Fifty Shades Trilogy- EL James

Alright, after a small hiatus that included graduating from Indiana University and getting married, I’m back in my blogging chair!

So to start us back, I recently read the Fifty Shades trilogy by EL James and feel compelled to share my thoughts with you on the subject.

First of all, why do people like these books? I mean the writing is anything but good, the language is repetitive (if someone so much as murmurs the words “inner goddess” in my presence, they’ll be on the receiving end of an angry glare from me), and the sex, honestly, is just ok.

But I guess I should back track a bit before running right into the book bashing. In case you weren’t aware, this whole ordeal started as fan fiction for the Twilight series, which is our first clue as to why these books are bad. For those of you who don’t know, fan fiction is the altering or rewriting of a popular book so that it plays out the way the fan thinks or wishes it did. Sooo……..where does that leave the story you might ask? Nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. Everything that might have made Twilight tolerable,

gone.

It’s just a compilation of a lot of nothing happening.

But really, it does pretty much keep the same cast of characters. We’ve got an Edward (Christian Grey), a Bella (Ana), a large and wealthy adoptive Cullen family (the Greys), and we lose the love triangle but keep our Jacob (Jose). We also lose the vampire/werewolf aspect and replace that with a dominant/submissive sexual relationship…..

So since we made it here, let’s talk about it. I know this is what you’ve all been waiting for, so let’s do it, excuse the pun.

Ok, well the premise of this trilogy is that Christian Grey is a messed up kid who is into freaky sex and contractual relationships. He is intrigued by our less than interesting protagonist, Ana, and decides to recruit her into this dominant/submissive lifestyle. This involves the submissive (Ana), doing whatever the dominant (Christian Grey) wants, when, where, and how he wants it. And he wants it weird; he’s into the whole sadist thing. Beating and inflicting pain when he feels it necessary to get off. And, the weirdest part of the whole thing….she considers entering this weird ass relationship, as a virgin!

And let’s make a couple points about this little tidbit of information. Ana is supposedly 21 years old, and a recent graduate of college….and is the most naive person to ever hit the pages of a sex novel! Even if you’ve never actually had sex, you at least know the basic premise of the act and what it leads to. She plays dumb and confused pretty much the entirety of the book and it becomes increasingly annoying as the story progresses.

Ok, getting back on track. (Spoilers)

So, the two of them end up falling in love and this whole dominant/ submissive relationship pretty much becomes null and void and the following described sex, besides a few little kinky sidebars, stays pretty normal. It’s kind of a bubble buster, but it’s true.

The one redeeming fact about this story is Christian Grey. I really liked him as a character. He’s way less whiney than Edward, and he enjoys his power and wealth as a successful man should, unlike the brooding Edward. His character actually develops quite a bit and you get to learn a lot about his past and what made him the way he is.

I guess to wrap this up, I wouldn’t recommend it, but by all means find out for yourself.

Happy reading,

B