Fifty Shades Darker (Fifty Shades, #2) in Crazy Challenge Connection

Aug 17, 2011 Juliana Philippa added it

Shelves: 0-unrated, romantica-contemporary, 0-own-over-500-pages, 0-own-avg-rating-3-point-8-plus, romantica, 0-own, 0-reviewed, 0-own-as-an-ebook, 2011-reads, 2011-sep-reads

Read my review on Fiction Vixen Book Reviews. (It is a little different than below.)
Read my interview with E.L. James and enter the Fiction Vixen Book Reviews giveaway to win a copy of this book!
4.5 stars
I loved it. It was a different experience than the first one; the pace is much slower, even though there are a lot of outside forces and complications when there weren't in the previous one. The chemistry is as sizzling as ever though (whew! *fan please!*), the romance is sweeter, an ...more

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Sep 01, 2012 Barbara ★ rated it it was ok

Shelves: h-h-disfigured-handicapped, music, read-2012, second-chances, h-h-abused-tortured, erotica, x-set-in-usa-washington, erotica-bdsm

For a 532 page book, not a lot of nothing happened. The writing is still like a high schooler wrote it using a thesaurus every once in a while but not nearly enough. If Ana thought Holy cow or Holy fuck once more I thought I was going to scream. And her inner goddess, could she get any more annoying? She's so needy, naive and insecure.

I love me a tortured hero but Christian is just too much. He wasn't kidding when he said "Fifty shades of fu**ed up!" He's so possessive and even more needy than ...more

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May 12, 2012 AWBookGirl rated it it was ok

Fifty Shades Darker, the second book in the “Fifty Shades” trilogy, could have been about fifty pages (maybe more) shorter. I get that it’s sort-of erotica that’s trying to still have a story line. But really, it’s OK to go more than three pages (or what felt like only three pages) without yet another tryst. Seriously. How do these people get anything done?

But before I rant more, let me talk about what I liked in this one. Christian opens up more. Ana gets a bit of a backbone. Their relationship Fifty Shades Darker, the second book in the “Fifty Shades” trilogy, could have been about fifty pages (maybe more) shorter. I get that it’s sort-of erotica that’s trying to still have a story line. But really, it’s OK to go more than three pages (or what felt like only three pages) without yet another tryst. Seriously. How do these people get anything done?

But before I rant more, let me talk about what I liked in this one. Christian opens up more. Ana gets a bit of a backbone. Their relationship progresses on a mental and emotional, not just physical level. I Christian was more human, more authentic in this book. For all of his flaws, he does love Ana, and she loves him. And although Christian is more controlling than I would be comfortable with in a relationship, it seems to work for them.I’m still interested enough to see how things end in the final book.

BUT….

Frankly, I was bored in this one. It truly did feel like Ana and Christian were jumping into bed every third page. It got redundant after a while. Ana’s constant “Jeez” got on my nerves. And I finally figured out what bugs me about Christian. It’s the same way I felt about Edward in the Twilight books. Christian is too damn controlling. It’s ridiculous how he yells at Ana while she’s driving, how he gets mad every time she even speaks to another man, even though she is with Christian and it is obvious NOTHING is going on with the other guy. It stifled me just reading it.

And, Ana’s constant worry that when she speaks her mind, Christian is going to be mad. That’s not healthy. I was glad to see Christian break out of his self-loathing (more or less) but the change felt rather sudden to me. I suppose that’s the beauty of fiction- you can suspend reality within a story if you need to. Now, without being too spoiler-y, I felt like the end of Fifty Shades Darker is a complete plot contrivance that won’t really drive Christian and Ana’s relationship forward, but was added to build up some drama or action that is really secondary to the story (and I will freely admit if I am wrong when I read book 3).

This one was a much slower read for me than Fifty Shades of Grey. We’ll see how things end up in the final book. ...more

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May 06, 2012 Charlotte (Buried in Books) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. GO GRACE!!!!!!! I don't blame her for getting drunk afterwards.

Sorry, skipping ahead of myself. Taking up the story just 3 days after the end of Fifty Shades of Grey, I was fully prepared for a bumpy ride. I wasn't fully prepared for how this book would grab a hold of me - meaning I finished it in just over 24 hours - which is unheard for me.

The reason was pure and simple - Christian. I must admit that I was sad to see the demise of Scary Fifty, I guess my tolerance for Vanilla is actually quite ...more

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Jun 13, 2012 Jamie ~ Bad Boy Inspector rated it it was amazing

Shelves: genre-erotic, read-2012, favs-2012, favs

ANOTHER GREAT BOOK!! I think my favorite parts though was the emails between Ana and Christian. They had me laughing while pulling on my heartstrings!! I really really want a Fifty of my very own :(

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Oct 22, 2011 *Nan* rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2011

Loved this book as much as Fifty Shades of Grey and hate that I have to wait until January for part three!

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May 05, 2012 Stacy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: e-books, owned-books, five-stars, read-in-2012

Confound it, Ms. James! I should be asleep in preparation for the next workday, not frantically unable to put down your naughty but entertaining book!

It's not like I can take a Grey day tomorrow.
...more

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Aug 28, 2012 Krissy rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-before-2015, abuse, book2film, pgs-500-599

Okay, I thought this was the best out of the 3 books. The writing never improved, of course, but I am still able to get beyond that. I really enjoyed getting to know Christian a little better. At times I really felt bad for him :( I was thrilled he was slowly starting to grow and heal despite everything he went through.

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Mar 22, 2012 Stephanie Tuell rated it it was amazing

Even more emotionally gripping than the first one! Darker takes thru Ana and Christians journey together to find love. Can they really love each other, or will the past keep getting in the way?

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