Fifty Shades of Grey

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I've been hearing a lot of "flack", in the bookstore, about the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.   Smut and porn have been common comments.  I don't do book reviews anymore, but I thought I'd tell you what it's about, and you can make up you mind, to read it or not.

First of all, it's a love story.  Second it's not porn or what I consider smut, it is erotic.

Unfortunately the man Christian Grey in the love story, is incapable of love.  As a young child he was physically abused by his mother's string of male friends.  Beatings and cigarette burns were part of his life, until his mother died from an overdose, when he's a pre-schooler.  The only name he calls his mother as an adult is "crack whore".  When he's orphaned, he's eventually adopted by a successful pair of physicians, and re-located far from his nightmares.  Because of his experiences, he can barely stand to be touched, especially in the areas of his scars.

In his teens he was abused by a sexual predator, who was a close family friend.  The relationship was consensual, but he was still a child, so it was sexual abuse.  His predator was a dominatrix and he was her submissive.  This was his introduction to sex, and it didn't involve much touching, except with pain.  It didn't involve love, either.  It was all about control and pain.

Christian thinks he's unlovable he puts all his energy into being a successful business man.  He's billionaire successful, and rumored to be gay, because he never has a woman in his life.

Enter Ana, a college grad, on the cusp of a grand life.  She falls for him but finds she can't live with his lifestyle of domination/submissive.  She knows this isn't going to work, so she leaves.  He goes crazy/mad without her, and agrees to try it her way, you know, consensual sex and love.  It takes awhile, but they get to the spot where it's good for both of them.

This is a well-written trilogy, not fabulous, but good.  I read the whole trilogy and enjoyed it.  Believe me it didn't make me want to change the way I do things.  I also downloaded them to my nook, so I could read discretely on the plane and in the airports.

What are you reading?

The BEA and a Give Away

This year I had my photo taken with Clifford, the Big Red Dog.

Two years ago I hugged Olivia.

The BEA is a lot of fun.

Now for the give away.  An ARC of The Devil in Silver by Victor La Valle.  It will be published in August.

From the back of the ARC:

New Hyde Hospital’s psychiatric ward has a new resident. It also has a very, very old one. Pepper is a rambunctious big man, minor-league troublemaker, working-class hero (in his own mind), and, suddenly, the surprised inmate of a budget-strapped mental institution in Queens, New York. He’s not mentally ill, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He is accused of a crime he can’t quite square with his memory. In the darkness of his room on his first night, he’s visited by a terrifying creature with the body of an old man and the head of a bison who nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It’s no delusion: The other patients confirm that a hungry devil roams the hallways when the sun goes down. Pepper rallies three other inmates in a plot to fight back: Dorry, an octogenarian schizophrenic who’s been on the ward for decades and knows all its secrets; Coffee, an African immigrant with severe OCD, who tries desperately to send alarms to the outside world; and Loochie, a bipolar teenage girl who acts as the group’s enforcer. Battling the pill-pushing staff, one another, and their own minds, they try to kill the monster that’s stalking them. But can the Devil die?

If you're interested in reading this, leave only one comment on this post.  The rules are simple

• You must be a follower of this blog.  If you're a no reply blogger, you must leave your email address in the comment.
• In your comment you can tell me what your plans are for the rest of the summer, or tell what you've done so far.  Or just tell me what you're reading.
• I'll use a Random Number Generator to choose the winner on Wednesday, June 27th.

What are you reading?

I've been gone...

I just got back from my NYC/Bermuda vacation.  Part of the NYC week, I attended Book Expo America.  You can read about my week here, if you're interested.  Including some of the authors I met that week.

Here's some photos of the books I just unpacked, 80 pounds of books!

Books for my 12 year old grandson Oden, 

some kids gift books and some for Carrie in NC.

Fiction

Fiction

Non-fiction and duplicates. 

Oh, and some smutty stuff from Ellora's Cave.  The cavemen were in attendance.

The calendar and playing cards go to my single daughter Sharon.

The horns are for honk, if you're h*rny, but I can think of some other uses.

Sharon doesn't get any of these new books, 

we read some of the same things and I'll pass them to her as I finish.

Some how I missed the non-fiction!  Believe me I brought some home

Some times I get discouraged about this blog.  Books are my first love and I don't think very many people actually read these post.  I've decided I don't care, I'll keep on posting and I think I'll start doing some give a ways, here, too.

What are you reading?

May 2012 Reads

 

37 Ballistic by Mark Greaney
38 Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon
39 Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood
40 The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
41 The Lost Saints of Tennessee by Amy Franklin Willis
42 The Kissing List by Stephanie Reents
43 Whiplash River by Lou Berney
44 Comeback Love by Peter Golden
45 Chomp by Carl Hiaasen
46 I Am Forbidden by Anouk Markovits
47 The Strangler by William Landry

Many great reads this month.  I loved The Dog Stars by Peter Heller and The Lost Saints of Tennessee by Amy Franklin Willis.  Both were debut novels.  It's so hard to get published, these days, I'm usually delighted to read a fantastic first novel.  I highly recommend both novels.

Chomp by Carl Hiaasen is a quick read, targeting middle-schoolers.  It's really a wonderful story, for anyone over 10 years old.

Wife 22 is a perfect summer read.  It's an intriguing story of an unhappy wife and how far her husband will go to save their marriage.

I Am Forbidden, was an eye-opener.  Very few novels let outsiders into the insular world of Hasidic Judaism.  Great writing, I learned a lot, I'm sure glad I don't have to live in this world.

Ballistic and Whiplash River are very different novels, but they're both exciting and you won't be sorry you picked them up.

What are you reading?