Tag Archives: sookie stackhouse

May 30, 2012 · 7:00 PM

Fifty Shades of WTF

*DISCLAIMER* This blog post will contain mild spoilers and sexual content (written, not visual).  *END DISCLAIMER*

So a couple days ago, I heard about this trashy romance novel that was sweeping the nation called Fifty Shades of Grey.  It just suddenly popped up everywhere I went.  My relatives talked about it, one of my favorite comic strips, Girls With Slingshots, did a bit on it, etc.  Then yesterday, I was in Barnes & Noble buying books I actually care about – the next Sookie Stackhouse novel, the next Alpha and Omega novel by Patricia Briggs – when I see this book on the shelf.  My curiosity got to me.  I bought it.  I have not made it through the entire book.  I am only at chapter nine.  But here are some things I’ve observed about it.

1. It is uncomfortably close to Twilight in many ways.  Here is the list.  If you haven’t read Twilight, take my word for it that these things are contained within it:

  • The male love interest is described as an “Adonis.”
  • The main character, Anastasia, has a harebrained mother who has recently remarried.
  • Anastasia sees herself as awkward and ugly when apparently everyone else sees her as beautiful.
  • Anastasia has multiple male suitors (two so far) that are interested in her, attractive, and friendly, but she is not interested in them.  The only one who catches her eye is the perfectly handsome Christian Grey.
  • Anastasia blushes a lot, and her biggest flaw seems to be that she is clumsy.  Worse, it seems her klutziness is supposed to be endearing.  Why oh why is this a thing all of a sudden?  I get that the female is supposed to be all meek and need Mr. Sculpted McChiseledJaw to keep her safe, but this is getting kind of ridiculous.

50Shades

The list goes on.  Anastasia doesn’t believe she is worthy of Mr. Perfect-Ass WashboardAbs because he is so much better looking than she is.  She dreams about him every night after meeting him, yadda yadda.

Here are some other things.

2. Anastasia’s last name is Steele.  And the male love interest’s last name is not WashboardAbs, it’s Grey.  So we have Steele and Grey.  Steel Grey.  This is too perfectly constructed to have been an accident.  (Just like it was no accident that the main character of Twilight was named “Beautiful Swan.”) On top of that, Christian Grey has gray eyes, and his hair is supposedly “copper,” though to be fair, Edward’s was “bronze.”

3. The author, E L James, is English.  I knew this after reading the second sentence in the novel (“…damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill…”), and then I checked the About the Author to see if I was right.  I was.  I knew because she kept saying things like “My roommate is ill,” and “I must not do this,” and “I looked smart” (As in she was dressed well).  I have nothing against the English, but it took me until she mentioned driving from Oregon to Washington to realize that the narrator is, in fact, supposed to be American.  The problem is, no editor stopped Ms. James for a moment and said, “I’m sorry, but American people don’t talk like this.  We might need to change a few things.”  It takes me out of the book entirely every time she says an Englishism, and I’m afraid I just can’t suspend my disbelief enough.

4. I haven’t even gotten to the sex.  (Here’s where the spoiler comes in) Mr. Christian Grey tries to stay away from Bella, er, Anastasia as much as he can, but he just can’t because he is so in love with her clumsiness.  So he gives in and takes her back to his place and shows her his big, dark secret: He’s a vampire.  No just kidding.  It’s worse.  He’s really into kink.  He has an entire room dedicated to the most extreme forms of S&M.  He tells Anastasia that if she wants to be with him, she will have to be his Sub while he is the Dom.  And she’s like, “Well, you’re hot, and I really want to have sex with you, so okie dokie!”  Or rather, “Well, you’re a fine-looking fellow, and I must say I cannot resist you any further.”  Something like that.

So obviously I don’t really like this book so far.  This post was long, and I’m sorry.  I’ll probably give a full review of the book once I finish it.

Word of the Day: Sadomasochism (n) – interaction, especially sexual activity, in which one person enjoys inflicting physical or mental suffering on another person, who derives pleasure from experiencing pain.

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January 22, 2012 · 12:56 PM

Let’s Talk Vampires

To start with, I completely forgot to mention last time that I finally got around to taking my self-published book off the market.  I am serious about rewriting it, and when I’m done with that, I will either put it back up or submit it to literary agents.  Either way, I’m afraid that the option to buy my work is no longer available.

