Review (and feature!): Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

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



View all my reviews


You know, I should have known this was a very bad idea from the moment I knew this originally began as a Twilight fanfic. I really should have. That alone should have sounded the alarms right then and there - alarms loud enough that the next state could have heard them and called me up going "Hey, do you hear those? Don't do it, for the love of all that's holy!"

But if you know me well, you know that I apparently love to torture myself. I hated the Twilight series with a passion for so many reasons that we really don't have time to cover that review so of course it made perfect sense for me to read "Fifty Shades of Grey", right? Yeah, don't question my logic because honestly, I think it packed it's bags halfway through Chapter One, bought a one way ticket to Tahiti and left me to fend for myself.

Okay, so for those who are unfamiliar with the story - or as I like to refer to as "you've obviously been living under a rock ever since these glorious novels burst upon the scene of bookworms everywhere (do you have room for me under there with you?)" - it's about a 21 year old girl named Anastasia Steele who is graduating college and moving off to the big city of Seattle with her friend Kate. Anastasia, for the lack of a better description, is a bumbling idiot who has no self esteem, tends to be abnormally clumsy and doesn't find herself at all attractive - despite the constant mention of an "inner goddess" - all unlike her perfect roommate Kate who is pretty much the complete opposite of that.

At the beginning of the novel, Kate gets sick and guilt trips Anastasia into going to interview the infamous Christian Grey for her. And so they meet - after she trips over her own feet and faceplants into his office.

You know, I could really start the Twilight references here. But I'll resist. Mostly because I don't want it to appear that I actually remember much from Twilight other than "idiot girl", "stalker vampire" and "creepy werewolf". Oh, and "three books too many".

Anyway, I digress.

So after that fateful meeting, he starts to...

You know what, I can't even summarize this thing without constant eyerolls so I'm stealing from Goodreads.com:

When literature student Anastasia Steele is drafted to interview the successful young entrepreneur Christian Grey for her campus magazine, she finds him attractive, enigmatic and intimidating. Convinced their meeting went badly, she tries to put Grey out of her mind - until he happens to turn up at the out-of-town hardware store where she works part-time.

The unworldly, innocent Ana is shocked to realize she wants this man, and when he warns her to keep her distance it only makes her more desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her - 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 adoptive family – Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a passionate, physical and daring affair, Ana learns more about her own dark desires, as well as the Christian Grey hidden away from public scrutiny.

Can their relationship transcend physical passion? Will Ana find it in herself to submit to the self-indulgent Master? And if she does, will she still love what she finds?

Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.
  
Now that that's out of the way, my thoughts. Which can only be summed up with a gif. Because who doesn't love a gif?

The Characters:
I'm not going to go over all of the characters in the book as it's really somewhat pointless. So let's just cover the two basic ones, Bella Ana and Edward Christian.

Anastasia. I've literally written, deleted, rewritten, deleted, hit my head on the desk, rewritten and deleted my thoughts on her. As of right now, I just want to bang my head on the keyboard in reference to her and her "inner goddess" so: sdfjlawjerajfldsajfdavhnlakdjfaworuewopausljfc. There, that's what I think of Anastasia.


Christian. You know, I thought Edward Cullen was pretty bad when it came to stalker-like tendencies but Christian Grey definitely tops the sparkly vampire. In fact, I think I may have liked Christian a bit more had he actually sparkled. He was overbearing, bossy, rude, controlling and just downright creepy. And dare I even venture to say that he came off as abusive to me? I get it, BDSM can be hot but he really did make my skin crawl when he said he wanted to hurt her - and continued wanting to hurt her even though it was obvious she was terrified of his "punishments". Sorry, that doesn't fly with me. Ever.
 
I give the characters a 2 out of 10. Only because the author found at least 100 different ways to tell us he had "grey eyes". BAM.
 
 The Plot:
Ahahahahahahahaha. Oh, wait. You expected a comment here? Well, okay then.


To be honest, I think the plot had potential despite the whole Twilight reference but unfortunately it was a sinking ship before it ever sailed. The book just lacked plot. There's no nice way to say it. It was pretty much sexsexsexsex-a little bit of plot he...wait no-sexsexsexsex. And it wasn't even good sex in my opinion. Word to the wise - don't base your book off someone else's. There's a reason it's called "fanfiction". There's a reason it should stay fanfiction.

1 out of 10.

The Writing Style/Dialogue:
Defined in one word: Horrendous. At first, I honestly thought that the author was a teenager. The writing style was choppy and short. The descriptions were cheesy, overused, repetitive and fell flat after a while. And the dialogue was so painfully immature, especially Ana's inner dialogue. I winced and cringed every time I read "oh shit" and "on crap" as her thoughts. A 21 year old woman does not think like that, at least not one who ironically was going into the publishing business.

And we get it, the name of the book is "Fifty Shades of Grey". It was not necessary to constantly bring up "shades" in some form of reference. She turned # shades of red, he was # shades of f@$%d up, etc. We get it, it's a theme. It's unnecessary and more of an elementary form of description, almost as if she couldn't find a better way to describe something and used "shades" as a macro over and over again just to fill holes.

I'll be honest - I hated Stephenie Meyers' writing style. It was short and choppy as well. But compared to Miss James' writing? I'd read Twilight over and over again.

1 out of 10.
 
The Sex Scenes:  
Okay, I'm not one much for erotica. Never have been. But I can enjoy a good sex scene like the rest of the world. And since this book had been getting rave reviews of the sex scenes included, I'll admit I was looking forward to them.

Only to be sorely disappointed. They were so quick and dry. He picked her up, he entered it, he pulled her hair, he said her name, she orgasmed (another event that Miss James' loved adding cheesy adjectives to, by the way). He looked at her with his intense grey eyes, he undressed her, he touched her, she orgasmed. He hit her with a riding crop - ow, that hurt but it also felt good - she orgasmed. After a while, it was like she was climaxing on every other page when he really did nothing out of the ordinary to make her climax.

I won't even go into the event of her losing her virginity. That scene alone made me seethe. 

Also, can I just state that I really hate the use of "clitoris". That's not sexy in my opinion. I'm not saying that I want him to be "rubbing her womanly pearl" or "flicking her bud with his tongue" but come on. Give me something here. Although preferably not an "oh crap!climax". My inner goddess begs you.

1 out of 10.

I hate giving bad reviews. I really do. But I really hate being so unhappy over a book - especially one that is considered a bestseller. I don't even want to think about the movie that will come of this although at first I was worried about the rating. Not so much anymore. It was plain and simple a painful read. And a disappointing one.

Will I read the other two books? Probably not. Will I go see the movie? May wait for it to be on HBO. I definitely need an easy read after this. That was way too much work for one book. I've decided there's only one thing worse than reading "Twilight" - and that would be reading a former fanfic of "Twilight".

Laters, baby.