You know
those books that are just instantly popular and every one and their dogs read
them right away, and while you are slightly curious you just can’t quite bring
yourself to see what all the fuss is about?
That’s how I’ve been about 50 Shades of Grey. I’d seen enough reviews to get the overall
premise of the book and figured I didn’t need to read the whole thing to get
what it was really about.
Sex. It’s a sex book. But not just sex in general, S&M type
sex. So a tad on the kinky side it
that’s not your normal cup of tea. As I
was saying, I wasn’t going to read the book but then one of my book clubs chose
it as our August discussion book, so not wanting to be totally alienated from
the upcoming conversation I took the plunge and started reading.
Honestly, I
wasn’t completely blown away by the sex stuff.
And yes, there was a lot of it described in excruciating detail, making
this one of the most popular erotic fiction stories of all time, I’m sure. I think there’s an ongoing joke on the
Internet about how lots of women finally started having sex with their husbands
again since reading 50 Shades of Grey.
Whether or not that’s the case, if you don’t want to read about sex in
great frequency and intricate detail, don’t even bother trying to read this
book.
In a nutshell
the overall story is about Anastasia Steele, recent college grad from WSU
Vancouver who dreams of working in a publishing in Seattle after graduation. Right before graduation, her roommate, Kate, convinces
Anastasia to interview Christian Grey, a big wig businessman in Seattle. Kate is too sick to do the interview but
still wants to get the story (oh, those persistent journalists), so Ana
graciously agrees to take over for Kate.
Ana fumbles her way through the interview because she is quite taken
with Christian Grey who is not only close to her age (he’s 26), a Billionaire
(yes, with a capital “B”), but is also Greek god style drop dead gorgeous. And since Ana is kind of socially awkward and
a total klutz to boot, she starts the interview by literally falling into his
office, staring up into his eyes, and rendered almost speechless by this
pristine male specimen looking down at her.
After the
interview Ana has a couple more chance encounters with Christian, including him
visiting the hardware store where she works…..can you say stalker? Anyway, after a drunken night at the bar,
which as the reader finds out is the first time Ana has EVER been drunk, she
drunk dials Christian and of course he magically shows up 20 minutes later to
save her from an unwanted advance by one of her male friends, then proceeds to
take her back to her apartment (or his hotel…doesn't quite matter, honestly)
and they have sex, which is also a first for Ana because as the reader has
discovered Ana is a virgin. But even she
cannot resist the charms/creepiness of Mr. Grey.
The rest of
the book covers the beginnings of Ana and Christian’s “relationship,” which
essentially amounts to them having unheard amounts of sex, Ana having about 500
orgasms in the span of 380 pages, and the two of them going back and forth on
the terms of the contract Christian wants Ana to sign which will make him her
Dominant and her his Submissive. Sexy,
huh?
My biggest,
biggest, hugest issue with this book is that the writing is downright
awful. The dialogue between the
characters is laughable and someone should seriously send the author a
thesaurus because the same phrases, thoughts and descriptions were used on each
and every page which essentially created some of the most vapid, shallow
characters I have ever come across in my years of reading. I know I was supposed to be rooting for Ana
to break through Christian’s internal walls, to heal him from his difficult
childhood, and for the two of them to completely fall in love and embark on a
real relationship, not one that is solely based on spanking and
blindfolding.
But I
couldn’t do it, kids. I can’t count the
number of times I rolled my eyes (which, by the way, is something Ana does A
LOT), and I don’t know that I have ever been so happy for a book to finally
end. I know as a reader one needs to
give into the suspension of disbelief and try to imagine things the way the author
has them set up, but some of the things in this book are just so not in tune
with reality I just couldn’t do it. For
instance, Ana, who just graduated from college, mind you, doesn’t own a
computer nor does she have an email address.
Okay, maybe the computer thing isn’t too big of a stretch, but no email
address? Sorry, don’t buy it. I also don’t buy that Ana had never been
drunk until the night she went out and got hit on by one of her guy friends,
because through out the entire book she is drinking bottles of wine with her
friends, drinking champagne with Christian, cosmos with her mom…..obviously the
girl isn’t new to drinking so the fact that we are supposed to believe that was
her first time being drunk is just…well, a joke.
Then there’s
Christian Grey. The 26 year old
billionaire who is so perfect to look upon people find themselves oftentimes
blinded by his beauty. He’s made all his
money by trying to feed people in Darfur, or
something along those lines, anyway. Yet
the guy never works. He’s too busy tying
Ana up and ravaging her to yet another multiple orgasm. Oh, and he plays the piano better than
Chopin, knows everything about wine, keeps a perfect physique even though he
never goes to the gym (must be all that sex….), speaks like a proper English
gentleman, and apparently has already had 15 women commit to him as
submissives. All by the ripe old age of
26! I know there are a lot of different
people in the world, but someone like this doesn’t exist. Not in reality. I can’t picture Christian as a real person
because frankly, too much of him is doused in fantasy.
And there is
more, so much more that is wrong with this book. And yet, it’s a huge hit! In fact there are two more sequels that are
probably international bestsellers as well.
So what does this tell us? Is
this nothing more than people’s curiosity to read a book so heavily doused in
fornication that it doesn’t matter how god-awful the story is? Or is this what women (yes, I pretty much
assume that it’s mostly women reading this book) are really looking for? A stalker billionaire who wants a woman to
submit to him whenever he desires, a man who designs a contract outlining what
type of clothing to wear, food to eat, exercise to complete, and days of the
week to be available for submissive duties.
I don’t have
the answer. For all I know people are
reading the book just to talk about how awful it is. But it just goes to show that no matter how
bad the writing, if you’ve got that word of mouth and subject matter that
slightly pushes the envelope people will eventually succumb and see what all
the fuss is about. Curiosity killed the
cat, as they say.
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