Fifty Shades of Grey
discussion
Worst book you have ever read?
It's not whether she liked it or not, but the way he presumed a right to do it. She had made no agreement, and constantly expressed her disgust at the idea. He used her inexperience against her.
Darci wrote: "It's not whether she liked it or not, but the way he presumed a right to do it. She had made no agreement, and constantly expressed her disgust at the idea. He used her inexperience against her."Actually she did NOT constantly express her disgust at the idea. He was a jerk and she was a wimpy character with a hidden backbone. He did lay everything out in the open. She did not go into the relationship blind. Was she naive? Yes, but so was Christian in some ways. She was actually more experienced in mature relationships of a non-sexual nature than he was.
I heard this was a love story so I decided to read it without knowing anything else about it. I was sorely dissapointed that the plot seemed to be sex. I mean I'm a guy, don't get me wrong about sex. I just can't keep reading sex scene after sex scene. Yawn. Yawn. And fill the rest of the screen with Yawn.
this wasn't the worse book I read, but didn't jump on the bandwagon. Opal carew, CJ roberts, Megan Hart, Anne Rice,Kitty Thomas, where original erotica writers.. I thought this series was a glorified cinderella story. With a bi polar man, seducing a naive child. A movie? No way.
One of the most boring books I have ever read , like everyone else I saw the hype and thought ok let's see what it is about .... Good god if you want to read erotic fiction there is some wonderfully written stuff out there , this was not
The characters are one dimensional with no depth whatsoever , they exist simply for the plot line ... What little there is ..
The writing is so poor my 12 yr old could do better
Well done the writer at getting so many to buy this , as it was the biggest pile of tripe I have read since someone got me to read a dan brown novel
I wouldn't let a kid read them, but I don't think they're anything shocking for a functioning adult. They're actually not that explicit or exciting in my mind. I was a little disappointed, to be honest. I guess with the fuss everyone was making I expected more. lol However, I will agree that the writing is totally abysmal. I still can't get over the "inner goddess" and "conscience" bits. I, also, hate to think that this may be someone's one and only exposure to understanding BDSM. I wouldn't consider them worth recommending to anyone.
This was not the first erotic fiction i've read, but it certainly is the worst. It's a false depiction of the BDSM lifestyle. Anastasia has NO backbone. I thought it was ridiculous how she went from virgin to hardcore in a matter of days. i DON'T like how James made Christian Grey a dominant because of his troubled past. And he likes whipping women who looks like his mother who he so affectionately calls the "crack whore"!? Not to mention he's had like 15 of these brunette women. What kind of fetishization is that?The book had potential, but i found it to be dull. The sex scenes were made to seem explicit but if you think about the way James describes everything...it's not that great or described particularly well.
And don't even get me started on that inner goddess bullcrap. and Steele-Grey?! REALLY how subtle can you get?
Overall it is an easy read because it's not a very well written book. In my opinion, it rose to popularity because of the shock factor.
Mary wrote: "Darci wrote: "How did he not violate her? He spanked her for her "misdeeds" repeatedly even though she had never agreed to it. From the moment he presented the contract, he acted as if she had sign..."If you recall, most of the time when he does she wants it to stop. There was a part in the end of the book where she burst into tears and called him a "fucked up son of a bitch" or something like that. She was clearly disgusted.
This book had very little in the way of plot. I didn't read the other two because I didn't like this one. Why waste my money more books in a series that I don't like? Apparently this is fine for any book except FSOG, because fans believe I can't know what I'm talking about if I haven't read all three. So I will be clear here. I don't like this book. I can't speak for the series. At any rate, I found it essentially without plot or any sort of redeeming value. I didn't mind the sex. I read quite a bit of erotica, but I try and only read erotica that also has action, adventure and...well, a plot that goes deeper than the awkward relationship of two awkward people. I essentially have the same opinion about all my romance reads, regardless of the amount of sex involved.
Is it the worst book I've ever read? No, not hardly, but it would rate in my bottom 10.
It was definitely the worst highly hyped book I've ever read. This book fits pretty much a formula of a book I should have liked, but EL James completely failed in the execution. I love well placed sex scenes in a book. Well written interesting varied sex scenes can be really hot. A hot dom? yes please. A hot, damaged protagonist? Yes please also. But it was like EL James was playing stereotype bingo when she wrote this book, and add to that that the sex scenes were pretty much copy-pastes over and over, it made for a very repetitive and boring read. I think this book is trying to walk the line between being an erotic novel and being a mainstream romance novel - it fails on both accounts because neither is done to any kind of quality. It didn't help that I don't think the characters could have been less likable if that was her entire goal.
People always bring up "how much better the next 2 books are" in these conversations, as though having to read through 3 complete books to get to any kind of plot is a marker of a good series? No, I certainly won't be spending any more money on this series. The first book at least should be able to stand alone as a "good" book.
