Fifty Shades of Grey

You're a terrible book and should feel bad.

This book is hot garbage left out in the sun for six months that has maggots squirming all over it.

Short summary, college student meets millionaire/billionaire with vague job description and proceeds to obsess over him for no reason. He obsesses over her for no reason. Surprise he's into BDSM. Or really he's into what the author thinks is BDSM. Cause it's not. Christian Grey is the patron saint of men's rights activists everywhere. He stalks, bullies, and abuses said college student and she thinks she can make him love her cause of Disney cartoons. I don't know. This book had every red flag known to man and then it came to a terrible ass ending. I refuse to read and review books #2 and #3.
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Besides the lack of development of the two main characters (Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele) and their general assholiness (don't care if it's not a word) everyone else in this book was underdeveloped.

Christian because he's an alien who never met real people thinks that him being a dominant means Ana must obey him inside and outside of bed. She's not allowed to say no. She has to eat what he wants, work out when he says so, and he even picks her damn OBGYN. He also decides he doesn't like her going by Ana and calls her Anastasia or Ms. Steele at all times. I had flashbacks to Tom Cruise and Katie (her name is Kate) Holmes.

Ana because she's a moron thinks this is love. And she's no prize either. She asks Christian if he's gay, proceeds to spread a rumor he is and just generally acts like a dick towards anyone else who may be having sex. She thinks can control Christian because love and whatever. She also calls Christian control freak and Fifty Shades at different places. I wanted her and her inner goddess to die a horrible death in a desert while someone read out loud from a better book than this mess.

Everyone else wasn't worth mentioning. There are other people who are merely there to distract Ana from Christian and that's it.

The plot was a joke. Millionaire/billionaire 26 year old meets a college student who asks him if he's gay during an interview and a whole host of terrible ass questions and he says that there is a submissive. Proceeds to stalk her at her job, at her graduation, and to freaking Georgia cause even though he says that he doesn't do relationships what he means is that he can't take not having her under his creepy ass gaze all damn day.

The writing was awful. Besides that inner goddess crap I realized this book was littered with Britishims all over. Plus James is a snob and that shines through with her through Ana looking down on people who read books that are not classics written by British authors (eyeroll). Guess what? "Far From the Maddening Crowd" sucks.

Back to the terrible writing, at different times in this book you realize you should be reading present tense but the way something is described only works if it's past tense. I just gave up. Most of the book is just the dominant/submissive contract, the contract revised, and terrible ass emails between Christian and Ana. There is barely any dialogue besides "laters baby" being uttered by Christian and his brother.

The flow was awful. There's really no plot so you stumble from terrible sex scene to terrible sex scene. Shoot, go read Jenny Trout's "The Boss" if you want some hot BDSM. I tapped out on that series, but the sex scenes were good. Hell go read some of your mother's bodice rippers. This book takes everything we tell our daughters about how no one owns them or their bodies and just laughs at it and goes well if he's hot and rich than it's okay.

The setting is Seattle, but besides a few references it really seems like the author had never been there. Maybe she watched a few Real World episodes for research and called it a day.

The ending was terrible. Ana is left howling in pain cause Fifty Shades can't love her. Whatever girl.
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I had this book for ages and never felt the rush to read it. I finally did (the 2011 apparently "edited" version) and it just went from so/so to downright awful.

Everyone knows the plot of the book so there is no need to delve further in that respect. In a nutshell: I am quite frankly surprised the screenwriters for the film did such a good job turning a truly atrocious and absolutely overrated book into a dull but still watchable movie. The book is worse than the movie, legions worse.

