Reading Recommendations based on Why You Liked 50 Shades

Brought to you by my PhD chapter on 50 Shades being heavily underway (dare I say almost complete?)

50 Shades of Grey is a peculiar artefact in that it is astoundingly popular and also near immediately forgotten. Similar to James Cameron’s movie Avatar, this book shows considerable understanding of genre and audience in a way that baffles critics and cultural commentators but lead to gangbuster success. Based on that, there must be great swathes of people who at least thought 50 Shades was just fine, and now need a read that will titillate, entertain, and give them exactly what they expect, so I am here, recommending page-turners, mass-market fiction with broad appeal, because I think we should all read more for fun.

“Musical instrument, foreign language, martial art”: Or, It’s Sexy When A Man Knows Occitan

Christian Grey is an archetypal romance hero: cultured, rich enough to indulge in all the culture he desires, adventurous, rich enough to indulge in all the adventure he desires… this is a true ladies’ man. He wants to buy you a pretty dress, demand you eat a steak at the finest restaurant, and take you to a concert. He plays sad, soulful piano and wants to give you a backrub, and his hobbies are unquestionably masculine, like collecting watches or sparring at a boxing gym.

If you want a suave, erudite man who only wants to bone the heroine down, try:

• A Discovery of Witches (in which the hero also literally speaks Occitan – he’s a scholar who has hewn stone with his own hands)
• You Made A Fool of Death With Your Beauty (in which the heroine, an artist, finds the perfect man in paradise)
• A Court of Mist & Fury (ACOTAR 2. Just skip 1, read a summary, and go straight to Rhysand if you want good times with perfect man™)
• The Vesuvius Club (in which a bisexual spy has historical romps. This should be way more successful than it was)
• Rose of Versailles (a manga in which a poor, sweet girl must navigate the politics and aesthetics of the French court)

Dark Undertones in a Dom-Lite

Stop trying to make Sylvia Day happen. It’s not going to happen. I do not believe most of the people who came to 50 Shades were looking for BDSM, I believe it is more likely that they (like author E. L. James) were semi-suburban married women who like more than a little spice in their books but don’t want to be literally debased sexually. Instead they want to imagine desire and sexual adventure within the safe confines of heterosexuality. Ian Fleming once wrote the incendiary line “all women love semi-rape”* which I do not even remotely agree with, but I do think reflects what some women want from their romantic escapist fiction. Real rape is seedy, awkward, dark, and shameful; fictional domination is “oh no I’m just too desirable, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant are fighting for my honour and both desire my favour”. If you want some adventurous sexuality that is more like 50 Shades than Secretary, try:

• Forever Amber (a historical novel, very bestselling, very discourse-inspiring for being too sexy, much like 50 Shades)
• Diary of an Unlikely Call-Girl (the allegedly true story of a middle-class prostitute)
• The Spy Who Loved Me (as mentioned – full of brutish men and free love)
• Set My Heart on Fire (the semi-autobiographical story of what it’s like to be a groupie and also in an abusive relationship)
• Gamiani (Anaïs Nin would have been too obvious, but I had to put some ‘classic’ smut on here. People were at it across history, my dudes.)

The Inner Goddess Is A Joke

One of the major criticisms I have come across for 50 Shades is that Ana’s internal monologue – her ‘Inner Goddess’ and ‘Conscience’ – is silly. I’m here to confirm – it’s ok to laugh at silly things! These ‘characters’ really lighten the tone of an intense series, and there are plenty of other writers who try to inject verve and comedy into romance and elevate the formulaic to a style.

• Meg Cabot’s Boy series (I will defend Meg to the end of the earth, I think she’s a legitimately great writer, but these are perfectly gossipy, nicely dirty, and have a charming upper crust hero x autumnal heroine plot I think 50 Shades enjoyers will be delighted by)
• Plum Sykes (silly, frothy, designer)
• Kevin Kwan (I will never stop talking about how much I love his footnotes – these books are pure fairytale structurally, but he has such a voice that they’re charming and compelling)
• Sophie Kinsella (the queen of making silly happenings feel relatable and making you root for a hapless heroine)

I Liked The Film Better

The film is much glossier than the book, and does a great job of both presenting and unpacking the romance tropes. These picks, then, are for people who want to a romance fan’s romance, who know and enjoy the beats and tropes and might still want to find themselves surprised.

• Bluebeard’s Castle (in which Anna Biller, greatest contemporary filmmaker*, writes the perfect Fabio-cover romance novel pastiche)
• Hello Kitty Must Die (in which a possible asexual has hilarious romance capers and might commit some murders. Very NSFW.)
• Gone With The Wind (my entire PhD is about the similarities between these two texts, and the biggest takeaway is GWTW is so readable I can’t look for quotes because I keep getting drawn in. Very racist.)
• Letter From An Unknown Woman (sad melodrama which follows all the beats of ‘this man is too good! He could never love me! But what if…’)

References To Other Books Made Me Feel Literary

I like to read books. It is part of my identity to be a ‘bookish person’, and it’s not just me – BookTok has shown us how many people love to consume book media, advertise their love of books, and find joy in seeing other ‘bookish people’ in the wild. If you read 50 Shades and appreciated the references to Tess of the D’Urbervilles but aren’t necessarily in the mood to bash out a classic, I’ve got you.

• The Moth Diaries (my evergreen recommendation for people who want to see a whole first year English Lit undergrad referenced in their YA)
• The Pursuit of Love (in which you can spot members of the British hoi-polloi of the 1920s satirised, and enjoy reading their scandalous romances)
• Hollywood Wives (in which you can see experience glamorous America of the 80s)
• Weetzie Bat (in which the LA punk scene of the 90s becomes beautiful magical-realist YA in this underrated classic)

* in The Spy Who Loved Me, the only Bond novel told from the perspective of the girl and incidentally my favourite, mainly because the first two-thirds are a sad character study of girlhood and it ends in riding a vespa into the sunset

*come at me, Nolan boys

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On This Topic:

• I will write you recommendations based on anything, just ask in the comments. Book recommending is my bread and butter, my hobby and my profession alike.
• I’ve become very defensive about 50 Shades over the course of my PhD and I don’t even really like it. It’s very “convicted for shooting the deputy when you actually shot the sheriff” in my eyes, and I want to see understanding before you criticise and nuance in your take.
• I have not seen James Cameron’s Avatar; I am more interested in James Cameron’s ACOTAR (please can we start a rumour that spirals out of control and then happens?) I heard it did 3D well, but I don’t care for 3D movies and don’t watch films for technical innovation.

To-Do:

• Summer book order for work
• Speak to SFE about upgrade
• Book ENT

Today’s Culture:

• I darned all my white linen shirts so I can go back to my core aesthetic, ‘I was rich before the war’
• I’m so glad the BFI ‘film on film’ season was a success and they’re showing more 35mm prints. Perhaps you’ll see me at one this summer?
• I only want to eat one meal in this heat and it’s chicken salad.