Fifty Shades of Grey series by E L James

I can see why this book is a best seller. It has a compelling plot, deep characters and it appeals to a pretty wide audience, especially with all of the sex (so it also appeals to the people who like romance novels). Seriously. The first book did not need that many in-depth encounters, in my opinion. I suppose it could be justified because of Christian's background but eh. It felt unnecessary when I was reading it.

The writing itself was pretty bad. It was raw in an irritating way. A counterexample of raw in a good way would be S.E. Hintion's Outsiders. That's a good piece of fiction. Here, it's the bad kind of writing where the editors sucked both  at grammatical editing (small small details, but I picked up on it, which means that someone didn't do their job properly) and just overall plot editing. I hate reading a book where I feel like I can do a better job than the editors. This is the first time I've ever felt this way, which means it was pretty bad (one error, here or there is fine - it happens and I understand that, but there were several glaring errors). I don't know though, honestly, I got the books as a pdf from a friend and it kind of makes me wonder if the lack of quality is because it was some sort of pre-release version. I suppose I could buy or borrow the book and double-check, but I've decided I don't want to re-read this series.

James was also lacking in many ways but I think that she could've been salvaged by a good editor - hm, perhaps there's more to it than just her lack of experience in writing. Eh. I mean it takes writers time to get used to the story they've created and get used to the voice of their characters and understandably so. I think that's why it sometimes takes me some time to warm up to the writer - I know I've mentioned that with some writers. However, I think that here, the discomfort was a little too apparent - the choice in wording (or lack thereof - it gets better by the last book), certain types of grammatical structures (who the heck says "I've not"? Perhaps it's from a region in the States that I've never been to - I know it's used in England.. but it just struck me as an atypical sentence structure. If it was one of the characters that consistently used it, that'd be one thing, but all the freaking characters used it. That annoyed me.) and the flow of conversation was at times awkward. Very awkward. When a friend said she got a headache reading the first five chapters, I understand why.

That said, overall, I think James had a really good plot idea and one that sells. By the second book, I started to see why James inserted so many sexual encounters. It was one of the things that Christian needed to work out and the way it tied into Christian's emotional and mental state was a nice touch. I still think that the first book had too many. I suppose I'd have to reread it to analyze the necessity of all the sex scenes, but as I said before, I don't think I want to subject myself to the series, much less the first book again.

What I liked about the book though, is how the problems were resolved. There were a lot of emotional scenes that James was able to convey pretty well. As the series continued, the writing became simpler and more poignant. I also liked that all the characters were beautiful. The likelihood of that actually happening is pretty rare, but it helped work the imagination a little. :) And, as I said before, it appeals to the masses.

Overall, I'd have to say it was an easy read but lacking in any other kind of substance than the obvious. I think I'd recommend the book to women (womenfolk always love these kinds of stories) but I'd warn general readers of the explicit content.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I really liked this book. To be more specific, I really liked the ending. There were times when the book was slow and parts where I felt like I was slogging through it because it was heavy reading (for me at least). It's pretty depressing throughout and I never like depressing books.

However, towards the end, the pace picked up and I really like the turn that Dostoevsky makes with how Raskolnikov changes. I feel like there were so many allusions to Christianity that it makes me wonder if this book is some kind of allegory to it or if it has some strong parallels to it.

In terms of the writing style, as with any author, I found it difficult to get into Dostoevsky but the way he creates flow is pretty interesting. He really gets into some details but I think it was well done and necessarily so. He portrayed Raskolnikov's mental state pretty well and the ideologies of each of the characters was well  executed.

As I mentioned before, the movement of the plot was slow (especially by the standards of popular novels nowadays) and sometimes I felt like it completely stagnated but perhaps Dostoevsky was trying to portray the stagnation of Raskolnikov's mind so it worked out in its own way.

Overall a decent read. It was heavy reading and I can see why high schoolers complain about how reading the book is "crime and punishment" (har har) but I also see the academic value in it. I want to come back to this novel some time but I would hesitate to recommend it to others because it isn't as accessible as a lot of other novels.

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

I didn't like this volume as much as his other ones. There was a running theme of death which I feel he treated pretty well (comically almost, but tastefully so). I think there was another book of his that had something similar or I might be thinking of this book. I had started reading it and had put it down and forgot it for a while.

It definitely had a darker aspect than his other books. Eh.

Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes

Got some really good recipes and ideas for recipes. Desultory style. Relaxing read but too slow-paced and plotless for my tastes.

Apparently, she has another book out. Not sure if I want to follow up.

Made me want to visit Italy.

1984 by George Orwell

Didn't know what to expect.

Not bad.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Liked it.

Sappho's Leap by Erica Jong

I can't tell if this book was supposed to be a romance or historical fiction. I thought it was historical fiction when I first bought it.

Not bad, but I wouldn't read it again or recommend it to others. It just wasn't all that good.