Just some reasons from the top of my head:

1) If I have to read another line of Ana's inner goddess doing flip flops and triple axels in the air because it is happy Christian is going to physically, emotionally and sexually abuse her one more time, I am show more going to get arrested for arson. Thank goodness the movie had the luck you can't turn Ana's masochist horny uber jealous alter ego into movie format (though it could have been a great source of memes).
2) If Ana is uber gullible in the movie, she is a downright complete ditz with the mental age of as 13 year old girl in the book. Plenty of people are virgin at age 21 despite what Hollywood claims so it isn't too surprising Ana would be unfamiliar with BDSM or never had a serious boyfriend at that age. But she has lived 4 years with a sexually experienced roommate and heard her endless cycles of hooking a new guy and then breaking up and still can't tell the signs Christian is doing stuff that just seem plain wrong. Unfortunately, the book is 100% in Ana's rather irritating POV, so we don't get to see why Kate behaves in the way she does. I will delve into that further. Oh, and I can understand working part time in a hardware store doesn't pay much, but I do think Ana is being too much of a cheapskate by not buying used dresses at a thrift store, at least for her graduation. I have a hunch Kate's animosity with Ana started to stem from those behaviors of hers. I also have a hard time believing a college student with middle class parents studying a Public University in 2011 can’t afford a used laptop to write her homework essays. I mean, this is just so ridiculous!

2) The secondary characters. From what I recall of the movie, Kate and José are just filler background characters used as a ploy for Ana to become infatuated with Christian. José acts like a possessive jerk in the book who scampers off when Ana is drunk out of her wits with a stranger (probably one of the few scenes where Christian is actually redeemable), calls her a ton of times on the phone like a creep and doesn't try to convince Ana to take things slow with Christian and keep his eyes open at the first sign of potential abuse. Kate barely appears in the movie, but she is a semi important character in the book. While I do not condone Christian's abuse, at least he can be redeemable in the sense he warned Ana several times not to pursue a real relationship with him and would have never started harassing her if she hadn't simply texted him while drunk in the bar. Kate on the other hand is sexually experienced and noticed immediately Ana is acting strange and yet she doesn't really do anything to stop the relationship (worse, she pushes things further by doing things such as presenting Christian to Ana's stepfather as her boyfriend without asking her for permission). She only makes Christian even more violent by purposely saying out loud Ana went out drinking beer with José after her graduation and then happily scampers off to Barbados feeling pleased to know her words and inaction might have caused Christian to murder Ana. Just like the Devil Wears Prada film, the story has a true villain and in this book I believe it was Kate. Since we never get into Kate's head, we don't know if she is really a maniacal violent nutjob who only recurs to passive-aggressive tactics. She knew Christian went overboard by tracking Ana’s cellphone to her apartment and sending her 14,000 USD books, and instead of telling Ana to dump him immediately, it is like Kate is jealous of Ana's good fortune dating a rich man and tries to sabotage everything to ensure Ana remains as miserable with Christian as possible while she triumphantly begins a happy relationship with Elliot. Too bad Ana was just too stupid the whole book to never realize what an awful person Kate is and didn't break off her friendship with her.

3) The sex scenes. Plenty has been said that this book is really the story of a complete doormat falling for the charms of a super-rich and handsome man who is the textbook description of a narcissistic abuser sprinkled with some tame BDSM scenes and that it doesn't represent a realistic dom/sub relationship. I seriously doubt the average sub starts peeing in their pants when they are buying groceries with their dom and they do something like biting their lip or rolling their eye. Those kinds of communities are very mindful of keeping everyone safe and whatever happens outside of the bedroom, stays outside. No, the raunchy scenes are just well... I only enjoyed one of them and the rest were so bad that I would skim through them. And while I don't read erotica that often, I do read the genre. The fact the book spends 25% of the time with aggravatingly cringe worthy email exchanges between Ana and Christian saying you go to bed, no you go to bed like they were 15 year old kids and the first BDSM scene doesn't take place until around page 200 means you are probably going to have to skim through a lot of trite before getting to the saucy stuff... only to be left disappointed. While there are 20 something women with hyper drive energy for endless sex, most normal humans are not going to sleep 6 times on average each day, and much much much less climax each and every time no matter how experienced the partner is. Sometimes I wonder if this book was even written by a woman because Ana's body just doesn't act like one. Women have something called cycles. Their bodies change each week due to varying hormonal levels. They will not get moist like a bog just by looking at a guy's abs during the progesterone phase. Usually it is the exact opposite: women get dry like the Sahara half of the month. Oh and sleeping during your period? In a bathtub? Uhh... icky! Some people sleep with their SO during those days, but it can be risky for the woman due to the chance for infections or endometriosis. Those scenes were just way over the top. And Ana only needs 1 tampon per day and can clean herself squeaky clean in less than 5 minutes on the bloodiest day when her period lasts less than 5 days? That is just so unrealistic!