Another note: I have updated my About page and added a brand new page!  You can check those out if you want to, but it’s not mandatory.  There will be no quiz on it later.

Okay, let’s move on to more of my favorite authors.  Today’s post is going to be vampire-heavy.  I will also be discussing my distaste for HBO’s series True Blood for reasons relating to my love of the book series, because my next favorite author is:

Vampires are like the crack cocaine of the literary world these days.  You can’t get through a bookstore without seeing at least five different books that involve the blood-thirsty people of the night.  Not prostitutes.  Still talking about vampires, here.  If you doubt me, or think my words are a bit hyperbolic, please know that there is a book out there entitled Vampirates.  I kid you not.  Look here: http://www.amazon.com/Vampirates-Demons-Ocean-Justin-Somper/dp/0316014443/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327128032&sr=8-1

And in looking up that link, I have discovered that it is, in fact, a series.

So why do I like Charlaine Harris?  Because of Sookie, and because of the deeper issues in the book.  Yes, those exist.

First, we will address Sookie.  Here’s where I start making the comparison to the TV show.  From now on we will be talking about Book Sookie and TV Sookie.  Book Sookie is spunky, self-sufficient, and proud.  She is also a telepath.  I like Book Sookie because she refuses to take people’s crap, and because she truly hates the idea of being a damsel in distress.  She fights back, she uses her head in tough situations, and she saves her own skin on a number of different occasions.

TV Sookie is an airhead.  She could not be more useless or dimwitted.  I was so disappointed to see that.  She is a teary drip of a thing.  Sure she has her snarky moments, but when I saw her blow up at an elderly woman over a pie, I kind of lost all respect for her.  I understand that her grandmother had just died, and that apparently that pie was the last one her grandmother ever baked, but the scene was so uncharacteristic of the Book Sookie I’ve come to know and love that it all just looked ridiculous to me.  Damn that was a long sentence.  Sorry.

Anyway, the vampires.  For those who don’t know, the premise of the Sookie Stackhouse novels is that vampires have, in Harris’ words, “Come out of the coffin.”  They are regular, tax-paying citizens…who drink blood to survive and burn up when exposed to sunlight.  What are the political ramifications?  Well, I think the vampire situation is an amazingly astute, if extreme, analogy for homosexuality. The book addresses similar issues of marriage and fights for equal treatment.  There is even an extremist religious group that violently opposes vampires in general.

Then there is the wonderful question that inevitably comes up in these types of stories: Who is the real monster?  The fanged blood-drinker who does his job and pays his taxes, or the human being who slaughters women that have slept with vampires?  Oh it’s rife with literary possibilities.  And that really is just a slight scratching of the surface.

The books are fun to read, too, and the stories are truly captivating.  And, yes, there is sex.  But I don’t appreciate HBO taking a book series that contains a smattering of sex scenes and turning it into a porno.  Honestly, I understand that a good chunk of the show’s appeal comes from the actors and actresses finding themselves in various states of undress throughout the series.  Still, I feel it is demeaning to reduce the book series to obscene sex scenes and little else.

There’s also the little problem of some beloved book characters being turned into brutal murderers.  The whole point of the books is to show that there are good and bad vampires, just like there are good and bad people.  It’s kind of hard to send that message when one of the characters who is supposed to be sympathetic and lovable keeps people chained up in his basement.  Or when a completely different vampire who is described as dressing like a total nerd, in a kind of endearing attempt at blending in with “normal” people, gets transformed into a cowboy hat-wearing redneck who can’t control his temper or the volume of his voice.  So there’s that.

In conclusion, are these books perfect?  No.  I wouldn’t say that about any book, because who’s to define perfect?  They’ve got flaws just like anybody else’s writing.  They have their fair share of critics.  And of course the TV show has a significant fan base.  Not surprising when you get to see Ryan Kwanten naked.  But in this case, I am a fan of the books only.  They could’ve made a really great TV series, and instead they changed some of my favorite characters into pathetic knock-offs of the real things.  If that weren’t bad enough, the show diverges from the plot of the books so horribly that I hardly recognize the source material anymore.

So ends my rant.

Word of the Day: Adulterate (v) – to debase or make impure by adding inferior materials or elements; use cheaper, inferior, or less desirable goods in the production of (any professedly genuine article).

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