Fifty Shades of Grey Review

It’s the book that everyone seems to be talking about at the moment, number one in the Kindle charts and rapidly catapulting its author into a world of untold fame and fortune, so I felt it was my duty to read 50 Shades of Grey. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, this is a book about a student (Ana) who enters into a relationship with billionaire Christian Grey, who happens to have a thing for BDSM (a new term for me, but which stands for Bondage, Discipline, Sadism and Masochism).

The reviews range from breathtaking (literally in some cases) to absolute rubbish, almost vitriolic in their hatred for what is described as a Twilight rip off with a bit of porn thrown in for good measure.

To say I wasn’t intrigued, would be a lie. I have no experience for any sort of erotic literature, but plenty of the world of Twilight, and pretty badly written books. And let me tell you, this one did not let me down. The first thing that jumped out at me (well, apart from Christian Grey’s perfect manhood) were the parallels to Twilight. In fact, you could say this was Twilight rehashed, minus the vampires. A older, gorgeous, wealthy, piano playing, troubled guy falls for a naive, innocent, unknowingly beautiful girl, whose mum lives in sunnier climes, and who falls so in love that she totally changes her lifestyle for him. Switch the names Edward and Bella for Christian and Ana, and you get the idea.

Once you get past that, the story itself is easy to read and enjoyable, in a sense. Well, I say that, but the entire way through the book I wanted to slap Ana (Mr. Grey did it for me however) and tell her to get a backbone and give the bullying Christian a piece of her mind. No such luck. But, I couldn’t put it the book down.

The writing is nothing short of appalling. I love trashy novels, but this has to be the worst I have ever tried. If you made the book a drinking game, doing a shot every time the terms ‘foil packet’, ‘inner goddess’, ‘biting your lip’ and ‘holy crap’ were used, you would be in hospital by the end of the 10^th chapter. Repetition is rife, even in the sex scenes. And any book that actually contains the term ‘oh crappola’ leaves a lot to be desired. And let’s not even discuss the sentence ‘He’s my very own Christian Grey flavoured popsicle’, the mind boggles!

The sex scenes are interesting I guess, but not very shocking. I suspect you could probably get dirtier stuff on the wall of a public toilet. Christian has a ‘Red Room of Pain’ where he likes nothing more than spanking pretty brunettes on the behind with all manner of implements. Once you get beyond that, it really is rather boring, Christian is clearly a feeder, almost every meeting between him and Ana begins with him checking how much she has eaten and trying to get her to eat more. Some may see this as his caring side, but I couldn’t help but think, if she capitulated she would end up a whole lot heavier, and those ceiling shackles in his Red Room of Pain would need reinforcing. The repetitious nature of the book is apparent in the sex scenes, and I did get rather bored of her being tied up with his ‘grey silk tie’. And don’t get me started on the use of the term ‘shattered’ every time Ana reaches the dizzy heights of orgasm (basically every time she looks at Christian). She shatters into a million pieces every few pages. Who knows how she manages to get herself together again, but she should share her trick with Humpty Dumpty.

All in all, I can’t deny that this is a fun holiday read. When I told Mr. G that I was reading ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, I stupidly expected him to be impressed that his slightly uptight wife was reading ‘mummy porn’. Alas, he looked at me in a rather circumspect manner and said in no uncertain terms that he was not interested in Farrow and Ball’s foray into the world of literature, and no, we could no redecorate the hall. However, according to the internet, this book has helped lots of people put a spark back in their marriage. I can’t say that I recommend Fifty Shades of Grey, it really is utter drivel, but equally, I enjoyed it, and actually shed a tear at the end of the book (not from laughing too much, I promise). Proceed with caution, but if you are looking for ‘mummy porn’, perhaps look elsewhere, this book is closer to ‘mummy yawn’.

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