A while ago when I was looking for a book in the iBooks store, I came across a trilogy called the “Lighter Shades” trilogy by UK author Cassandra Parkin. I was immediately intrigued, because as I rightly suspected from the title the work is a reaction to the Fifty Shades trilogy by EL James.
I have read all three Fifty Shades books and like many others there were echoes I couldnt escape, echoes from abuse and manipulation scattered across this vehicle of a “love story”. I had then spent a substantial amount of time reading articles from people who had seen the same as me, and so you will understand that the titles piqued my interest. iBooks has the wonderful “preview” feature and so one minute later I was reading the intro to the first book.
I hadnt gotten past the first two pages of the intro when I bought the whole Lighter Shades trilogy. No Im not kidding. These books are informative, very well written and funny. Especially funny. The author picks apart the EL James trilogy with so much sarcasm, humour and basic facts that by the end of the third book you are wondering why you were ever worrying over them in the first place. Another wonderful thing is that the author donates from the revenue of her books to charity helping Domestic Violence victims
Nowhere does it become unsensitive. Ms. Parkin shows a remarkable sense of knowing when something crosses the line, and so sometimes the book simply says “I cant even begin to make fun of this, its that horrible.” but then on the next page the mood lightens and you are rolling out of your chair laughing again. Some of the phrases in these books have made it into my daily vocabulary though my husband is still rolling his eyes when I sling “orgasm! ohboyohboyohboy!” at him… (That one little sentence is still my favorite and will be my favorite until the end of my days, thank you Cassandra Parkin)
I hope in writing this, I have made you interested in reading the books yourself, please do if you love or hate fifty shades, or even if you don't know fifty shades you can still read the books because there is enough explanation to be able to follow the original “plotline” (if there ever was one to begin with.W Sorry EL James but your plot goes nowhere sometimes)
If you are indeed as I hope interested in reading the books this is the authors page on amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Cassandra-Parkin/e/B007NCIS2UYou can also buy your copy of the trilogy here, along with her other books which are in my humble opinion just as good, though I still have to finish “the summer we all ran away”.
As said you can also purchase the books from iBooks
The author and the trilogy each have a twitter account. Cassandra Parkin herself can be found on @cassandrajaneuk and the books’ account is @LSofG
I have been thinking of ending this post with a quote from the books, and was met with an insurmountable problem: I couldnt choose. But I hope the blog title is enough…
Edit added by Dinahkin - Having read @cassandrajaneuk s “(very) Critical Reader’s Guide”s to the “Fifty Shades” series, I would recommend the satirical style in which they are written.
“50% of author royalties from “Lighter Shades Freed” will be donated to Women’s Aid.”
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