. Let's see now...

I don't have a copy of the communist manifesto.

Love the podcast.

My review has gifs tho:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/340987215

"This is not a book about BDSM, this is a book about one sick, abusive man and his obsession with a young, naive invertebrate. It's a book about a girl who has absolutely no sense of self, who sacrifices any pretense of individuality in order to hold onto a man who doesn't even show her the faintest glimmer of respect."

Worth reading then?

I think you're probably better off reading some of the better (free) fanfic out there...

I think I'm better off steering well clear.

*rubs nose* At the risk of actually defending 50 Shades, I do think that that an awful lot of the it's abusive reviews have misunderstood what Dom/sub relationships are about. I don't think Whatserface the writer has herself - bloody woman hasn't the skill to hide her research artfully and it's all there in tediously lengthy detail - but I do think she has messed up because she has muddied the waters by making him lean towards this because he was abused. Which makes it all twisted and lays her book open to the sorts of accusations that review makes, and the sort of accusation I have made in the entry. She really should have jettisoned the Twilight narrative structure - now there's a book I aim never to read.

TBH, though, I found Bridget Jones a far more offensive book. I mean really, that incompetent stupid female is what modern womanhood is supposed to be all about?

ah the Twilight books were a bit of fluffy fun. And have sent me into a spiral of reading YA Urban Fantasy which is hugely enjoybable candy for my brain when the studying gets too much.

For me the thing that ruins 50 Shades more than anything (even the awful writing) is that the editing to get it away from being a Twilight fanfic seems to have been half hearted.

In Twilight, for eg, Bella is supposed to be clumsy (but: it is only used in the first book for a while to establish the fact, and thereafter to set up something like an accidental cut that sends a newly "vegetarian" vampire-boy into a bit of a tizzy and that is only, really, to remind the reader that *gasp* vampires are dangerous). Same too for biting the lip: obvs that's attractive to a vampire that fancies Bella because it makes her lips red and we know what that means...

and so on.