Fifty Shades of Grey

I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to read this again... I guess ultimately it's so I can review it thoroughly this time!

So this is not fifty shades of grey...it's one shade of fucked up!

OMG, I was bored out of my mind with Ana, she's so annoying, whiny and so over the top plain Jane. Christian on the other hand, is too possessive, intense and over the top dark knight. Together, both of them are so one dimensional and boring. One minute they are all business like (so formal and what not) and the next minute they are hot for each other.

Their emails... too many emails, all of which are not witty or entertaining, just plain boring and full of none sense. The interaction between these two are either cringe worthy or way too show more intense (the sex scenes are meh). Especially that infamous tampon scene, I think enough people have talked about it, so I'll leave it at that. But I have to say, it wasn't all that great and super pointless in the book.

Ana's inner goddess...can we totally toss her out of this book?! She is annoying, such a drag and makes me want to knock some sense into her in a really bad way. Like enough of that plain Jane act, and stop biting your lip! Quite frankly, I would love to see these two "love birds" locked far away from the literary world since what they have isn't love, it's their messed up version of romance.

Just because Christian is rich, charming and handsome does not mean he can get away with being obsessive and possessive! That is the making of a stalker! Showering gifts on Ana to convince her to be his sub, and make her his, only for things to come to a screeching halt because they want different things. Now I don't have any issue with dom/sub, I'll keep an open mind, but honestly he's flip flopping so much on it with Ana, it's like OK get this over with already!

Overall, don't know why some people are so into this book. Save yourself the trouble....DON'T read it! Atrocious writing, super flat and one dimensional characters and predictable results. 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

50 Shades is popular for the same reason Twilight is popular: it's a heady, thoughtless rush. And it doesn't stop. You're never left thinking "Holy crap! I wonder what Bella/Ana is thinking right now!!" because you know exactly what she's thinking and feeling and going to do -- insofar as she knows it herself.

I don't want to be all "the positive response to these books is in fact a response to our over-the-top culture, where multitasking is a permanent expectation," ... but it is. For me, too. It was damn good to turn off my brain for a few hours and focus almost entirely on the a fantasy of physical pleasure. Oh, to be consensually dominated! To give up control (with hard and soft limits and safewords). Some people climb into show more sensory-deprivation tanks; Anastasia is blindfolded and tied to a bed while arias flood into her ears and her lover runs his mouth towards her navel.

That doesn't sound so bad, is all I'm saying. 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

I hated this book. It was only sheer perseverance that kept me going, but there was no enjoyment in the process at all.

I was under the illusion that erotica is meant to make you aroused. Sadly, this book did not do the trick. Instead, it reads like it was written by a high school girl, with access to some dirty magazines. I don't know how a sex scenes should be written, but they should definitely not be written like this!

The characters are, predictably enough, shallow and underdeveloped. Anastasia is a bookish, shy girl with multiple personality disorder (there is the normal her, the goddess and the sarcastic subconscious). She is corrupted by the evil, cold but handsome and rich Christian. He, of course, has a dark past that has show more shaped him into the cruel and distant man he is today. He sets about to deflower our heroine and turn her into his submissive. After the first two sex scenes, I pretty much gave up on reading the rest because they were so badly written. This allowed me to move much quicker through the book than I would have otherwise done, as I really didn't pick it up very often.

The storyline is preposterous and predictable at the same time. Within the first 20 pages, Anastasia keeps telling us that there has never ever never been a man who has made her feel this way, that she's never met a man that she felt so very "whoa!" about and that this sort of behaviour is really not like her at all. She goes on and on and on about this until, as a reader, you sort of want to scream "Enough! I get the point!"

There is drama and suspense and the last 5 pages allow for the fastest movement of plot in the whole book. It's almost as if the author had run out of steam or time or energy. But, of course, we need to read the next two books to see what happens to Anastasia and Christian and if their love is true and virtuous after all. But the book spends too much explaining the simple and evident, while leaving our characters dull and two-dimensional. I won't even go into the dialogue and the inner-dialogue Ana has with herself because I might start writing some very angry words. But to keep it simple: the dialogue stinks.

If you value your time, I would really not bother reading this book. 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

One down, two to go. It's crap and I don't find it sexy at all. In fact, it kind of angers me because it's all about the appeal of a fucked up man. If he's attractive, rich and young, he can do what he wants. I also hate that Anna was a virgin when she meets him. Her lack of sexual experience makes her a target. Fucked up men are not sexy challenges-they are fucked up! It doesn't matter how rich or attractive they are or how many presents they give a woman and how they spin it all. I am hoping she turns the tables on him at some point in the future. If anything he deserves a hot cattle brand on his perfectly sculpted ass!