Well, I finally read it. I liked the first few chapters, then got really depressed after he spanked her the 1st time, wasn't sure I'd be able to finish it. I did get tired of the hackneyed phrases that appeared over and over again, and of James' weak attempts to lend the characters some depth. It didn't touch me - one sex scene seemed very similar to another.
The idea/concept was original, but I think she could have thought of some original phrases. The first time she 'clambers' out of bed or into bed, fine. The 2nd time? The 3rd? How do you clamber into a shower, exactly? And the blushing got really old. And his growling. And everyone was so perfect and beautiful. Ugh. The flaws the characters had weren't truly flaws, it seemed to me. So I wasn't able to bond with them.
I didn't expect the ending, but it doesn't make me want to read/pay for the sequel. Ah well...I guess deep down I really wanted to see if I could write this sort of thing, and so took this as an example.
Can you write an emotionally engaging book, one that has characters with depth, and the sex still be good? Or is it one or the other? It seems if you want to write this much sex into the novel, the rest of it must suffer.
Anyway, that was my big purchase of the week. I'll read anything.
To the bolded: Yes, you can. I don't think 50 Shades of Grey does it, and I base this opinion on the fact that I read lots of other books that do it. I wish the women (and men and others) who flocked to buy this book had instead spent their money on some more solid work from Ellora's Cave, Samhain, or Carina (or, for m/m fans, my own publisher Dreamspinner).
I also cannot articulately express my soul-deep frustration that the bestselling erotica book had to be a borderline abusive male-dom, female-sub narrative. Intellecually, because of that 'borderline abusive' part (there's something that hasn't changed from its roots in Twilight!) and careless depiction of BDSM. Personally, because while I admire many readers and quite a few writers of femsub (Rose de Fer is a goddess in my personal pantheon), I'm allergic to the tropes of the subgenre as a whole and think it's high time we got some femme dom bestsellers going.
This is all very difficult to explain in front of my strightedged family and friends. In fact there was a joke going around of a person google searching "How to explain why I don't like 50 Shades of Grey without admitting I read & write better smutty fanfiction on the Internet".