The “Fifty Shades” trilogy quickly became an international success just as soon as hit it the bookstores’ shelves. Judging from its impressive sales (20 million copies sold in the US and 31 million worldwide since March), who would’ve thought that all this stemmed from “just a Twilight fan fiction”?
It wasn’t easy trying to sit through and finish the first book when there were so many instances/scenes in “Fifty Shades of Grey” that would leave a girl blushing fifty shades of scarlet.
By a streak of luck, young college student Anastasia Steele, who’s in her early 20s, is made to interview a devastatingly handsome young CEO, Christian Grey. Awkward and shy, she quite literally falls right into his office, and continues to make more bloopers with offensive interview questions. It caught Christian’s attention enough and soon, he begins to develop an interest in Ana.
However, still (and handsome) water runs deep and as they venture into some sort of a relationship, Ana discovers Christian’s dark secrets. In a dark “Red Room”. Oddly, any normal girls would start running for the hills once she realizes that this dude that she’s seeing is seriously into BDSM and love exerting power over females. But Ana is innocent, young, and naïve – she “aims to please”.
To be honest, that’s about all we can say about “Fifty Shades of Grey” (the first book of the Fifty Shades trilogy). It’s filled with nothing but graphically detailed sex that will leave you squirming in your seats. However, it’s possible to put aside all that sex (read: flip through all the pages quickly) to pick out some quirks that will leave you gawking:
- While Ana thinks that Christian can sometimes be overpowering and “f*cked up”, she’s not all that normal herself. How many people do you know who has an “inner goddess” (who consistently does backflips and pirouettes) and a subconscious that consistently has conversations with her?
- Ana is going into a lot of women’s hate list. Why? Because she’s probably one of the only women in the world who can “explode all around” a man (read: orgasm) by simply hearing his voice. Huh?
- Also, she needs to expand her vocabulary a bit. Seriously, Ana, saying “Holy cow!” or “Holy shit!” every time Christian touches you is pretty anticlimactic for readers. Especially readers who expect some semblance of intense erotica.
- Ana has the weirdest ways of describing their privates. “My sex”? “His length”? Surely there are more words she could use, being a soon-to-be college graduates and all.
- Christian, no matter how good looking or rich he is, starts to freak us out a little bit halfway into the book. Background check? Tracker in Ana’s BlackBerry? It’s beyond “just caring” and plain creepy!
- Also, we couldn’t help but wonder why are these two constantly e-mailing each other (a few times a minute, conversationally) when they’re both equipped with the BlackBerry smartphones. Hello? Technology? BBM? Whatsapp? Just saying.
- We applaud Christian’s ability to multitask – he can scoop her hair, kiss her neck, mumble sweet but dirty nothings, move his fingers, take his pants off, all at the same time. He’s either really good at multitasking or secretly a BDSM robot.
“Fifty Shades of Grey” is a bit of a sticky introduction to the trilogy, with a totally anticlimactic end (they break up abruptly). To be fair, if you put aside all that sex and put the story line under a microscope, the development of the characters were kept interesting with the unfurling of Christian’s dark and troubled past.
What? Christian was adopted? His mom was a crack whore? He doesn’t like being touched? He finds wasted food offensive? Why? At least that’ll leave you wanting to pick up the second and the third book. A word of advice though: don’t read this in the presence of parents or relatives. Or anywhere where a random someone can peek at your book.
You’ve been warned!