In a nutshell, the book started as a 3 star read, progressed to 2 stars as the meandering begins and it just ends with 1 star as it became more ridiculously bad. I can't believe this was a trad published book because the editing is so bad. Page 64 has a scene where Christian "bought" a girl and had her ride his chopper (what?), and the pervasive confusion of your and you're should have been spotted easily. For the book of an already wealthy and well connected tv executive who could have afforded 3 rounds of edits before she somehow convinced a publishing house to publish it in its current state means the editing team did a really bad job with it. Any half decent editor would have used the red marker on the endless meandering scenes such as the gazillionth time Christian is angry Ana didn't finish her burger and the repetitive emails that don't move the story forward. This book should not have been longer than 180 pages and yet it stands at 360.

For your sanity, skip this book, keep the cannoli. There are plenty of much better billionaire romance novels out there to enjoy. show less

I did not begin reading [b:Fifty Shades of Grey|10818853|Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades, #1)|E.L. James|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1300842729s/10818853.jpg|15732562] expecting to like it, and my assumption was correct. The reasons why I did not anticipate enjoying it, however, were completely wrong. For the past six months, it's been impossible to avoid Fifty Shades pandemonium. From what I'd heard, I knew it was a revision of formerly published [b:Twilight|41865|Twilight (Twilight, #1)|Stephenie Meyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1307515757s/41865.jpg|3212258] fanfiction detailing a BDSM relationship between Bella and Edward, ahem, Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. I expected to object to the sexual practices and the show more underlying gender relations supporting them, but for the most part, I was surprisingly unaffected by these aspects. Instead, my objections concerned the painfully boring plot and characters and the poor quality of prose.

My reservations about the sex and gender politics were rather limited. I felt most wary when the Dom/sub was extended outside of the bedroom. The most horrifying example of this occurred in Chapter 20 where Christian (seriously, I initially wrote Edward there) punishes Ana for turning him on at a family dinner, hanging out with a platonic male friend, and considering a vacation to visit her mother in Georgia without mentioning it to him. None of these actions deserve reproach, yet Christian flips out, blames Ana, and proceeds to have sex with her ordering her that she may not come because this time is "all for him." This possessiveness struck me very wrongly; sex, even in a Dom/sub relationship, should be a give and take so that each partner attains something desirable, but in this specific incident, Christian usurps this equality, which was unacceptable to me.

Another disturbing quality of the book involves what Ana calls Christian's "stalker tendencies." Ah yes, Christian has inherited Edward Cullen's creepiness and follows Ana's every move, which, of course, does not scare her in any way. Flying back to Seattle in an upgraded first class seat courtesy of Christian, Ana remarks that the seat next to her has been strangely empty both ways. In a rare moment of clarity, Ana thinks:
Christian might have purchased the adjacent seat so that I couldn’t talk to anyone. I dismiss the idea as ridiculous – no one could be that controlling, that jealous, surely.
It is this possessiveness that struck me most negatively throughout the novel. Their sex was rather tame, but Christian always takes control of things that undeniably belong to Ana, whether it is her plane seat or her sexuality. Even with the existence of the BDSM contract, I believe Ana should retain control of fundamentally important items. Christian repeatedly says of Ana (and her vagina) "This is mine. All mine," which caused me to cringe. Is this arousing? Is this what James and legions of readers find to be stimulating? Because a guy telling me that I am all his is a turn off; I'm pretty sure I, and all other women, own non-transferable deeds to our vaginas, even when we consent to sex.

It was most difficult to overcome the atrocious writing, though. In Ana Steele speak, "holy cow, holy shit, holy fuck" it was BAD. Like her inspiration, Stephenie Meyer, James is in desperate need of a thesaurus. The same words--control freak, inquisition, wow, and variations on "holy X" come to mind--recur incessantly. Writing the book as an inner dialogue of Ana impairs the story because Ana has the dullest thoughts ever! A legitimate Ana thought:
Not really. Intense? Wow.
That right there was an entire line of the text.