Danielle wrote: "It was definitely the worst highly hyped book I've ever read. This book fits pretty much a formula of a book I should have liked, but EL James completely failed in the execution. I love well pl..."
Worst hyped book, yep, I agree. I read The DaVinchi Code, even though it wasn't in a genre I generally like, and I loved it. I wound up reading all of Dan Brown's books. If the first book I read in a series is good, I'll read more in the series. If not, I won't. A good author hooks her readers with the first book.
With this book, I found myself utterly baffled as to what all the hype was about, and who started it in the first place. Sure, some fundamental Christian groups had a go at it, which the media picked up on, but how did it ever get big enough to get their attention anyway? There's lots of mainstream erotica out there. It's hardly new or groundbreaking. It's almost as if Ms James had a fantastic publicist pulling the strings in the background or something.
"Stereotype bingo". Love it.
Robbie wrote: " It's almost as if Ms James had a fantastic publicist pulling the strings in the background or something. "It seems to be pretty commonly accepted that the twilight fan-fic fan base (and I guess just general Twilight fans) were who made it so popular when it was first (self) published.
Actually, at first I thought it was because I hadn't read or watched any of the Twilight series that I couldn't care about the characters or find a plot. I still kind of wonder if the people who like these books are filling in the stuff that makes no sense with the rest of the Twilight plot.
I don't care about this theory enough to do the anaylsis, but it seems like one excuse for the popularity, anyway.
Kathy wrote: "I thought it was ridiculous how she went from virgin to hardcore in a matter of days."This is my biggest gripe with the romance genre. Why aren't people tired of this by now?
I really like
this series because it actually gets away from this "virgin -> whore for one man and one many only and therefore still pure" thing.
Danielle wrote: It seems to be pretty commonly accepted that the twilight fan-fic fan bas..."Is the Twilight fan-fic base that big? I mean, I'm in Australia, and it was all over the news here. I knew the fan-fic base was who talked her into self publishing, but I don't know that I can give them the whole credit for making it a global phenomenon. I don't really think it was a publicist. I only meant that it flew onto the scene and got a degree of publicity than the best publicists can only dream of. Personally, I think it was a combination of the Twilight Fan fics getting it started, the religious and/or anti pornography crowd's complaints about it, and the media coverage of those complaints and then the "Cinderella" story of an author going from "posting fan fic just for fun" to becoming a globally famous best selling author overnight.
Ya, I'm not sure honestly. I mainly heard about it from friends who read it, then from feminist/sex positive websites that hated it.
I saw a cute post on Facebook today. It said: "You can keep Mr. Grey. I am sticking with Mr. Darcy."
Mary wrote: "I saw a cute post on Facebook today. It said: "You can keep Mr. Grey. I am sticking with Mr. Darcy.""Love it!!!
For all those mentioning the second and third books, saying they hadn't read and had no intention - smart move. I downloaded all three onto my kindle and felt I had to read them. It took me longer than Anna Karenina (and I loved that book). It's more of the same, plus a non-kidnapping, a pregnancy, and Anna being told if she sunbathes topless on her honeymoon she'll get papped (I still don't understand why). Oh, she also becomes an editor within like, a month of being at her job. Because a worthwhile publishing house would do that.
I could hardly make it through the third book! I thought the series got worse as it went on. I liked the first book though, thought it has promise.
I think it was not so bad.I also read worse. Critics have described it as porn but it seems to me an exaggeration!
I'm quite happy. Reading it's not for everyone.
Well, while the book was very erotic, intresting and somehow oddly romantic in a stalker, crazy, killer knid of way. Her writing was horriable! Not the worst book I have ever read but if I could have only hoped the writer of twilght to write this book it probably would have blew my mind. She gets three stars for the effort.
This book is definately in Top 10 for worst written EVER. The author tried to make the book seem like it was eloquently written when all she did was use big words all the time by the 2 main characters. It's a smut book not a classic novel, stick with normal language and dont use a thesaurus to change words. The language used was out of place most of the time.
Not the worst, but definitively one of the top 10. I finished it, only because I paid for it. The writing was very juvenile and unrealistic. Needless to say, I will not be reading the 2nd or 3rd books in the series.
Well... I love the books... and I love Christian Grey.... I love the storyline, maybe it's not the best but still I like the story... Besides if you're going to read these books you need to be openminded (because of the sex) but you must know what your getting yourself into when you're going to start with 50 shades of Grey...
Anyway I love them...
Why do people hate this series so much! Maybe I got a different perspective because I listened to the series via Audiobook. I was going to go back and read the books, but now I am not so sure that I should. I hate bad writing, but there are plenty of other books that I have read with bad writing that are not so hated. Maybe it is because this series is such a commercial hit, that I am just more aware of it.
One of the worst books I've ever read. Its badly written, boring and very repetitive; the characters development is poor and the plot is annoyingly slow/non-existent. The sex in the book wasn't very explicit or disgusting, there are far more explicit books than this one.
It wasn't the worst I've read, but I did get tired of the repeated phrases pretty quickly! I didn't bother reading the rest of the series.
