BookLust: Fifty Shades Trilogy

to be quite honest, i’m not too tickled about E.L. James’ Trilogy. i feel like a fraud for even doing a review because i haven’t even finished reading the first book. but i honestly could not go through the remaining pages anymore.

how this thing broke harry potter’s record on first week sales, i’d never guess.. was there a massive shortage of loo rolls that day? harsh i know but i just can’t wrap my head around this thing..

touted as darkly erotic by most reviews, i was kinda expecting something a little better written, or at least better researched.. and if not that, i was kinda hoping that it at least had a gripping plot or a more “twisted” lead role. a little depth in its character.. sadly it just disappoints.

i understand that the trilogy was once a twilight fanfiction and let me tell you right now, it does not deserve a status upgrade from a fanfiction to a novel.

i’ve always had the idea that fan fictions were written by obsessed pimply teenagers who had nothing better to do on a friday night.. and a saturday night.. and every day of the week too. i should know. i was once that obsessed pimply teenager who had nothing better to do on a friday night but lurk at fanfiction.net and delude myself a writer. but hey, if E.L. James can do it, hell i might as well break open the vault and try to find Sensuous Summers a publisher. well i would if i uhh, actually wrote a Draco Malfoy – Ginny Weasley 25oo++ page fanfiction with the aforementioned title, which i,  uhh, so totally did not! *blushes*

again i digress. my point is, i have never hidden the fact that i am an obsessed bookworm and my genre range is quite extensive and i use the word extensive very very mildly (have i mentioned the now 19-gig folder full of fictions in ebook format that is my mini virtual library?) and i’ve also never hidden the fact that my favorite genre is romance novels of the harlequin variety and i have a separate folder full of romance novels. i even once fancy myself a romance writer enough to actually take the workshop and sign with a publisher (i hope my editor does not read this. she’ll kill me for being MIA for yearsss!) with the romance writer delusion that i had for a while, i even sojourned into the more racy variety dealing with the secret world of erotic literature  relying heavily on BDSM. i’ve seen a lot of well written ones too. however, call me a prude all you want but i don’t think i will ever get the pull of BDSM eroticism.

having established my cred on the subject, i really found Fifty Shades bland compared to some o’ the erotic romances i’ve devoured. i would’ve understood if Ms. E.L. James is a pimply fifteen year old with a naughty imagination but for a fifty year old? oh please. judging the content of Ms. E.L. James’ offering i would doubt very much if she has actually ventured into the BDSM world.  remember what my romance writing coach told us the very first day: if you are a virgin, do not even attempt to write a sex scene. it will show your inexperience and your readers will see you as the little fraud that you are. and i guess that’s what i would pretty much say to Ms. James.

another thing wrong about the book is the Character of Christian Grey (the “hero”)  E.L. James wanted so much to show him as darkly twisted and scarred emotionally, but she doesn’t want to paint him in so bad a light and the character turns out half baked. i think Ms. E.L. James is confused as to how she wants to portray the character. does she want him to be the knight-in-shining-armour-hero portrayed in so many formulaic romance novels or does she want him darkly dangerous and twisted ala Marquis de Sade? it was so obvious that she wanted a hybrid or a mix between the two extremes (a la edward cullen perhaps?), and to be quite honest, a more skilled author wouldve done a fantastic job. sadly Ms. James  is not one yet.

also, i dont think Ms. James had a target reader at all. i’m confused as to who her target readers are. the writing skill employed here is sufficient for that of a young adult novel with all that mushiness and whatnot, sadly, the content of her novels (BDSM FOR CRYING OUT LOUD) is not an appropriate reading material for young adults. and if she was targeting the erotica readers, lemme tell you, the book is too tame and too boring for them. the author can’t even say penis or vagina just like a convent prude. she might as well have called it fifty shades of brown. the vanilla romance readers.. well maybe but a few percentage of them would want to read this. i mean, romance readers escape to romance because they so want the romance and it’s just lacking in that department. most of them want the knight-in-shining-armour-squeaky-clean HERO!

yea. i have issues against the book. sue me.

yet, having crapped all over the book. there are very few things i wouldn’t give just to see Ryan Gosling play the dominant Christian Grey.

On Notting Hill

Notting Hill is my all-time favorite movie.

i watch it when i’m feeling down.

i watch it when i’m happy.

i watch it when i’m home sick with the flu.

on christmas eve.

on valentines day..

i watch it basically everytime i need a pick -me-up..

Notting Hill

there’s something about it that gives me immense comfort.

idk. maybe because it’s basically about a superstar who fell in love with a book salesman. i can relate.

haha!

seriously tho. i love this movie to no end.

Reel Time: Taken

I had the opportunity to watch this movie today and allni can say is whoa!

April of last year, my cousin and I were given the opportunity to tour around europe but that almost didn’t happen.
2 days before we were scheduled to fly, my crazy cousin watched the movie Taken with her mom. Within the first five minutes of the movie, my aunt seriously considered not letting us go, regardless of the face that we were all packed and booked!

Storyline:
Seventeen year-old Kim is the pride and joy of her father Bryan Mills. Bryan is a retired agent who left the Central Intelligence Agency to be near Kim in California. Kim lives with her mother Lenore and her wealthy stepfather Stuart. Kim manages to convince her reluctant father to allow her to travel to Paris with her friend Amanda. When the girls arrive in Paris they share a cab with a stranger named Peter, and Amanda lets it slip that they are alone in Paris. Using this information an Albanian gang of human traffickers kidnaps the girls. Kim barely has time to call her father and give him information. Her father gets to speak briefly to one of the kidnappers and he promises to kill the kidnappers if they do not let his daughter go free. The kidnapper wishes him “good luck,” so Bryan Mills travels to Paris to search for his daughter and her friend. – imdb.com

I think the makers of the movie were those guys who were not allowed by their parents to backpack around europe and was scarred for life! Haha! Seriously tho.. The movie speaks of 2 teenage girls who decided to travel to europe (it is a sort f “rite of passage” among teens in america) and ended up in the clutches of a bad gang who is in the white slavery and drug trade because of their stupidity. And the worst thing is, the father of one of e girls had to endure hearing the abduction of his daughter