Tropical storm Debby brings Fifty Shades of Gray

After much hype, I finally took the time to visit Amazon.com and check out the reviews on the Fifty Shades trilogy. I captured the current standings below, as of today’s date. I haven’t actually read the books, but I did read the excerpts and found the writing was not entirely as bad as the negative reviews portray. However, I was only able to read six or seven pages, and the reviewer’s complaints seem to be mostly based upon the repetitive nature of E.L. James’s writing.

The really surprising thing I discovered is that this whole series began as fanfiction of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. I do own a copy of the first Twilight book, but have never read it. I was inspired to purchase the book by an interview I saw on Oprah Winfrey’s show, but soon after the purchase I watched the movie and found the book too similar to read. I was a little disturbed by the obsessive relationship of Bella and Edward, and his continuous statements of how he couldn’t be with Bella yet he wouldn’t leave her alone. Not a healthy relationship, but I digress……

In studying the reviews listed below ( I did not read them all) it would seem that the first book in the series has a significantly larger input then the two sequels. The ratio of 1 star vs 5 star is 2/3rds as many bad as good, while the sequels have a roughly 1/7th as many negative reviews as positive. The in-between reviews are roughly the same proportion for each book. Nearly ten thousand people purchased the books and found the need to write a review of it, and I read many reviews of the third book that were negative, yet the person writing had read all three books. Expect the movie to do well, as did the Twilight series, and accept the fact that not all writing is for everyone, but there is a reason thousands of Harlequin books were written. I’m just not sure what it is.




Fifty Shades of Gray

7,145 Reviews

5 star:
(3,078)
4 star:
(729)
3 star:
(525)
2 star:
(627)
1 star:
(2,186)






Fifty Shades Darker


1,110 Reviews

5 star:
(739)
4 star:
(127)
3 star:
(85)
2 star:
(64)
1 star:
(95)








Fifty Shades Freed

1,041 Reviews

5 star:
(701)
4 star:
(95)
3 star:
(83)
2 star:
(54)
1 star:
(108






And just for comparison purposes……

Twilight: Book One

5,398 Reviews

5 star:
(3,397)
4 star:
(571)
3 star:
(414)
2 star:
(308)
1 star:
(708)