An erotic novel that created quite a buzz when it was released back in 2011. I gave in to my curiosity and finally read it a year later.
I am not sure how else to describe this book, but to call it a deeply disturbing and disappointing read.
This is the first of the three-book series, which showcases a deepening relationship between a young and wealthy businessman, Christian Grey, and a college graduate, Anastasia Steele. The story proceeds to show us - how dark a character Christian Grey really is and how braindead Anastasia is!
Overall the novel felt like a twilight - fanfiction, fantasy replaced by porn. There were so many bad things to talk about, but I will stick only to the few:
1. The story glorified sexism, abuse, and sadism.
2. The female protagonist was portrayed as innocent but sounded extremely dim.
3. The male lead sounded like an obnoxious narcissist. The "issues" that he had in the past, which explains his psychotic behavior was not satisfactorily delineated.
4. And finally, the writing itself is unimpressive due to the usage of extremely corny and repetitive dialogues and misplaced sentences. The author also can't seem to stop using the same idioms and expressions that will massively irritate the readers till the end.
All in all, it was not the abusiveness/BDSM that put me off because I knew what I was diving head-first into. I think it's mostly because this book clearly puts out a very disgraced message that you should give abusive relationships a try and stick with them.
It pains me to write a bad review about any book without mentioning at least one good quality. But I can make an exception for this one. And at the risk of sounding too irrational towards this particular book, I will also add - if you ask me whether to go for this series, all you'll get from me is a big fat NO!
