Well, I've done it. Done what I said I wasn't going to do when the madness
started this summer. I've officially read Fifty Shades of Grey. Why? I hear
some people cry. Well, it's for two reasons. Firstly, so I can now discuss the
book knowing I've read it and have a complete opinion about it. Secondly, from
a writer's point of view I wanted to know why this book was so popular, why
people were saying what they were about and if I could gain anything from
writing in a same vein. As a writer, it’s important to read the 'now' popular
books because the publishing industry often likes to publish similar styled
books on the back of one that is currently very popular. Once they know that
this is the kind of thing people are reading, they are eager to look for more.
There's nothing wrong with that and I should point out that I am happy for E L
James. She has managed to do what published and unpublished writers can only
dream of and there's nothing wrong with that. However, and before people start
thinking this is going to be a 'good review' of the book, I should point out
that it's not going to be. My inner reader and writer have a massive disliking
for this novel and I want explain why I've so many issues with this book. (This
may turn into a massive rant, but it shall be a very backed up rant!) I plan to
try to keep my language suitable for all readers, but you should know right now
that it's not going to be possible with this genre of book. However, I shall
try and use different words that mean the same thing, which Blogger.com and
readers shouldn't take offence to. Also the FS memes was an idea suggested by a friend and though I wanted this post to be serious the book makes it impossible to do so. Also some of the memes express my views really well.
The origins of books are often questioned. Authors sometimes say they have
no clear idea where their books came from, others say they seeking answers to a
certain question, exploring the possibilities of a person or event. FS came
from Fan Fiction...Twilight Fan Fiction....Now I've nothing against FF, I've
never felt the need to write any myself, though I've often wondered about
characters in that frame of mind, but who hasn't done that in some form? As far
as I know, none of the characters I've written in my novels are based on characters
from another piece of work. That's not how my mind thinks when I write. Need I
get into the whole Twilight thing?? I don't want to, but I just know it's going
to have to pop up again. So, I best get this out of the way too. I hate
Twilight with a passion. Good for Meyers for written a very popular book, but
once again that's where it ends. I feel like she has almost shamed vampires by
what she's written. Moving on!
James then rewrote FS after people started saying it was good and changed a
few things....mmmmm..I've never read the original FF and you can't actually get
a hold of it anymore because she took it all down. Did she do this in a bid to
get more books to sell or because she was worried about being found out that
all she had done was changed the names from that of the Twilight cast? There's
a lot of stuff going around about all this background stuff and truthfully, I
don't care. The book was discovered and published...though I'm sure it only got
published because of the increasing popularity on the Internet because
honestly, I don't know how it managed it....
All through summer, the only thing I heard was people talking about this
book. How good it was and how amazing the characters where, how it made them
feel 'free' and more passionate. Well, good points to a book that makes people
feel that way...but even before I'd read anything about it or picked it up, I
knew it was terrible and just a passing fashion. I mean how is it possible for
a book based on Twilight, from a first time writer, to take over the world? Well...having
now read it I can explain my theory. Before I even get into reviewing it, I
shall admit to a shocking thing; within the first few chapters I became
addicted. Not because of how it was written, the plot, the characters, my
connections to it or because it stirred some deep feelings inside of me, I like
the rest of the world had to discover what made Christian Grey tick. And now I
know the answer to that, I can't believe I got so into this book!
First off this book smacks of Twilight so much. The main characters;
Christian and Ana read just like Edward and Bella did. They are one
dimensional, have a limited vocabulary, never fully develop and follow the
stereotypes of innocent and evil characters. You'd think that James would have
made some attempt to change her characters and allow then to develop when she
rewrote it....but nope. The plot is also the same! Girl meets boy, but she
can't have boy and believes he doesn't like her. She tries to convince him that
he should like her and it turns out that he has liked her all along. Then girl
can't cope with his demands and ends it. There are probably a lot of books that
also have this plot story at their core and they are probably a lot better!
Okay, one thing at a time.
