If everyone (or almost everyone, excluding the vast numbers of [probably, women] who went out and bought it and read it) is agreed that this is a dreadful book, why the real note of annoyance on this thread? What is the problem? Why waste time venting?
Is the issue the fact that it is a dreadful book? Well, put it down, donate it to your local charity shop, move on. It's a book, nothing more. There are many, many other dreadful books written: (Dan Brown's atrocious 'Da Vinci Code' comes to mind - pure drivel, with a stupefyingly clichéd, unspeakably vapid hero, banal unoriginal plot, tedious pacing, doubtful history......)
Is it that it is a dreadful book written by a woman? Again, many other dreadful books fail to generate the same heat, or feeling. (I'm an historian by profession, and so, to me, Dan Brown's book is insultingly stupid......but, it sold well, indeed, very well, in fact, superbly well). Capitalism teaches us that the market is rarely wrong, after all.
Is it that this dreadful book written by a woman was aimed at women, and (apparently) bought by them (in what are clearly, vast numbers)?
Or, is it that this dreadful book, written by a woman, aimed at a female market, sold vast. vast volumes? Why the bile, and again, why the barely concealed contempt towards female choices, if trashy, and tasteless?
Seriously, though, women have a right to buy trash, and not to be despised for it. And if this type of trashy pseudo porn appeals, it is possibly because best selling porn from a female perspective has not been widely available (yes, online but not on bookshelves of bookshops) to date.
I have not read the book, because I suspect that it is pretty grim, and that the reviews are right, but then, I never finished the Da Vinci Code either, which I thought utter time-wasting tosh.
What bothers me about this thread is not the bile directed at the book itself, per se, (which is probably richly merited) but the casual contempt directed at the women who are despised for buying (and liking) it. To talk of 'neglected housewives'; come on, guys, this the ultimate clichéd insult. I'm struck by how often the terms 'bored housewife' and 'neglected housewife' are used, the vocabulary of casual contempt; rarely does one hear of 'challenged housewife', 'empowered housewife' or 'thoughtful, intelligent housewife'.
Indeed, I'm also struck by the effortless (and obviously, erroneous) assumption made here, repeatedly, that all women are, by definition, identical, almost cloned, a sort of Stepford wife idea, (whereas all men, needless to say, are each as unique as a single human fingerprint).
So, to sum up: Yes, it's probably a dreadful book. So what?
It's written by a woman, and bought (mostly) by women. So what? While I deplore poor literature (no matter who writes it), really, I do think that women have a right to write trash, and an inalienable to read it. Personally, (partly because I'm a bit of an academic snob not to mention a literary snob), I'd as soon prefer that they read - to take a classy modern female writer - Hilary Mantel instead, but, if they choose to read trash, who are we to gainsay that?