There was a time when I would bemoan the downfall of literature and the intelligence of the masses with some snide comment about J.K. Rowling being a terrible writer. Then I got kinda into the movies and was all, whatever gets folks reading I guess. I worked in bookstores during the days when Dan Brown trumped the best seller lists. And was baffled at the mass-market romance and mystery shit 'writers' could somehow spew out on a monthly basis (I can't even type 500 pages in a month...um?), writers who somehow decided using a pen name and your real name simultaneously was of some rational use ('writing as'?? What if I want to write 'as' Janet Evanovich, you silly butt?). I worked at a suburban Borders Books during Christmas the year The Secret came out. I love books, but if there's one area of culture where I feel like its okay to thumb my nose and sneer with pretention, it's literature, right? When you hear about how hard it is to get published, how so many classics were turned down again and again before getting sold, and then you look at the stuff on the NYT best seller list, the miles of mass market paperbacks selling their shiny little asses off...there's some discrepancy here.
So when I kept hearing about this new sensation in bullshittery, Fifty Shades Of Grey, I took a deep breath and ignored it as best I could. Then I heard it had started as erotic Twilight fan fiction, which is the kind of stuff that makes me sadder than the sight of a starving child. Guilty pleasures, I get. An outlet for your sexual fantasies, a light beach read, okay sure. But Fifty Shades is straight-up tragic.
Enter MY new favorite guilty pleasure: Fifty Shades Of Suck. Through it I think I just accidentally read most of the crazy erotic best seller, and it was hilarious. I have a new opinion of bad writing - keep doing it. Just as comedy writers love awful politicians for giving them plenty of good fodder, maybe bad lit has its place in my life too. But, for god's sake, can someone get this woman a real cover designer? It looks like she did it herself in Photoshop one night. You're rich, lady. Step it up.
50shadesofsuck.tumblr.com