So, Ana. She's 21, a new grad from college, wants to go into the publishing
industry, she has a love of British Literature and Twinges English Breakfast
Tea. Believable so far right? Okay....she's also a virgin, never had thoughts
about sex, never touched herself, never fancied a boy real or fictional. Still
believable? Yeah, maybe in the 1800's! But this is the twenty-first century and
I don't believe a single word of this! Maybe, if this could have been explained
like with her being religious and it being within her faith to behaviour like
that or if there had been some trauma relating to this. But no. We are made to
believe that Ana is a complete innocent who has no interested in boys. We are
also made to believe that she is like Tess from Tess of the d'urbervilles.
I've not read it, but I can see some similarities because they are both young,
innocent women who get used by 'evil' men. She also claims to be clumsy -remind
you of anyone?-but that hardly comes across in the second half of the book. Why
are all innocent girls made out to be clumsy? I don't know, but she really
didn't need to be and it just didn't work for the heroine she is trying to be.
Ana then falls for the guy of her dreams completely out of the blue and I'll
get on to him in a few. But she's never experience wanting or love before, so
how does she know what this is? And why has it taken her so long? Then we get
the whole cliché of her wanting something she can't have and if she'd just
stayed away like her instincts, friends, family, even the man himself had said,
this book would have been so much shorter and better for it too! But no, she
like any innocent girl has to go and get mixed up with a guy who's past is dark
and leads to his 'odd behaviour.' And she puts up with his demands, she agrees
to things when she's clearly not ready, she wants to impress and change him
because she's so in love with him! Then after everything, she is pushed too far
and finally sees sense! Problem is she's too involved and we know that in book
two she's going to go right back to him!
Christian is 27, multi-millionaire, owner of his own company, has everything
a person could dream of, loves classic music, playing the piano and gliding.
Somewhat believable....not believable is his dark and mysterious background,
which is the real draw of the novel, as I pointed out before. He was adopted
into what he says is a 'perfect family'. He's never seen with a woman, though
he attracts them all the time. (He surrounds himself with blonds too.) He's
made out to be a Greek God and untouchable, like he's the most sexist thing to
walk the planet....seriously??? I felt nothing, no attraction, no sympathy, no
connection. (Beside from my deep feelings of rage at badly written characters).
We learn he was abused until he was four years old, though how much he
remembers about this and his birth mother I would really question. When he was
fifteen he got seduced by an older married woman, a 'Mrs Robinson stereotype'
as it comes across. This is where he turned 'bad', though he says something
along the lines of it saved him, because he got involved in BDSM. I'm going to
get to that in a minute. He comes across as being very controlling, all ways
wanting his own way, bipolar with his mood swings, aggressive and very set in
his ways. A man to be avoided! What really, really bugs me about him though is
that fact that he really steals Ana's innocence. (If you suspend your
disbelieve about that and god, you'll have to do that for other things as
well!) All the love/sex scenes they have echo rape and violence to women, he
introduces her to BDSM when she clearly has no interest and is scared of it. He
doesn't take the time to get to know her personally, preferring to stalk her
and he struggles to communicate. We know he's not going to change, no matter
what he says!
As for the other characters in the book? I could go on about them too, but
we've a lot to get through, so briefly. They are all just as badly written! I
couldn't connect with any of them and they were all so boring. I had a major
problem with all the single males who Ana knows because they all fancy her. Why
do writers think it’s okay to do this? So Ana might believe she's not pretty,
but why have a bunch of guys we don't carry about pop up throughout and try to
date her? We know she wasn't interested in the past, so why do they carry on
when they must know this too? It's really not needed. The whole thing of them
being there to make Christian jealous? What's the point?! He all ways gets what
he wants and he's so not going to let any of them stand in his way! Ana's attitude
towards her best friend and housemate is annoying. Understandable though
because I got annoyed with Kate too! She's perfect, someone Ana wants to be
like, but she has more sense. Or does she? She stays away from Christian only
to get with his adopted brother! We don't know anything about this guy, why
should we be bothered about their relationship? And why does Ana act like
they're having the perfect relationship when she can't possibly know? Parents
bug me in this book too. I giggled at the advice Ana's mother give her because
it sounded so unrealistic and didn't suit the mum's character. We learn a lot
about Ana's parents and hardly anything about Christian’s. These characters are
just there being useless and trying to make other characters seem real. Oddly,
I did manage to connect with one character and that's Tyler. I really felt for
him having to be at the call of a spoilt, control freak. Clearly, he gets paid
well and has dedicated his life to his job. I was interested about how he was
always in the background and could pop up without anyone noticing....Is he a
ninja? What he says also interests me, it’s clear he likes Christian a lot and
worries about him. He's happy that Ana is on the scene and maybe he hopes Christian
will settle down and become more calm? I'd like to find out more about his
character.
