Book Summary:
Romantic, liberating and totally addictive, Fifty Shades of Grey is a novel that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you for ever.
When literature student Anastasia Steele interviews successful entrepreneur Christian Grey, she finds him very attractive and deeply intimidating. Convinced that their meeting went badly, she tries to put him out of her mind – until he turns up at the store where she works part-time, and invites her out.
Unworldly and innocent, Ana is shocked to find she wants this man. And, when he warns her to keep her distance, it only makes her want him more.
But Grey is tormented by inner demons, and consumed by the need to control. As they embark on a passionate love affair, Ana discovers more about her own desires, as well as the dark secrets Grey keeps hidden away from public view …
Amazon Reviews ( 5 Stars – 967, 4 Stars – 220, 3 Stars – 145, 2 Stars – 163, 1 Star – 504):
The book’s protagonist is college student Anastasia, who has never had sex or even “touched herself.” I had to suspend disbelief at the social and sexual naivete of this twenty-one year-old, but I guess this implied vulnerability makes her more attractive as a romantic heroine. Yet it doesn’t take her long to rectify this situation, and soon she is having orgasm after orgasm at the behest of her “dominant” partner, Mr. Grey. At my age, my arthritis flared up just reading about Ana’s sexual gymnastics. And for some reason, I kept thinking about her contracting genital warts. Soon, however, Ana’s endless pyrotechnic climaxes resembled repetitively watching porn: after a while, it leaves me bored and yawning. That said, there was a definite infectiousness to the plot; and taking Viagra to stiffen my resolve, I persevered.
James’ strong suit is her ability to elicit sympathy in the protagonist. I wanted to find out what happened to Anastasia, and that lent the story a compelling, page-turning quality. James is a polished novelist. Her dialogue is crisp, her prose poised, and her paragraphs well-parsed. The author’s considerable skills notwithstanding, would I pick up an erotic romance like this again? Probably not.
But that’s just me.
This is the love story of Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. Christian is such a complex character. You love him and hate him at the same time and it’s really confusing. He’s the ultimate alpha male, bad boy with a very dark and disturbing desire to inflict pain. He literally gets off on it. He meets and falls for Anastasia. When they meet she is an innocent college student and happens to still be a virgin. This is their love story and its deeply disturbing. Our boy Christian has some serious demons and its making Ana think long and hard about their relationship. This is not your typical boy meets girl let’s date and fall in love romance. He wants to dominate her and he wants her submissive. He comes up with a contract that he wants her to sign. She’s torn between her love for him and her fear of him. She wants to know why he is so Fifty Shades of “f’d” up. She wants to get to the bottom of what happened in his past to make him need this type of relationship and why he hates to be touched. He introduces her to the “dark side” of his sexual habits and in his desire to keep her and make her happy, tries for the “vanilla relationship” she desires. Will Ana embrace Christian’s dark side or will it be more than she can handle? The way he makes love to her is so erotic, steamy, sexy and scary all at the same time.
I know it does not sound like it, but there is a real love story there. Ana brings out feelings in Christian that he has never felt with anyone else. As crazy as it sounds, I have a lot of hope for these two and I am eager to read the next installment.
I won’t say that I haven’t rolled my eyes (which is a dangerous thing to in this story, ha!) at a few plot devices in 50SoG or haven’t noticed all the British-isms that show up in this American setting. There is also a lack of sophistication in some parts of the story, but its the author’s first work and, well, its mostly amazing so those things don’t disturb me at all. The brilliant “bits” (see what I did there?) are so good that it’s worth suspending my belief at certain points and forgiving the author’s incorrect use of a term or two. You can tell the author was writing for the pure enjoyment of her unfolding story and she added a lot of fun or interesting elements for me to love. I am ready for the next one!
The sensuality factor is very high and yet tasteful in spite of pushing the envelope. I still get stunned by some of the steamy scenes and find I can’t breathe until its over. Then I just mutter something like, “that s*** is hot”!
For those who loved Beautiful Disaster, I highly recommend this story because of the possessive Alpha lead and the intensity that builds up around the relationship. This is also written in the First person perspective, which I tend to like as long as there is a lot of action in the story, and boy is there. The description on amazon for 50SoG is oh so correct in stating it, “will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever”.
