Fifty Shades of Opinion

Filled to the brim, the bookshelves at my house

I class myself as a pretty avid reader, growing up I would spend weekends curled up in bed devouring books, I know I was pretty pleased when I could read fast enough to knock off a babysitters club book in a couple of hours. These days I have a kindle, which I adore, I keep it stashed in my bag and I can read whenever I get a moment.Currently I'm reading Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind, and before that was Kathy Lette's The boy who fell to earth.

Prior to them I read that series of books that the female population of the western world appear to be going crazy for, Fifty Shades of Grey. E.L James is a very clever woman, taking a topic that even a decade ago would've been total taboo and hidden in the dark corner of the bookshop under erotic literature and making it THE thing that we all have to read, right now! There is no escaping it at the moment, its all over the radio, on the tv talk shows and the one that I think skyrocketed the book, social media. I first came across the series after seeing a photo on Instagram. I looked it up and read a review written by a 'semi-retired male gynecologist who usually reads crime' He didn't praise the book too high, but it certainly got me interested.

In my opinion, they are ok. I described them to my mum as mills and boon on steroids- and she promptly read them too. I am refusing to have any book group discussions with her though- far to close for comfort thank you very much. Aside for the dramatic sex, the book does have an interesting story to tell, there is character development, there is drama, there is passion, love and ultimately happiness. I felt emotion- anger, happiness, annoyance whilst I read them which means that I was connected. I think they were a good read and most of all I enjoyed reading them.

Recently on Facebook I saw a conversation on how stupid the books were, how ridiculous we all were for going crazy over them. From my knowledge none of these people had actually read the book, and that annoyed me somewhat. Certainly they aren't high-brow ground breaking literature, but they are entertaining and whats wrong with that? For both uni and my own pleasure I have read more than a few novels classed as the best in the world and completely hated them, thought that they were a total waste of time. Another conversation I had we likened the books to that of Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games, all complete works of fiction but they successfully get the world to read- and that is a good thing in my opinion.

What's your opinion? Have you read Fifty Shades too? What are you reading now?
xx Lauren