
Sometime last year, this little book was making all sorts of fuss for being ‘racy’ and touching on such topics as BDSM and dominance/submission, while containing more sex than you could shake a stick at. 50 Shades of Grey, by first-time novelist E.L. James, was being touted as the doorway to reopening a woman’s libido and a whole passel of babies born over the next few months will be blamed on the 50 Shades ‘phenomenon’. Now, me? I’m the type of person that pretty much reads anything I can get my hands on. I’ve very rarely met a book I didn’t like, and almost never met a book I couldn’t get through. So when I heard all this racket about a book of the erotica genre getting a whole mess of buzz, I figured I should give it a shot. After all, I enjoy a fair bit of smut every now and then. I’m a stay-at-home mom/housewife. This stuff is pretty much marketed right at me. Don’t judge!

The first point is a no-brainer. This story started out as Twilight fanfiction. You may have heard this and written it off as a joke or criticism from a snarky reviewer. No – this is utter truth. I’ve got nothing against fanfiction, I’ve even written a bit of my own once upon at time. But Twilight is utter tripe in itself, and here it is spawning the next bit of tripe? I used to say ‘hey, whatever gets a person reading is great to me!’ but now…no, there are books that people should stay away from. At the top of that list are these books that feature and even glorify abusive relationships, leading to a whole generation of girls who seem to believe that these things are what a man does when he ‘loves’ you. The men in these stories are stalkers, emotional abusers, and some of the biggest hypocrites in literature. The women are vapid, unimaginative, and the biggest lesson they seem to teach a female who reads them is that you are nothing without a man who wants to control every aspect of your life. And now they want to make it into a movie. The Twilight movies were mediocre at best and utterly unwatchable at worst… what seems to make people think that a movie based on a book influenced by this crap will be any better? Putting these relationships into full color on a huge theater screen is certainly not the answer.


So there’s been this huge debate over casting for these two. For Christian, I’m pretty sure all that will be necessary is a pretty boy capable of a brooding stare who looks good in a suit. Fans are clamoring for Henry Cavill, but let’s hope, for all of our sakes, that he’ll be too busy with Man of Steel and any subsequent sequels to even take a look at the script…or, even if he’s not, that he’ll have enough dignity to turn it away. Ian Somerhalder has also been tipped. For Ana, well, let’s see, what’s the list of vapid, empty-eyed actresses who can qualify for that ‘I don’t think I’m pretty but apparently everyone else does’ shtick that Ana seemed to have? I’d say Kristin Stewart would top the list, but, well, she already played the role, didn’t she?