Book Review: Fifty Shades Of Grey, by E.L. James

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Fifty Shades Of Grey, by E.L. James
★

Synopsis: When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana's quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too--but on his own terms.
Shocked yet thrilled by Grey's singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success-- his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family--Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian Grey's secrets and explores her own dark desires.
In A Sentence: Be prepared for a rant because OH.....MY.....GAWD.

First Off, Wow. This Was Waaaay Out Of My Comfort Zone. Okay so I took this month's challenge theme seriously and picked the one tag on Shelfari I would never willingly go to: erotica. This book was the most easily accessible and I wanted to make fun of it. But wow, I didn't realize exactly how erotic this book would get. I mean, I knew I was going to read about some kinky sex, but I think the BDSM stuff was more than I was prepared to handle. I mean, seriously, you need to create a contract between the dominant and the submissive to avoid going too far?! I think needing a contract to have sex has already gone too far!
Now I've read romance novels before (well, just Nora Roberts), and I thought they were pretty descriptive when it came to the love-making scenes, but while Nora Roberts' novels may be rated R, this book is totally X-rated. The love scenes were much more detailed than I was expecting. My husband kept laughing at the expression on my face when I was reading this.
Twilight Anyone? So on the publishing page it says, "This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental." This should have included fictitious persons as well. I kid you not Anastasia ("Ana") is Isabella ("Bella") Swan. She's clumsy, innocent, wide-eyed, and loves classic literature. And Christian Grey is soo Edward Cullen, with the same hair, a dark secret, and is so perfectly beautiful. I'm surprised there wasn't any controversy about that. I found the similarities to Twilight really irritating; I was hoping for some more original characters.
Mr. Grey and Miss Steele: Anyone Else Make That Connection? The names are really similar to each other. That's annoying. 'Nuf said.
Stop With The "Oh My"'s!: Seriously, what's with that phrase? Ana Steele must have said "Oh my" almost 200 times! I just wanted to shake this fictional character and say "Oh my God! Shut up!"
She's A Virgin?! Aw, Come On!: I thought the sex was a little unbelievable, especially when Ana gets an orgasm on the very first try! Seriously, can any girl say that their first time was just as amazing?! And by the way, Christian's character isn't all that believable either!
One More Thing... I'm not so sure about this BDSM stuff. Reading about it made me extremely uncomfortable. Out of curiousity, I researched it on Wikipedia (like Ana did) and got even more uncomfortable. Some of the things that these people are willing to do each other...ick! What Grey did was actually pretty tame in comparison. It was certainly an educational experience, one that I don't think I'll personally look into any further. Everyone has their own tastes, mine just go along different lines.
Oh, and by the way, Grey was breaking all of the BDSM rules. People who actually like BDSM must absolutely hate this book!
Thank God It Wasn't As Bad As I Thought It Would Be. Overall this book was a lot like Twilight: the writing isn't so good, the plot is okay but doesn't seem to go very far, and the love-making parts made me squirm and blush profusely. To top it off, it didn't finish well: it was very open-ended (I know it's a trilogy, but still). On the other hand, there were some small parts that I was able to enjoy. The relationship dynamics and how they developed were different and intriguing, and I enjoyed reading the e-mail exchanges between Christian and Anastasia (they made me chuckle). So maybe it's not all that bad, but it's still pretty bad. Not a series I'm willing to pursue.
And my rant is done. Forgive me if I was harsh at times, but at least I'm honest.

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