Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I feel like I read a completely different book than the rest of the world. Firstly, I thought Ana was pretty strong-minded. She negotiated the contract, tested things before agreeing to them, and when the chips were down, went with the difficult decision that was right to her.
Christian worked with her as much as he could, trying to give her the more that she was looking for. There was affection there. I didn’t see an abusive relationship. He gave her what she asked for and respected her boundaries.
The hot parts were lukewarm to me. Since I’ve been reading smutty things online since 1994* maybe I’m just desensitized.
The Inner Goddess convention was overused, and I cringed every time Jose, said “Dios Mio!” I really dug the email between the two, though.
All in all, I think 50SoG is a book that, while not fantastic, is an easy target to crap all over because it’s 1) popular and 2) targeted toward women/girls. (See boy bands, “Eat, Pray, Love” and any romance novel) People LOVE to knock down popular things, whether it’s because they want to believe that they are smarter than the rest of the world, or that their BSDM mechanics are more authentic.
I’m not going to read the next 2, because I’m fine with how this one ended up. It may be that Christan and Ana’s relationship becomes abusive in the future, but I don’t know that yet. I’m just reviewing this book.
*Back when it would take you 30 minutes to download loisandclark1.jpg and when it was finished, the chances were good it was just a picture of some random guy’s junk. (Link above is not to a picture of someone’s junk.)
Fifty Shades of Grey is the 20th book I read in 2015. I am behind the curve. View all my reviews on Goodreads!
I couldn’t get past the second chapter. I ended up giving it up.
My fiancee read through to the end of the third. More power to you both.