Then there is the constant conflict between Ana's subconscious and inner goddess which is recorded in mind-numbing detail. Her subconscious and inner goddess, metaphorical figments which don't even exist become the third and fourth most important characters of the novel. Seriously. The entire 26 chapter endeavor oscillates between reading a couple's rather tame sexts and reading the eminently inane thoughts of Ana Steele. My favorite in the latter category? This gem:
My inner goddess pole-vaults over the fifteen-foot bar.
For an erotic novel, there is really not much sex, and even when there is, you must work to block out both the constant cartwheels and backflips done by Ana's inner goddess and the neverending anxiety of her subconscious. HOLY COW, it's hard.

At the end of the day, though, what I will recall best from this book is my rumination over the whys of BDSM. I do not want to be judgmental, but I fail (along with Ana) to understand the motivation of wanting to hurt someone. I don't have the patience to read the following volumes to determine the answer to this question in the case of Christian Grey, but I think it is a question that I will ponder for a while. The book also ends on a high note when Ana finally stands up to Grey and says what she wants. Even though she's largely brainless, Ana is a stronger heroine than, oh I don't know, Bella Swan. Her resistance and struggle to comprehend this lifestyle allowed me to read this novel without objecting on moral grounds, and I appreciate the questions concerning sexual politics and sexual psychology that it has left with me. show less

I finally succumbed to peer pressure, and read Fifty Shades of Grey. Like our heroine, Anastasia Steele, I was torn. Part of me wanted to read it, if only to find out what all the fuss was about; part of me wanted only to hide in a disused mineshaft until all the hype had blown over. Like Anastasia, I finally gave in.

What was it like? Not nearly as satisfying as the fictional sex was, I’m afraid. Still, despite my less-than-ecstatic 2 star rating, it might be worth a read; it has a few laugh-out-loud moments, though I suspect these are probably unintentional, and it could just about save your life if you were trapped in an airport overnight.

Part of the frustration I feel with the success of Fifty Shades of Grey is due to my sense of show more unfulfilled promise. Fifty Shades could have been so good! The premise, after all, is intriguing: an innocent young student meets and is seduced by an older, worldly businessman with a penchant for BDSM; they begin an affair, despite Ana’s internal conflicts; it all goes awry when she finally finds out that her lover’s liking for inflicting pain goes far beyond anything she wanted or desired.

It sounds good, and it really could have been good: it could have been a revealing examination of the shifting power dynamics in a BDSM relationship, or a moving study of an affair that seems doomed from the outset. It could, at the very least, have been a little harmless titillation. It could have been good – if only E.L. James were a better writer, or a good editor had got their hands on the novel before it was published.

Put simply, the main problem here is that E.L. James’s writing is a little below par. A few examples:

‘His voice is warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel … or something.’ (Yes, that is an actual sentence in the book.)

‘My appetite has become uncertain again … more … more sex … yes, please.’

‘And then he’s inside me … ah! Skin against skin … moving slowly at first … easily, testing me, pushing me … oh my.’

And then there’s the repetition – oh, the repetition. ‘Oh my’; ‘Jeez’; ‘Whoa’; ‘Holy crap’. All repeated again and again. We’re told countless times that Christian Grey’s trousers hang off his hips in a peculiarly sexy way; that Christian Grey has nice hair; that Ana is a klutz who can’t walk and talk at the same time. Oh, and all that ‘inner goddess’ nonsense – if I hear or read that phrase ever again, I’m going to scream.

Oh well. To be fair, I don’t think even Fifty Shades' most ardent admirers would ever claim that it was meant to be great literature, and for unintentional (I think) comedy it’s actually sort of great. It’s just that, with writing this bad, it’s hard to accept it even as a bit of mindless fun. Like Ana, at the end of the book I felt like I’d just had a very severe beating. Unlike Ana, though, I don’t think I’ll be going back for more. Sorry, Ms James. show less

I, for one, am frankly amazed at the sheer amount of glowing reviews this book has gotten, most of which look and are obviously fake and show that they have not read the book at all. I mean, this book doesn't deserve these reviews, even if they're obviously fake, because wow, this book made me cringe.

