Janet Evanovich Discusses How Success Has Changed Her and Why 50 Shades of Grey is Dangerous

Posted on June 27, 2012

Author Janet Evanovich talked to Forbes magazine about how she got her original inspiration for her bestselling Stephanie Plum series, how success and being financially secure has changed her life. Janet says that the success and having a little bit of money now makes life easier, mostly because she can afford to buy services.

When she was a young mother, she says she was actually doing several jobs including cooking and cleaning so she could maximize her meager resources. She made her own bread, she'd make soup from day old salmon and she worked hard to pinch pennies. But it takes a lot of time and you have less time to produce your product. Now she has a housekeeper come in a couple of times a week to clean, so she can focus on writing.

She was also asked what she thought about 50 Shades of Grey. She said she hasn't read the books (only the first 15 pages read standing up at Costco) but that most of her friends have read it. Based on what she's hearing about the books, she's no fan. Janet says that the situation portrayed in the book sounds abusive and it's strange to her that women are liking it. She says for 50 years, activists have been trying to elevate women out of abusive situations, "And now we're glorifying this book, which really talks about an abusive situation." She said a friend who is an ER nurse is very worried about this book showing something totally unrealistic and actually dangerous:

One of my relatives came over, an ER nurse in her forties, and she read Fifty Shades of Grey and all her friends and all the nurses have read them. They were all very worried about it. Apparently at the end of the books the man realizes what he's done wrong and that he really does love this woman. (I could be getting this totally wrong. This is all hearsay.) But what they said is, No that doesn't happen. This woman probably would die or have to be rescued. That abusive men don't change, and this is probably a dangerous message to send out there.