E L James Wins Award.... no seriously!

Anyone who read my last post on 50 Shades of Grey being nominated for a National Book Award should know by now how I feel about the most overrated book to have possibly ever been published.

In my lifetime anyway (although, I am sure that had I been alive since the beginning of literature on this earth I would feel the same way. A claim I cannot possibly prove but I stand by nonetheless because of my dislike of this book).

Well, she only went and won the award. I am perfectly aware the James was nominated for the Popular Fiction of the Year Award and there is no doubt that the book was popular if sales are anything to go by.

But book sales is exactly where the popularity of this book ends for me. And, though sales are what is most likely the most important thing for a publisher but I am not sold on this proving the book's popularity. And enough for it to win an award for popularity? Give me a break!

Nowadays you would be hard pressed to find anyone who hasn't read 50 Shades yet. And maybe it is just me, but I have yet to speak to or hear of a single person (Tulisa from the X Factor doesn't count) who actually liked the book. Just because a person has read or bought a book and then talked about it does not make it popular. And it seems everyone was talking about the wretched thing this year, but again, that does not generate popularity.

Award organisers say that "the award recognises the massive impact Fifty Shades of Grey has made this year; the blockbusting title undoubtedly whipped up quite a stir from the publishing industry, media and consumers alike".

Nope, still proves nothing!

Did the book cause a stir? Yes. Was it a blockbuster title? Without a doubt. But it was also poorly written, conceived, and characterised.

And just what was the supposed "massive impact" of this book? A supposed liberation of sex and sexuality that breathed life into erotic literature. Um, not exactly!

Whilst erotica has undoubtedly been renewed. But it also does what I consider to be disturbing. It is not liberating. It is, for want of a better word, hateful.

And that, in my opinion, means that 50 Shades of Grey is not deserving of the Popular Fiction of the Year because it is not popular.

But then, that's just my opinion.

:)