We have Anastasia Steele, a girl who I wanted to choke several times due to how completely spineless and insipid she is. And then we have Christian Grey, who some readers find absolutely sexy and irresistible.

Really? Christian is a HUGE A-hole. He is also a stalker and rapist. When Ana tries to stand up for herself, he breaks into her apartment... and she thinks this is sexy? And some readers found this sexy as well? I weep for womankind if show more any members of my gender actually find Christian the least bit appealing.

Let's not forget the bad writing itself. Complete and utter dreck, and Ana's monologues with her inner goddess... ew. Before this book, I thought inner goddess was a positive and uplifting way for a woman to get in touch with her self-esteem. After this book, that phrase is forever ruined. And the lip-biting, just fffffffffffff. Reading even just one paragraph is an exercise in masochism. I can't believe this garbage made it onto any bestseller lists, and that makes me weep for the future of this country. show less

Welp, it’s just as bad as everyone says it is. The writing, ohmygod, the writing. It’s so awful – at both the sentence level and in a broader sense (her characters do and say things that are out of…character…clearly just because she thought it would sound cool (and, tragically, it never does)). And the audiobook narrator has a talent to match what she’s reading. Yikes (or should I say, “oh my?” Christ on a cracker, if I had to listen to the MC say that one more time I was going to choose violence). I got as far as I could without losing my mind, and I’m confident that I get the gist, so I’m ditching it while also counting it toward my total reads because I deserve some compensation for my suffering. It reads just as show more what it is: badly written fanfic. And folks, if you’re interested in fanfic of this ilk, there are much, much, MUCH better pieces out there. AO3 is just out there waiting, with all sorts of truly well-written stuff. show less

Ugh, ugh, ugh. I got this book on the assumption that it was terrible, but a funny kind of terrible. Instead, it was just all bad, all the time, to the degree where it is worrying, to quote Yahtzee Croshaw. So there's Anastasia Steele, a simpering simper-er. There Christian Grey, the cold, detached, asshole. Together they embark on the relationship of the century. The WORST relationship, that is. Let me get this out of the way. This is not proper Dom/sub conduct. This is abuse, plain and simple. I know the original story this was written off was also an abusive relationship, but that is no excuse.

There are at least three things wrong with this story, (more like a 1000) but I'll talk about 3.

1. The writing. This story is horribly show more written, and the characters are complete non-entities. I feel like I know my shoes better than these characters after 500 pages. It's just unengaging, boring, and nearly slipped me into a coma.

2. The sex. The sex in this book was entirely unerotic in ever way. I personally can write better erotica than this. First of all, she needs to find more euphemisms for genitalia. She uses "his/my sex" exclusively through the book, and it just sounds awful. Also, the during sex dialogue is hilariously bad. Anastasia uses "Arghh!" as her noise. This made me laugh, because generally 'argh' is used in situations like "Caitlin, you have a 2000 page paper due tomorrow", or "Caitlin, your senile grandma who forgets to wear clothing is coming on Saturday". In addition, she always says, "oh... please" Just please is fine. The 'Oh' makes it sound like a bunch of gossiping school girls "She's dating Derek? Oh, puh-leeze!"

3. The fanfiction thing. If anyone doesn't know, this was originally a Twilight fanfiction called "Master of the Universe" (He-Man, anyone?) Should this have been published? Not in my opinion. Don't get me wrong. I love fanfiction. I once read a fanfiction that had me in tears, with a dull ache in my heart. I myself write fanfiction, and in my humble opinion, this is PWP, or "porn without plot/point" Just loosely interconnected sex stories. I understand the want for this, but the lack of any real concrete plot makes this seem like this was written by a horny 15 year old.

All in all, awful. Just awful. I was hoping this would be a second strike of the "My Immortal" hilar-a-bad lightning. But Fifty Shades of Grey? bure like Fifty Shade of puke coloured wallpaper. show less