Now, I've already pointed out the core plot of the novel, but I'll look at
it in more detail now. It starts off with Ana having to go and interview Christian
for the student magazine, because Kate has the flu. It's not really love at
first sight, but they both feel an odd attraction to each other. Then the rest
of the book is spent with them trying to have a relationship, whilst Ana gets Christian
to talk about his past. And yeah, that's about it...there's no second or
background plots and once you know Christian’s secrets, there's no real reason
to carry on reading. It's written in a first person narrative, so we always
have Ana's point of view. Reasoning behind this? So, that female readers can
connect with her and we can remain in the dark about the actions of the other
characters. Maybe, if this book had been written in third person or we had a
spilt narrative between Ana and Christian, it would have more depth than the
cardboard it feels like. Ana's voice bugs me; it’s too full of conflicting
emotion, too full of her whining about things and repetitive statements. Also
we get her thoughts all of the time! I can't recall another first person narrative-
there probably is one- where though technically we are in the character's head
all of the time, we get what the character is thinking in an italics. Why? To
make her more expressive? To make her words stand out more and readers to take
notice? To me it wasn't needed and you could more or less pick it up from the
actual narrative.
The pace of the plot is actually very fast and you do get into the novel
quickly. Problem is it lacks a constant flow to the different scenes and jumps
the linear time frame all the time. Granted we don't need to know what the
characters are doing word for word all the time, no story does that, but the
writing is very jaggy in the movement. Generally, this doesn't impact on the
reading, but to me I like the words to flow probably. Major thing that also
bugged me was how Ana keeps referring to her 'sub- conscious ' and her
'inner-Goddess'. Yeah...have you ever talked to your sub-conscious and actually
heard it whisper things to you? Seriously? It's called a sub-conscious for a
reason! Because most of the time we're not aware of it! Why does James make us
believe that Ana has such a deep connection with her inner self and mind? To be
honest it’s really not needed, we can see through the narrative and her
thoughts what's going on, why make this inner-Goddess character act like Jimmy
Cricket? Ana doesn't even follow it's advice anyway. I guess her turning into a
donkey and becoming trapped inside a whale would have been an interesting plot development!
This book falls into the romance/erotica genre and has been classed by most
as 'mommy porn.' Everyone knows that this book contains a lot of detailed sex
scenes, nearly all involving BDMS in some way. Once Ana and Christian get
together, it never ends and the plot gets lost. I'm fine with these kinds of
scenes in books. It's a normal fact of life and it’s what people do. Also it
can tell a lot about the characters and link to their backgrounds without the
use of words. From my own experience and reading a lot of supernatural romance
books, I know that writing these scenes can be a hard task. You want to convey
to the reader what's going on and what the characters' feelings/thoughts are in
a very short space. However, you can go into too much needless detail and leave
nothing up to the readers' imaginations in the search for finding the perfect
way to describe the scene. That's what I really feel about these scenes in FS.
It feels unrealistic and clumsy, there's no real passion between the characters
and the description of the 'after effects' are blown out of proportion.
Now the BDMS. James says she did a lot of research, but has she ever
experienced anything to do with this? I've read a few reviews which contain
people who take a part in this views on the book. Even without having done this
though, I feel these scenes were wrong. In a way she seems to have got the
wrong idea about what BDMS is. She uses some unsafe techniques, e.g. The cable
ties that Christian uses to tie Ana's hands together. Really unsafe as it can
cut off blood flow and also feel really unpleasant. And Christian’s playroom is
extreme and packed with everything, making it seem unrealistic. And what is up
with that contract and not being able to tell anyone? James is really pushing
this. Ana should be able to talk to someone about things, having never
experienced anything she could do with some actual advice instead of just the
internet! And we all know how crazy things can get on there! It just seems that
Christian throws her into the deep end of all of this and Ana goes along with
it because she's in love with him. I didn't get that thrilled by any of this,
maybe because it was badly written or unrealistic. James said that she didn't
want to show violence to women, but once again it feels like this is the case.
