This article captures a few of the reasons why.
I will admit, I was curious to read the book. It has a lot of the hype surrounding it like the Da Vinci Code did a few years ago. People are actually talking about this book. Even here at work, copies are being devoured in cubes all over the place. I can't say that I had high expectations of the book... as I had heard terms like "mommy porn" being bandied about, as well as a few comments about the lead character's "inner goddess" that gets a fair bit of attention.
This is not stellar literature, but I think I can understand why it is so popular. It is easy to read. In many ways it is very idealistic. In other ways, it is a fantasty book where you can see the glimmer of a happy ending at the end of the trilogy. In a way it reminded me of reading the "second chance at love" books of the 80s that I would steal from my mom, or like a racier harlequin novel for pure escapist reasons. It is easy to skim read through the novel, and some of the sentences make me roll my eyes. It isn't a very deep novel, and I did snicker when I saw the display of the series at the local Coles store. I had to laugh. I think this novel's popularlity has something to do with it's cover. It is innocuous. It doesn't look like a racy book. It looks acceptable. Add to this that people are talking about it, therefore, people are reading it. Hell, my neighbours were talking about it and one of their dad's has read the whole series. It is all a bit odd IMHO. Entertaining? Fairly. Pretty vanilla, and as I said, very idealistic. It is at it's heart a boy meets girl story, with a bit of a twist, where the boy is broken and needs to be healed, but the girl also needs to have some life experience along the way. Will it change your life, nope. Was it a quick read, and somewhat entertaining? Yes.
You couldn't ask for a different kind of "fantasy" book considering the last book I read was The Golden Compass. I believe we are going to read it for book club, and I am curious to see all of our reactions to it. I think it is curious to read because of it's popularity and the attention it is getting and the fact that this is a book pretty much about two folks and their developing sexual relationship. Outside of this, the plot is pretty thin, as is some of the character development. I was chatting to a coworker about it, and frankly, neither one of us really get the popularity of this book.
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