Recently, I was sent the .pdf copies of the Fifty Shades series (Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed) by a co-worker. Almost all of the neighbors in my pod at work have been reading these mysterious books. I asked the co-worker who emailed the .pdfs to me what the book was about. She couldn't provide a plot, but told me there was "a lot of knocking boots" in the books. For some reason, she and the others who were reading the books just couldn't put them down. I left the email unopened for a few weeks, not really knowing if I had time to get into these books. My apprehension about taking the time to read them also came from this E-card I saw posted on Facebook:
But, last Thursday, I was out sick from work. I was bored and couldn't get back to sleep so I decided to start reading Fifty Shades of Grey. The book starts off with a scene featuring our main character, Anastasia Steele. She has big blue eyes (described as being almost too big for her face), unruly chestnut hair and is skinny. The first few pages of the book showed promise, as Anastasia, or Ana as she is referred by most characters, has to interview Mr. Christian Grey, the CEO of Grey Enterprises Holdings for her university's student newspaper. Ana's roommate, Katherine Kavanaugh (Kate) is the person who set up the interview with Mr. Grey, but is unfortunately sick with the flu, so she is sending Ana instead.
Our first glimpse of Christian Grey is stunning. He is described as young, tall and has a mop of gorgeous copper colored hair. During the interview, he is intriguing. He seems to be laughing at Ana for her lack of grace (she fell into his office) and preparedness for the interview (she had no time to do background research before meeting Mr. Grey). Frankly, he seems like a jerk, but I couldn't help picking up on some weird sexual tension vibe between the two characters, especially at the end of the interview when Christian walks Ana to the elevator and they briefly touch.
The sexual tension vibe continues for the first part of the book, until finally readers get some relief at our first erotic scene. Christian is a self-described "Dom" and looking for a new submissive, or "Sub." He wants Ana to be that sub, but she must sign a contract agreeing to let Christian have complete control of her life (he dictates what clothes she wears, when she visits the beauty salon, what she can eat and she must comply to do anything that he desires). Ana is not sure of this agreement, mainly because she has never had a boyfriend or a sexual relationship. In fact, she's a virgin. Upon hearing this, Christian is angry, but agrees to "make love" to Ana in order to train her for their future sexual endeavors (Note: Christian has already told Ana that he's not a "hearts and flowers" type and the following sexual encounter is hardly "making love").
It's after this first erotic scene that I started noticing the book's flaws. It's been two years since I graduated from UNC with a BA in English and minored in Creative Writing, and I still can't read a book purely for pleasure without scrutinizing it, or wishing I could edit it. I immediately realized that E.L. James likes to repeat the same phrases and words throughout the book (my brain is screaming at her to pick up a thesaurus!), which, in my opinion, shows a writer's weakness. However, I concede that this book is not supposed to be a classic work of fiction. The .pdfs also contained a lot of typos, which may have been corrected in the printed books, but seeing as these files are a published book the typos should've been corrected before distribution.
Also, I feel as though the characters are flat. We seem to know just enough about Ana, and throughout the series we get to know a lot more about Christian. He is without a doubt the most fleshed-out character in the series. I just wish James had taken the time to round Ana out. We know Ana is obsessed with classic British novels, which feature flowery accounts of love and romance (think Pride &Prejudice), and that she has never been interested in dating anyone. I find it hard to believe that Ana would willingly give up hope of having a normal, loving relationship to enter into this sexual contract with Mr. Grey. Without any information behind her motive to do so, the whole premise of their impending relationship is compromised. I just don't buy into it. We need to know why Ana wants to do this with Mr. Grey-- it can't just be that she is enticed by the wicked unknown.
(Attention: Spoilers!)
As the series moves along, Ana and Christian do start a normal, "vanilla" relationship. Eventually they are married and have children. I'm glad James decided not to write more after Fifty Shades Freed because I look at this last book as closure (she's also a terrible writer...). Christian and Ana have been through A LOT of drama in their relationship, from Ana being completely overwhelmed by the punishment aspect of BDSM and leaving Christan, to helicopter sabotage, being stalked by a crazy ex-submissive, and kidnappings and attempted murder. By the end of Freed, it seems as though Christian has worked out all of his issues and that he and Ana have a complete, trusting, whole relationship where neither is worried that the other will just walk out. This is something that frustrated me throughout the series. Once Christian and Ana are together, Christian constantly worries that Ana will leave. I know why he is worried, but the unwavering reminder that he is insecure in this relationship bothers me. Ana also has her doubts. She wonders if Christian is satisfied with her sexually. She worries that she can't be all that he needs her to be because he used his BDSM lifestyle to cope with issues from his early childhood. I'm happy that she finally resolves these issues with him, because honestly she started to seem like a very insecure woman. That drove me nuts! Although I feel her character could be more fleshed-out, one thing we definitely do know about Ana is that she is strong. Her continual self-doubt about her relationship with Christian started to make her seem like a worried, self-conscious little girl and was highly irritating.
Another issue I have with these books is the interjection from Ana's "Sub-Conscious" and "Inner Goddess." These parts of Ana could be their own characters. Her Sub-Conscious helps instigate the nagging self-doubt that she is not good enough for Christian. She also reminds Ana that she's a ho for accepting gifts and clothes from Christian when they are still trying to work out their Dom/Sub relationship(?). I think "sugar baby" would be a more appropriate term than "whore" for this type of arrangement.
Ana's Inner Goddess comes to life when there is the slightest prospect of indulging in sex with Christian, or when Ana does something self-affirming (like when she tells a woman to keep her hands off her husband). These sub-characters do provide a little bit of insight into Ana, but they are highly distracting (although a bit entertaining). We can definitely do without both of them. If James reworked the novels, she could leave these characters out but still provide us with the effect they have (mainly giving us more insight into Ana's character).
Overall, the Fifty Shades novels are not exceptionally well-written; however, they are intriguing. Once I got over the less than spectacular technical aspects of these books, I did enjoy reading them. I finished the entire series by Monday night (so about 4.5 days to read all 3 books). I know this is supposed to be "erotic lit," but I liked getting to know Christian and Ana through the outings they had (especially their honeymoon) instead of through the erotic portions of these books (although those scenes were definitely hot). I do feel as though the plot needs to be hashed out more, because for most of Fifty Shades of Grey I didn't think the book had a point. It just seemed like sex scene after sex scene. I'm happy that as the series progressed we got to see more of Christian and Ana having a relationship outside of the bedroom, and the plot developed further with enticing drama and action scenes. I'm not sure if we'll be seeing a Fifty Shades movie, because it would most definitely need an X-rating.
If you want to skip the entire review, my opinion of Fifty Shades is summed up perfectly here:
