(But to muddy the waters, I'll say I like slow starters, too....if I'm in the mood for them. Many readers don't want to spend the time to get into a book that doesn't set the challenge, right at the start.)
That's fine too, for example: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Barely scratches the surface, but it does a good job of setting the tone for all 800-odd pages of
Anna Karenina.
The Lord of the Rings is half again as long, and essentially a thriller, but Tolkien barely gets us started on the actual quest in the first third.
The Fellowship of the Ring starts with a prolonged examination of hobbit birthday observances. We know there's more to this thing, an epic struggle of good versus evil, because he's already set the stage with his epigraph about "One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."
And secretly, hobbits are the entire point of the trilogy. We're tricked by all of the pageantry of Gondor, the mysticism of the elves, the menace of the Two Towers, but it really, truly, is "largely concerned with Hobbits."
Reviewers can probably tell you about quality issues (e.g., typos, formatting), but they're a poor source of high-level criticism about writing because all they can tell you is what they think the problems are.
Of course, but that's the most important feedback to get from a layman. They're going to read our books, so we gotta ask whether the books work for them. Yes, or no? If the answer is no, then experts--writers and editors--should be the ones providing the fixes. That's why we make the big bucks.
I don't think anyone would accuse Fifty Shades of being a good book. It has 5,000 odd reviews on Amazon.com alone declaring how very badly written it is and that is why I resent it so much. Were it well written, I would wish it and James all the best, but to know that good writers can get nowhere while someone with no skill whatsoever can do so well, is heartbreaking.
P.J.'s right: FSOG is a great book.
I'm sorry, but marketing isn't that good at putting lipstick on a pig. Not to the tune of a runaway, world-beating book and a Hollywood franchise. And like Shelley said, I don't see Oprah pushing many unknown, indy fanfics. It was successful before it became a phenomenon.
It's a mistake to allow legitimate concerns about the craft fool you into thinking that the book has no redeeming qualities. It does. You can find commonalities between
Pride and Prejudice and
Fifty Shades of Grey if you set aside your feelings and dig into the work.
Even if you do think that marketing sold the book, we study that too. Learn from the marketing if you can't see any merits in the writing. Ask why it was possible to position the book so successfully. Sooner or later, you're going to have to ask why people keep reading the thing after buzz and disapprobation get it into their hands.
We only make it harder on ourselves when we take this stuff personally, or become so blinded by snobbery that we can't pick out lessons. Every success can teach us something. Heartbreak is a useless, self-pitying takeaway.
Many of the fans who love it say the writing is not that good but the story is so entertaining it kept people up all night reading it. Some readers could not wait to recommend it to their girlfriends. I have work colleagues who hardly read books anymore, who are now reading again.
I have Goodreads 'friends' who went crazy over it. Many of the fans interviewed have said that they had not read a book in a while and FSOG has got them reading again. Many of them have gone on to buy books similar to FSOG. Don't you think those authors who wrote similar books are happy that FSOG had that much influence.
Yeah, man. This speaks to me.
We should all be happy when a book inspires people to read.