Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades, #1) in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Jun 01, 2012 Christine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I've heard that this started out as Twilight fan fiction, and I can see it, totally--the slightly obsessive, completely possessive older guy picks up the innocent and eager younger girl who realizes she will do anything to be with him, no matter what he is. The writing is about on the same level, too, being fairly simplistic and with a whole lot of stream-of-conscious ramblings from the protagonist who overthinks things, but then she's young and inexperienced and has a lot to overthink! There ar I've heard that this started out as Twilight fan fiction, and I can see it, totally--the slightly obsessive, completely possessive older guy picks up the innocent and eager younger girl who realizes she will do anything to be with him, no matter what he is. The writing is about on the same level, too, being fairly simplistic and with a whole lot of stream-of-conscious ramblings from the protagonist who overthinks things, but then she's young and inexperienced and has a lot to overthink! There are also many moments that ask you to suspend your disbelief in a major way, the first being obviously that the super-rich, super control-freak Christian Grey would allow himself to lose it over Anastasia Steele, who seemingly has nothing for him. But that is, of course, the central conceit of the book and why it works--it plays to the typical fantasy that women have of the man that's no good for them but that they can change, dammit, if they just love him enough. And that really is what this boils down to--if you take out all the sex and the titillation, what you have is a love story that you pretty much know is going to work out by the end of book 3 but that at this point is just fraught with danger and possibility. The sex itself is actually not such a big thing in my mind (but I read the Anita Blake series and Laurell K. Hamilton has done almost all of this in a bigger way, so this isn't my first time at the reading about sex you don't do rodeo) aside from the fact that it monopolizes a large part of the book. There's so much sex, actually, that it's hard to remember the timeline of the story--I think it all takes place in about 3 weeks--which works to the author's advantage because otherwise the character's reactions are pretty far out. All of that aside, the story does what it sets out to do, which is make you care about the relationship between these characters, to wonder what exactly happened to Grey to make him such a mess, and to hope that Ana can work out whatever it is she needs so that they can be together. I'm looking forward to the next one, honestly, and I'm not ashamed of it! ...more

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May 28, 2012 Amy rated it it was ok

Shelves: romance

Alright, I'm jumped on the band wagon & read this - especially because all my goodreads friends read it and gave it great reviews. ;) What I came away with: Sex begins on page 90ish. Then afterward, almost every 10 pages. Waaay too much for me. If I read one more comment about biting ones lip, I'll barf. The author at one point comments about lingerie from Agent Provocateur in Washington. If my memory serves me correctly this is a British brand not located in the USA (could be wrong but I'm gett ...more

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Sep 24, 2012 Kari rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2012

{sheepishly hanging head} yup, I read it. Pretty tame actually compared to those trashy Brotherhood books. And since it was such a quick read, I'll probably just read the other 2....just so I can find out what happens. ;) ...more

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