I am not very good at writing book reviews.  You think I would be better considering what I want to do is write and that I love to read books, but it’s just not a talent I possess.  I do, however, like to read a lot.  My TBR pile is getting a little crazy and now that I have a Kindle and a twitchy finger, the list keeps getting longer.

What is it that I have made time to read this week?  I’m a little shy to admit it is Fifty Shades of Grey.  I write romance, there is no shame in the subject matter, but this book has utterly exploded.  People are weighing in on both sides of the subject matter.  I think what really piqued my interest was when I heard The Today Show decided to deconstruct the book and give a wide-sweeping opinion on the “type” of women who would want to read it.

I am not about putting people in boxes.  I am all about doorways, making choices, in fact if you read anything by me that doesn’t have a doorway or a portal in it, it is probably not by me.  But my point is that our choices don’t define us.  We are already defined and then we make a choice which can further change us.

I am currently nine chapters into this book and I’m going to keep reading.  The only similarities I see between this story and Twilight are that it is set in the Pacific Northwest, the male lead is mysterious and moody, and the female lead can’t figure out why she is attracted to him.

I don’t really understand what all the fuss about it.  There have always been books in this genre which dealt with BDSM subject matter.  A. N. Roquelaure (aka Anne Rice) wrote The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy in the early 1980s and they were loosely based on the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty.  It’s funny how Anne Rice wrote these books in the 1980s when many feminists denounced it and its subject matter as a violation of women’s rights.  And here we are again, 30 years later, arguing about the same thing.

At the time Anne Rice felt that women should have the freedom to read and write whatever they pleased, and I certainly echo her sentiment today.