With that being said, the emails were fantasic. I frquently had to stop myself from scimming text and jumping right to the email exchances when I saw them coming up. They were a great way to see in to Christian’s POV and they were also where Ana’s claws came out and she said what she was really feeling and thinking instead of her “inner goddess” *painful groan* swooning at the sight of one Mr. Grumpy Beautiful Enigmatic Sex God.
My other main problem was the heroine, Ana. Quite frankly, she was annoying. Or should I say her “inner goddess” was annoying. I swear to all that is holy I wanted to strangle the fictional bitch. Towards the end I seriously almost couldn’t take having to read about this “inner goddess” and her mental cartwheels and victory dances for one more page. It was infuriatingly annoying. Which is made even more teeth grindingly worthy by the fact that I outside of that I was starting to come around to Ana. I felt for the girl. Every girl who has fallen for a guy she shouldn’t have can probably relate to her. And while her actions and decisions sometimes left me questioning her high GPA overall she was starting to grow on me. Her naivete was at times tiresome but it fit her character and could actually be very amusing. Take this for instance, (very minor spoiler…maybe…if you don’t know what the book contains ;])
“Are you growling at me Miss Steele?
I possess a cat of my own for growlers.”
“Cat of his own? I’ve never seen a cat in his apartment.”
Man, I laughted my bottom off. Maybe I have a sick sense of humor but I found little things like that hilarious.
Christian is one sick puppy. One drop dead gorgeous, sexier than any mortal should be, sick puppy. I liked him. I can’t help it. Would I ever go near someone like him in real life? Hell to the no. I’d knee him in the groin like he deserves and get a restraining order and a personal body guard. But this is fiction and we’re all allowed a little guilty pleasure man, right? Right. At least that is what I’m telling myself.
The ending sucked. Not because of how it actually ended, because that left me with a FINALLY, CHICA! moment. But I felt it was so out of the blue and rushed. I didn’t buy it. I didn’t understand why the characters made the decisions they did for the last 20 pages or so. It seemed out of character for them both. I would have liked a little more build up and for the process to go at a more nature pace.
Over all I enjoyed this book, it was addictive unlike anything I’ve read in awhile. It has it’s issues, a lot of them, but I’m glad I read it. And Merlin help me but I’m eager to move on the the sequels.
I don’t enjoy writing bad reviews, honestly it puts a sick feeling in my stomach, but at the moment I am feeling too annoyed not to write one. So please don’t get snarky – I do realise I am in the minority with my opinions.
OK, I couldn’t finish this book. I tried, holy hell did I try – but by 88% I was so annoyed I had to put it down.
And after a lot of contemplation I have decided not to rant and rave, but simple state in point form what I didn’t like.
~ The writing was too sterile. There was no depth and I found it hard connecting to any of it. There was a whole heap of – I touched him, he touched me, I did this, he did that. And it wasn’t engaging at all.
When I read I want to be able to feel the emotion, not be told how a scene is playing out as if the heroine is actually an observer.
~ The sex – it wasn’t hot at all. I wouldn’t even classify it as erotic. For some strange reason I have the opinion that you need to be able to refer to your vagina as something more erotic than ‘down there’ before you can pull off a significant hotness rating.
~ Christian – ok, he was relatively hot but not enough to get my blood pumping. He wasn’t alpha enough for me. One moment he is trying to be hard core the next he is gasping because she is wearing his underwear.
Now if that was my dominant alpha, he would have given me a cocky smile, licked his lips and gave that ‘how you doin’ look, But no, he gasped like a little girl.
~ The price….I don’t get it. How can a publisher charge this much for a book written so badly??
…..ok, I could go on, I could practically write a novel, but I won’t.
I will take my Inner Goddess (seriously if I had to read that line one more time I would have caused self harm) and my find something else to read.
– Take Stephenie Meyer’s ham-handed, awkward writing and turn down the “quality” dial about four – maybe five – notches. Romance novel readers can look at it this way – the writing is about two levels worse than the worst Harlequin romance you’ve ever read.
– Add in a Stephenie Meyer-esque heroine, a woman so boring it is hard to imagine how anyone – much less an extremely rich, sophisticated, smart, experienced dominant – would ever see anything the least bit interesting in her. Just like Bella in the Twilight novels, Anastasia is mostly just a cipher, a complete blank that women can project themselves onto. She’s not that smart, she’s not that funny, she has very pedestrian beliefs, goals and ambitions, she has standard mommy-didn’t-love-me and divorced-parent issues. Actually, Anastasia is Bella, just this time around she gets into sex.
– Add in some clumsily-written sex scenes and a whole lot of mostly inaccurate, overblown information about BDSM. Then couch the sex scenes in a whole lot of very boring dialogue and “plot” (mainly consisting of the main characters’ emails to each other – is there anything more boring than reading someone else’s emails?) so there can at least be a pretense that there is a story here, and that the book isn’t just bad BDSM erotica.
Part of my problem with the book is the poor quality, including everything I’ve mentioned above. My other main problem with the book is just how unbelievable the story and the characters are. There are very few experienced doms out there who get involved with uninitiated subs this way. There are very few doms with Christian’s resources that have to resort to uninitiated partners, no matter how “fascinating” (not) they are – they can pretty much purchase as much experience and expertise in their partners as they need, and generally, they need and want a lot of experience – bringing someone up to their level takes time and effort and becomes boring pretty quickly. I would actually caution women who might be interested in this kind of arrangement with a dominant, now that they’ve read the book – experienced doms who look for uninitiated subs do not usually have good intentions of bringing someone along into the lifestyle slowly, and buying them cars and computers. It’s something people should steer clear of, not seek out.
I don’t know. I guess if this gets some housewives hot and bothered and spices up their bedroom life, there’s no harm in it. Husbands everywhere will probably get some awesome experiences out of this whole temporary BDSM-lite erotic-fiction craze. But, the really tragic thing is that there are authors of erotic fiction out there, who have been working for a long time, who actually have – you know – WRITING SKILLS – who will never be as rich or as famous as the woman who wrote this very lackluster book that is getting all kinds of unwarranted attention, for no good reason.
If readers of this are really interested in this whole BDSM erotic-fiction thing, without the thinly-veiled, poorly-constructed romance subtext, I highly recommend the Sleeping Beauty series that Anne Rice wrote under a pen name, A.N. Roquelaure. The first one, The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, is available for Kindle here on Amazon. It’s much better written, overall, than this book, and also much more creative (and thus, much hotter).
Posted March 4, 2012 ( 2 Stars)
My IQ dropped as i was reading……...
It read like it was written by a 5th grader. If I had to read “inner goddess” or “oh my” one more time I think I would have poked my eyes out. The erotic scenes were lukewarm, the plot was flimsy and the characters annoying. The main character supposedly has never been outside the US but spoke like a British citizen. This book dragged on for the sole purpose of allowing the author to make it a triilogy. I won’t be wasting my money on the other two books. What an overrated piece of drivel.
245 out of 365 people found this review helpful.
Anonymous
Posted March 5, 2012 ( 2 Stars)
Fifty shades of a cheesy romance novel
So I just finished this book, and I’ll admit it def. had my attention. And yes it was a fast and easy read. So for entertainment factor I give it 2 stars. HOWEVER, do not be fooled…I would NOT consider this well written, nor is this close to the best book I’ve ever read. One of the other reviewers mentioned phrases repeated over and over again, and I couldn’t agree more. At multiple points, it was as if the story was moving in circles. Sex scene after sex scene…which as you can imagine will keep you reading! So, if you are looking for a mindless romance novel full of descriptive sex scenes…. this is your book. But if you’re looking for good literature with depth of characters and story…move on.
192 out of 231 people found this review helpful.
CharleneVDavis
Posted March 3, 2012 ( 4 Stars)
Recommended, but Should be Available on Nook
This is a great read and E. L. James certainly has some great storytelling techniques. The author does a great job of keeping the reader on the edge and she adds amazingly disturbing details in everything she writes. Last, a great book like this should undoubtedly be available on Nook.
124 out of 165 people found this review helpful.
