Though to be honest, who doesn't?
Upon reading more modern 'romance' novels, that have been published since Fifty Shades of Grey became popular, I have noticed an ongoing trend. A trend that I, quite frankly, am not comfortable with.
Why is everything so sexual now? and why are all these borderline pornographic novels being labelled as 'Romance'. Someone needs to send out a memo explaining to authors that romance isn't all about heated and overly-descriptive sex scenes. It is actually, funnily enough, possible to build a romantic relationship in a novel without concentrating on their sex life. And if you do decide to include sex scenes, there's this little thing called 'subtlety'.
Heard of it, E. L. James? No? I didn't think so.
I'm just kidding, I didn't actually particularly mind the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy ( yes, I read them all. Watch me hang my head in shame) it's only the aftermath that is picking at my nerves, quite painfully.
I am not a massive sex-scene fan. I have always known this, so I'm not entirely sure why I read the over-hyped series by E. L. James, but for some weird reason I did.
After the first sex scene I can hand on my heart say I skipped and skimmed the rest from there on. I often found myself wincing at the phrasing used, or just that it seemed to be the same thing repeated over and over again. I kept reading purely because I wanted to find out what happened to Anna.
Sidenote: If you skip the sex scenes, fifty shades of grey actually makes a pretty good Romance read.
Basically, to sum up my scrambled thoughts in this post;
- Why are all new romance novels so sexually oriented? Why is no one focusing on beautiful, well developed and tangible character relationships that we can invest our feelings into?!
- I blame Fifty Shades of Grey
- Erotica should be retitled as the 'uncomfortable genre'. Yes, we can be comfortable with our sexuality without reading in-depth and , in my opinion, vulgar accounts of fictional characters' sexual encounters. Which almost always happen to be weird and unrealistic. Butt plugs? really?
And that's how Sarah See's It!
Let me know what you think!
What I'm reading now: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (I know, I know. I'm a bit late jumping on the bandwagon.)
What I've got lined up: The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (and again, a bit slow on the uptake)
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