I know I’m about two years late on the Fifty Shades bandwagon, but I finally found the time and motivation to read it. It was always one of those things I was “going to get around to eventually”, except this time I actually got around to it. Anyway, I just finished it and am therefore going to review it.
Fifty Shades of Grey, the first in the series trilogy.
If you are in the percentage that hasn’t read this book, allow me to introduce you to Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, the female and male protagonists in this romance novel/series, although I’m not too sure if the word “romance” is the right word for it. Fifty Shades of Grey puts the reader into the perspective of Anastasia, a twenty-something just-about-to-graduate college student who gets thrown into an interview with the dark and alluring Grey which pretty much sets off the following chain events.
I’m just going to say it – I felt absolutely no connection with the characters whatsoever until the very ending, which I won’t recount in case of spoiling the events of anyone reading this. I found Anastasia to be really irritating and generic; I’ve read many o’ book of female protagonists who aren’t confident and aren’t “sure of themselves”. I also found her to be an unrealistic portrayal of a woman who falls in love with a man five minutes after meeting him. Anastasia brought nothing new to me in that aspect. When it comes to Christian, I think the general consensus was that the reader is supposed to swoon over him, but swoon I did not. I found him to be quite repulsive and if I were to encounter him, given he were a real person, I’d probably kick him in the pants.
The way it was written was both sophisticated and annoying. The use of language in this novel was smart and intelligent and sometimes even witty. The writing was engaging in that it kept me wanting more and more. In saying that, there were times when it felt like big words were used just for the sake of sounding smart and throwing big words into the mix. One thing that college has taught me is that, despite there being several words and ways one can write “She said, she said, she said,” it’s best not to stray too much. Fifty Shades of Grey didn’t follow that method, however, with a lot of uses of other words like cajoled, which was used several times.
One part of the writing that irritated me no further was the constant reference to Ana’s subconscious and her “inner Goddess”. At first, it was pretty funny seeing what both of these entities thought of Ana’s shenanigans, but when they were both brought up time and time again, it was a bit tiring.
The storyline was interesting to say the least. If I may make an Anchorman reference… “well that escalated quickly”. That’s the most I can say about that without spoiling too much so I will go no further.
Solst-o-meter
Storyline: 7.0/10
Style of writing: 5.4/10
Overall: 5.8/10
All in all, while it was a book I couldn’t for the life of me put down, I was pretty disappointed with it. I didn’t empathise with the characters and the writing wasn’t enthralling. The storyline was probably the saving light of this novel, it being the only really interesting part of the story. However, I will be eagerly hunting down the sequel as I am dying to know what happens with Anastasia and Christian next.
– by The Black Widow
Widow's Lure 