Last night, I was reading part of that Red Lemonade blog to my friend and my daughter, and we were laughing hysterically, because she hit the nail on the head so well. There were a few awkward moments, when there were quotes from that book that I felt weird about reading to my fourteen year old daughter, but in the end, I did, because I remembered that as a teen, nothing made us want to read something more than being told we shouldn’t, it was “too grown up” or “inappropriate,” etc. And really, the bottom line is that if I can’t discuss these sorts of things with her, she may find someone else to do so, and I’d rather have an open dialogue than not when it comes to such things. Right now, she is a bright young woman with her priorities mostly in order, determined to work toward her artistic and academic goals, even when she is struggling to do so.
I was very proud of her when she made the comment, “For once, it’s not a better love story than Twilight!”
After all, it’s a pretty low standard. Love is draining the life blood out of your significant other…
The first Twilight book was much better than I thought it would be, (but then, my expectations were oh-so-low…) but I couldn’t read the others. Mostly because I watched the movie, and after watching the movie, I was picturing K-Stew and Sparkly Cedric in the roles. I’ve never been into vampires, for the reason stated above, but sparkly vampires are almost fairy like, and I do like fairies.
Anyway, I digress…
One of my Facebook acquaintances posted this link:
Now, I’ve known a few creepers in my life. Okay, more than a few. And I’ve had more than my share of dysfunctional relationships, but I’m not going to blog about that, because I don’t need to air dirty laundry over the interwebz. But the blog above? Red Lemonade nailed it in her own amusing way, but the woman who wrote the Scary Mommy blog? Yeah… It’s a reminder that while I have a dark sense of humor, the kind of crap 50 Shades promoted is not really a laughing matter.
But I laugh anyway. Sometimes it’s the laughter of poking fun of something so ridiculous and poorly written, but there is an edge to the laughter, that recollection that when I tried to read this book, ultimately it was more than repetition and bad analogies that made me put it down. Ultimately, it was that it hit a trigger.
Maybe someone needs to write a book like this, but have the Ana walk away at the end, after she kicks Christian Grey’s controlling ass.
K.E. Wilkinson 