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Review: Fifty Shades Freed

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The time for me has finally come… the end of the Fifty Shades trilogy. As always, when I finish a book or book series, it’s bittersweet – I’ve finally reached the ending and all the loose ends of the novel come together (hopefully, anyway) but that’s it. The story’s finished. I’m glad I finally found the spare time in my day to finish this book since I’ve been on it for a good month and a bit.

Bye bye Christian.

Bye bye Christian.

The final leg of Christian and Anastasia’s story arrives in the form of Fifty Shades Freed. As always, if you haven’t read the first two books and intend to, I implore you to read no further than this. The novel starts off with Christian and Anastasia being happily married – or as happily as one could be married to someone as irritating as Anastasia. The novel follows the dramatic rollercoaster their lives take as they live as man and wife.

My first strong initial thought on this novel’s plot was that it seemed like it wasn’t planned. Most of the novel read slow and then voila! Action just springs out of nowhere. And then it goes back to its slow state. It’s as if the author was like “Hmm… nothing interesting has happened… let me chuck in a dramatic twist in the plot to keep readers entertained!” Those were my thoughts anyway. I would imagine an author like EL James had thoroughly planned out the final book in the trilogy.

Can I just say that the epilogue of the novel is adorable? Well, not the first part of it but the rest is #totesadorbs.

Christian and Ana’s relationship is sweet and unconventional. Yes, we get it. Christian loves Ana. Yes, we get it. Until the end of the book, nothing new had developed in their relationship and we were treated with the usual dialogue of “Ermahgerd, my Fifty Shades, my sweet Fifty Shades, I love you, why don’t you believe me?” The interactions between the two characters were so repetitive that it felt like deja vu. Luckily, in a form of saving grace, the storyline picked up by the end of the book and I saw some spark in Christian and he became… human. But Anastasia is still annoying. Nothing will ever save that. Ana, her subconscious and her inner goddess need to, like, leave.

I also felt as if some issues weren’t totally resolved… like Ethan and Mia? What happened with them? I know that Ana took note of them “holding hands” at one point, but then that was it. No further explanation. They could be in love just as much as they could be in their own S&M agreement.

The style of writing was the same. Not impressive but not bad either, with little tidbits of descriptive gold hiding in certain chapters of the book. One thing I thought was good and bad at the same time was the way. Sentences would. Read. Like this. I get that it adds dramatic effect and it makes you feel that Anastasia is, in fact, human, and humans do not think in grammatically correct sentences; at the same time, it got a bit tedious at times and it hurt my eyes. Only a slight exaggeration.

Solst-o-meter:
Storyline: 6.6/10
Style of writing: 6.0/10
Overall:  6.4/10

It was a decent ending but it wasn’t “ERMAHGERD HOW WILL I LIVE WITHOUT FIFTY SHADES IN MY LIFE” amazing. At least it gave me closure on their relationship with the beautiful epilogue and I feel as if I can move on with my own life without having that constant need of Fifty Shades in my life. Thanks for the wild ride, EL James.

– by The Black Widow

Review: Fifty Shades Darker

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After making yet another visit to Dymocks today, I stopped and calculcated how much money I’ve spent at that one book store in the past fortnight. I couldn’t get an exact amount, but over $100 sounds pretty accurate. I love that I’m getting back to reading because I love having my brain stimulated… it also gives me something to review!

RELATED LINKS: Fifty Shades of Grey Review

The second installment of the Fifty Shades series.

The second installment of the Fifty Shades series.

I’m back again, this time reviewing the second lot of shenanigans that Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey face in Fifty Shades Darker. If you haven’t read the first book of the trilogy and really, really want to read it, I suggest you don’t read this as it may spoil some parts for you.

In Darker, we are in Anastasia’s perspective again, starting off as an emotional wreck after the heartbreaking events between her and Christian at the end of Grey. This novel takes place straight after the first and follows the events of Ana’s and Christian’s lives as they ultimately find their way back to each other.

The quality of writing, or lack of quality, was more apparent in this one. There are some parts within the novel that are so irrelevant to the story that it feels like it’s just there to fill space; I get that Ana has a life outside of Christian and I’m eager to read more about her life outside of Christian, but I get absolutely nothing from reading five paragraphs about her day at work. These paragraphs are written so shortly and bluntly, it’s obvious that the author was just dying to get back to the action when Ana and Christian were together or were e-mailing each other.

Anastasia, as a protagonist, is annoying as heck. Her inner goddess and subconscious unfortunately reared their ugly heads in this novel and it bugged me no further. It served no real purpose other than filling space on a page. I find Anastasia to be extremely one-dimensional with no depth or character. Christian, on the other hand, I adore; as a self-admitted hybristophiliac (not really, I’ve just always had a soft spot for those that are troubled), I find him to be the most interesting character of the book, which, in all seriousness, is not hard to achieve. I enjoyed that we got to know more about Christian’s past and why he is the way that he is. I really felt for the fictitious gazillionaire.

It had the same style of sophisticated and annoying writing as the first which was neither good nor bad. There was a part in the book where it was describing a view and I found it hard to picture what the author was trying to describe because instead of using simple words like “blues”, “yellows” and “oranges”, it had something like “vermillion” and “cerulean”. To me, those are the names of cities in the first series of Pokemon, not colours used to effectively describe to a casual reader.

As I was reading and I progressed through the novel, there were parts where it felt as if the author was writing and thought “Oh, let’s throw in something here”. In other words, some of the major dramas in the book didn’t seem like they were pre-planned and were just thrown in there as she was writing it for extra oomph.

The storyline was easier for me to connect to this time around because it was less centered on BDSM and more on love, which I love. The feelings that Ana and Christian have for each other in this novel were strong and I could feel that – but it didn’t have to be every fourth thing they said to each other. Actions, not words.

Solst-o-meter
Storyline: 7.2/10
Style of writing: 4.8/10
Overall: 5.6/10

Overall, I was a bit disappointed as I was in the first one. It’s the style of writing and the lack of character of Anastasia that is letting me down – the character of Christian and the storyline are the saving points for me. These saving points were made evident as I could not put it down as I was stuck in bed for the weekend.

I’m giving myself a break before reading the final book of the trilogy. I have a couple of other books waiting for my attention before I delve into the final events of Ana’s and Christian’s relationship. Until then.

– by The Black Widow