Flipkart Reviews ( 5 Stars – 1, 4 Stars – 1, 3 Stars – 1, 1 Star – 0):
well to be honest i got the book in the afternoon and havnt put it down till now, its basically very erotic in nature but the way EL Lames has portrayed the emotions is just awesome how every detali has bn described without overdoing anything or draging it but somehow i get the feeling its only a one tym read but a good one… so id recommend this only to those who really can feel a writers emotion and not who jus look at this as a porn on paper alll in all i m liking it at the moment… so cherrios 🙂
Google Books Review ( 5 Stars – 423, 4 Stars – 88, 3 Stars – 51, 2 Stars – 71, 1 Star – 85):
Fifty Shades of Grey left me feeling conflicted, to say the least. After reading this, I sort of get the appeal of the Harlequin-esque bodice rippers. A strong, sexy man telling you what to do and how you’re gonna take it… but he really does love you and respects you in the morning. That shit wouldn’t fly in contemporary lit (or would it? Apparently it does!) But in vague historical times, the guy isn’t being an ass, he is just a product of the past. And here, in Fifty Shades of Grey, Christian Grey isn’t an ass… he is just into BDSM (sorta) and is intense with issues (thank you Edward.) Strength and assertiveness is sexy. Dominance coupled with acceptance can be hot. Politically correct? Hells no! This is why it needs to be in a fantasy setting. So, I get it. But… but…a sexy time isn’t entirely what this novel is about, which is why it is so difficult to review.
This novel is wish fulfillment to the extreme. Christian Grey is young, attractive (everybody says so, it must be true!) and super-duper rich. He becomes infatuated with socially awkward, bookworm, virgin, introverted Ana. Christian showers Ana with gifts (a new Audi, Macbook and Blackberry to say the least) and presents her with an agreement which, should she sign, would make Ana his submissive sex slave every weekend for a three month period. Ana must avert her eyes, address Christian as “sir” or “Mr.Grey” and follow commands lest she be punished (in a manner which is acceptable to her) eat healthily, sleep seven hours per night and work out with a personal trainer provided by Christian. She also must wear the clothes he purchases for her and occasionally attend social functions as his date. The catch? Christian claims to be into BDSM (claims) so Ana must submit to his kinky desires which always end in a mind blowing orgasm for her. (At this point, let me just say that I must be an whore opportunist, because even as a thirty-something married woman, I would sign that contract in a hot minute. Hell, when I was Ana’s age there would be no thinking involved, it would be a done deal.) But dear, sweet, Ana wants more. She lurves Christian (even after only a matter of days) and like totally wants a relationship with him. She isn’t into BDSM (even though she is always turned on, and even though Christian doesn’t do all the stuff he implies he is into)
So there you have it… a novel with a virgin/whore theme going on. Because lucky Ana orgasms every time she has sex (including her first time.) Often she does this on command, from vaginal penetration only, and frequently with little to no foreplay. Does this sound like dude porn to you? It does to me. Not that there is anything wrong with it, and not to imply that the sexy scenes weren’t sexy. But I am flabbergasted that this book was written by a woman. In 2011. Are we really to believe that Ana is always hot and ready for Christian? That every time is an awesome time? That she is never tired, sore, or simply not in the mood?
EDIT: What I should have said is copyright infringement, not plagiarism. I know it does not come under plagiarism law. But it does fall under a derivative work of Twilight, which is copyright infringement. See the bottom of this document for more information: Copyright 101
EDIT: Also. A movie now? Good Morning America? Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People? What is this world coming to? If there was ever a proper sign of the apocalypse, this is it. Not to mention I will never believe another thing Time magazine says. The businesses I support are dropping like flies!
Awesome book!
This was a great book. Very well written. It keeps you on the edge and always wanting to know more and more. I wasn’t able to put it down til I was finished and then I bought the other two and read them too.
Horrible, don’t waste your time.
The editor of this book should shoot themselves. Poor grammar, spelling and punctuation errors litter the book.The PDF file has “Oh my” listed 78 times and 876 instances of “…” in 356 pages. I’ve read better Fan Fiction.
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Jan 26, 2010
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