Anastasia Steele meets Christian Grey, while covering an interview with him for her sick housemate and becomes entwined in an unusual love affair. He propositions her to an agreement, whereby she has to throw all her preconceptions of a ‘normal’ relationship out of the window to become something she never imagined. But will she agree to it or not? Is Christian too unconventional in the bedroom?
Well, I finally did it. I read the book that everyone has been wanging on about for the last 6 months. Quite frankly the book was an utter disappointment, given that everyone I know has told me to read it. Yet, something that I can’t quite put my finger on compelled me to read it to the end. And something inside me wants to know what is going to happen next. So in that sense it has a little ‘je ne sais quoi’ about it.
Given that I am a student in creative writing I may have put it under more scrutiny than most who were just reading it for jollies. I found her descriptions to be repetitive, if she mentioned his trousers hanging off him once; she mentioned it a hundred times. Anastasia's internal dialogue, of ‘jeez’ and ‘oh my’ was far too fake and her constant struggle with her ‘inner goddess’ was painful to read.
Without giving too much way I was left feeling sick at the end of the book from the last encounter between the two characters. Despite my overall dislike for the novel, I did care about the character of Anastasia by the end and will go on to read the next one to find out how she fares. I suppose this is why the book has been such a huge success, those who love it of course want to read the next two and those who hate it still want to read the next in the trilogy.
I thought the character development was good, each one felt real to me and I liked that Christian was so deep and multi layered. I do wonder however, how yielding his character would be in a real life situation to someone like Anastasia, without the binding agreement, given his controlling and inflexible nature.
Overall, I think it is in everyone’s interest to form their own opinion of this book and if anyone can decipher the magnetic attraction towards it, then please do give me your thoughts. It has certainly paved the way for many other ‘bonkbusters’ and erotic fiction that perhaps would not have had so much notoriety before the release of this book. In this sense it has made reading erotic novels more socially acceptable and removed some of the stigma that has in the past surrounded them. e l james has been a phenomenal success with this book, all credit to her; however I feel that these books sacrifice good dialogue and story for the sexual element. All I can say is, it is unlike other books on my shelf, one I will not read twice.
by Lucy Walton
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by Anna 16th Oct 2012 11:12
Noone reads this book for the story or the dialogue, its simply for the sex, get over it!