I'm going to rant here for just a minute.
I love to read. I love to read almost more than anything else. I mostly read romance, but there's room in my head and my heart for suspense, thrillers, inspirational, non-fiction, fantasy, paranormal and young adult fiction. Probably anything else you can throw at me. I love authors. They amaze me. I follow them on Twitter and Facebook. I read books they recommend. I respond to their questions. I read their blog posts and interviews. I try not to be to stalkery. I don't want to scare these people, but I am a fan. One thing I really like about the authors I follow is that they are fans of one another. Julia Quinn, Eloisa James, Connie Brockway, Grace Burrowes, Linda Francis Lee...they read each other's work, comment on their posts, write anthologies together, and support each other. I have never seen a negative word by one of those authors about anyone elses' writing. I am fairly confident they don't love everything they read. I'm sure they have outspoken opinions about some things, but they don't air it in a public format.
I'm going to get to my point in a minute. Maybe.
I started following an author on Twitter because we have a mutual friend and anyone can follow anyone on Twitter and I love authors. She cited an article from a newspaper about E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey and really ranted about the fact that it's plagiarism. She said that it started as fan fiction for Twilight, but E.L. added erotica, then it became so popular that she published it, and that's plagiarism. I was astounded, upset, really pissed actually that someone was making money from adding sex to Twilight. However, before spreading this vitriol around, I wanted to read it for myself just to see what the deal was. I obtained a copy of the first Shades book and read it. At that point I was astounded that this other author was spreading hate, lies, and discontent about E.L. James when she has obviously not read the books. Ms. James took all Twilight references out of her books. Here are the similarities and yes, I have read both series: The female lead (Anastasia Steel) has brown hair, is shy, is a virgin, grew up mostly with her dad, falls immediately in love with Grey. The male lead (Sebastian Grey) is hot and rich. Also, he warns her away and says he's dangerous. The books are set in Seattle. THAT's IT!!! Those are the similarities. There is no paranormal stuff in the books. You could take any book and find the same amount of similarities as those two. It really pisses me off that there are people accusing E.L. James of stealing someone elses' work. It's a romance between two humans. There are some basic elements that will be the same as just about any human male/female romance.
There was a time that people were accusing Stephenie Meyer of stealing Charlaine Harris' ideas.
Isn't Bridget Jones' Diary just a piece of Pride and Prejudice fan fiction? There's even a character named Mr. Darcy. Did anyone rant and rave about that?
Fifty Shades of Grey is NOTHING like Twilight. It is not plagiarism. Quit publicing saying it is if you haven't even read it. That is so wrong.
Also, what is with people freaking out about a BDSM book of fiction? There is a whole erotica genre and you can find just almost anything written about sex. If you're into really kinky stuff, there's lots of really taboo erotica available at http://www.smashwords.com/ being self published. I haven't read the "stepdad" series, but if you want to read about girls having sex with their stepdads, it's out there. Not my thing. My point here is that E.L. James is not the first author to have ever published a novel about bondage. It's just become very popular for whatever reason.
I read the 50 Shades trilogy and I'm not ashamed to say that I liked it. I've recommended it and loaned it to lots of people since reading it. And I only read it in the first place because that one person bitched about it on Twitter and it made me curious. So I need to email her that her hateful, incorrect rantings have actually sold more books for E.L. James. I bet that would really piss her off. Ha! I did reply to one of her Twitter posts and asked if she has read it, but she didn't answer me and now I've unfollowed her. I can't handle the stress of worrying about stupid people.
A friend of mine is currently reading that author's book and apparently it's very good, but I'm not giving her my business. Screw her.
So...that's what's been on my mind! Y'all have a great day!