Did not like this one at all...poor writing and ...poor everything...have no interest in the other 2...waste of time
I personally loved this series. He's being pushed left and right out of his comfort zones. He along with her are breaking all his rules, "that he thought would never happen cause he's always in control". Oh and the transformation of "fifty shades of f***ed up", to the end result was fabulous. So no its not pointless, if you get past all the sex there is a story. I have recommended it to all my fellow book worms, and all have loved it.
Sara, I agree w/ you. I see a redemptive story too, but you're right, you have to look past all of the sex and read all three books to see it.
Elizabeth wrote: "Sara, I agree w/ you. I see a redemptive story too, but you're right, you have to look past all of the sex and read all three books to see it."Thank you, admittedly it is probably shocking to some people, just don't see what the big fuss is though? I would read them agian, I have!
Whether you loved or hated it, it sure gets people talking.
Yes, definitely one of the worst books I've ever read. It took me forever to get through it — not even the sex scenes could save this.
This is definitely not something that I would normally read, but I wouldn't say that it was horrible. A friend gave me these books to read and after sitting on my bookshelf for months, I finally gave in. Some of it is a bit intense, but I really liked this book. I finished it in a few days and started the second book. Very addictive and hard to put down.
I stopped after page 40. The writing was mediocre and had scenes and info that had no importance in the story, creating neither atmosphere nor a deeper characterization. Fifty Shades of Grey is a def contender for worst book. Particularly for how much it was marketed.
Anna wrote: "Personally, I have read the whole series. The first book, horrible. Second book, better than the first. The third book, better than the first and second. But, if you are looking for a book (50 Shad..."I find it interesting that you rated it three stars. If the first book is so horrible, wouldn't that warrant a one star review?
I like to think of Fifty Shades of Grey as a bag of M&M's. You read the book for the pleasure and the taste, not the nutrition and quality factors.It's just a treat to leisurely enjoy. You wouldn't want to read it all of the time. But here and there is ok for fun.
No, it's nowhere near as enjoyable as m&m's, although too much does give you the sickly feeling and the hole in your pocket to get them, so maybe the comparison works?
I read all three books in one week this Summer. I too enjoyed book 2 and book 3 the most. When reading the books, I could tell it was fan fiction. I hope to read more of her works in the future. I can't wait for the movie to come out either.
Awful book-- perfect example of stay with the crazy guy maybe hell change or wake up or finally have a break through in therapy. Broken is broken-- Young ladies if you meet someone in real life like this guy, run do not walk. I worry that very young women will read this and romanticize the abusive crap in it. Christian was very creepy at times. I know he was "abused" I know he was damaged I know I know I know. Still Ana really couldnt have saved him--that is fairy tale drivel.And I hate that a woman wrote this book for women.
Oh my I completely agree
Tanya wrote: "I read all three books in one week this Summer. I too enjoyed book 2 and book 3 the most. When reading the books, I could tell it was fan fiction. I hope to read more of her works in the future..."
Have they decided on a cast yet?
Robin wrote: "Young ladies if you meet someone in real life like this guy, run do not walk. "Exactly. You can't "love away the abuse," what will happen is you will wake up one day wondering wtf happened to your life, and how you ended up losing your entire support network (friends and family.)
I would never wish anything like that on any person.
hated it no story and the main character was vacuous total waste of good paper
Hey, I'm not suggesting to use the example in the books as a way to conduct your life or to be like the characters. As a reader, I suppose I was more detached. To me, it read more like a fantasy or just a love story. I'm just being honest that I read the books and I enjoyed reading the story. It wasn't the best literature I've read and it wasn't the worst. But it did revive my interest in reading, I was at a lull in my reading pattern at that time.
i read the first book and almost didn't follow up with the second or third. I found it personally distasteful. I am not into bondage or such. If you are thats one thing, but she was being talked into it. Contracted even. I did get through it though, and started the 2nd book, which i found much better. The third book, i thoroughly enjoyed. There is to much background in the first book to put it aside, but there has to be a better way to introduce the 2nd and 3rd books. I too have read books far more sexually explicit, but its the 'type' of sex that bothered me i guess. Also the boring 'vanilla' sex as Christian puts it, was what got me through the books. I found it romantic and exciting, and just what relationships should be like. I did want the book to get to the point... over and over and over and over....
twilight with sex explicit scenes
Definitely one of the worst books I've ever read.
The worst book I ever read was by Barbara Elsborg...I was so bad and the scenes so raunchy I erased it from my kindle and stopped listening to an ex coworkers "opinion" of great writing. sheesh
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It seems to me that we must have been reading two different books. Ana was embarrassed about the spanking but mostly because she liked it. If she had not been curious about the BDSM thing she would have told him to get lost at the very beginning. She doesn't stay with him because she is afraid of what he will do if she doesn't. She stays because she wants to. Would I want to stay? Hell No! But I am not that character.