She's using BDMS to symbolise the relationship between Ana and Christian. He's
in complete control of her life, she can't escape and he can do whatever he
wants to her. For me though, the worse part of this is that James uses Christian’s
dark past to explain why he got into BDMS. So, do only bad, traumatised, dark, mysterious
men and innocent virgin girls practise this? No! These people are completely
normal! They just enjoy a wider experience. I could go on with my unhappiness
about this, but I'm not going too. Go to Wiki read about this stuff and then
make up your own mind.
The audience of the book is married, (housewives) women who lack sex lives
or feel bored and want to fantasise. That's how it's managed to spread so much,
because it looks at women's fantasies and appeals to them. It's spread to other
women of all ages and even some men. Actually I think that the Kindle has
helped make it more available to people who'd not want to be seen in public
reading it. I read the book on the bus a few times though and didn't notice
anyone glaring or trying to speak to me. Then again I'm not embarrassed by what
I read. There really has become some stigma about being seen or admitting to
have read this book now. Frankly, I don't think it matters, there has been
banned books before and there'll be banned books in the future. People have a
wide range of tastes and there's nothing wrong with that.
And now we finally get on to the language used within the book. (Prepare for
another full blown rant.) This book is so badly written it's laughable. Just
try reading aloud a page or so to yourself or someone else if you like and
listen to how the language sounds. Yeah, it might use an adult vocabulary, with
a handful of random words that a few people wouldn't know, a ton of swear
words, technical terms and odd phrases. But it's so repetitive and to prove
this I'll paste and copy some of a table that someone actually spent time doing
and posted online;
Word Count:
"Oh My" - 79
"Jeez" - 82
"Murmur" - 68
"Murmurs" - 139
"Whisper" - 96
"Whispers" - 103
"Fifty" - 16
"Lip" - 71
"Subconscious" - 82
Now granted that all books repeat words throughout and most authors go and
find similar or same meaning words to use. But that doesn't happen here and
what we've got is a very fix vocabulary. Okay so using the same words might
make the reading faster, but it gets so boring. I got annoyed that Ana was
always biting her lip and that they were constantly talking in low voices to
each other. Also Ana's favourite phrase is 'Oh my.' What is she? Straight out
of the 1800's again? The fact that she never seems to have anything else to say
is tiresome.
Speaking of which the dialogue is so bad. I know that writing dialogue is
mega hard. Making speech sound real in written words is near impossible. You
can't capture the true meanings, the feeling behind the words and what's left
unsaid, which actually happens in real speech. It's possible to have good and
close to speech dialogue though. Epic fail for this book! It’s so unrealistic
and it's trying too hard. I've no sense of the characters' voices which I
should get from their words. It feels bogged down with words that could easily
be cut and its mega repetitive. Slightly good thing? The use of the emails and
texts. At first I liked how James used this as she made the formatting of their
communication very clear. But god, she dragged it out so much and over used it
that I just become so bored and wanted to put Ana and Christian in an empty
room and make them have a deep talk. I get that they can only truly expresses
themselves though technology. It's the way the world is now, people find it a lot
easier to say things to people and connect. Fair enough, but a relationship
can't carry on with people only expressing themselves in this way!
About half way through the book, Ana suddenly comes up with this nickname
for Christian 'Fifty Shades.' From then on this is used and parried up with
different things. When I first read it I laughed and thought that James had
suddenly came across the novel's title and then wanted try out a few different
ways of putting it. Highly possible, but it also has connects with Christian’s
character being mysterious and Ana unable to fully classify him. It also makes
the BDSM a 'grey area' though and I really disapproved of this.
My major issue with the language is that it has a lot of British idioms. Why
when this book is set in the USA and has no connect with Britain, beside from
Ana's love of British Lit and tea? Well, James is British and as far as I know
has never been to America. She used Google Earth to get the settings and
backdrops. Okay, not that much of a problem as lots of writers do this and set
their books or have scenes which involve different places where they might not
have been. But not being able to describe things to the reader probably makes
the settings unreal. At times I questioned if the setting was Britain or
America and a reader should never have to do that. It also reflected on the characters
as well and their dialogue. I don't understand why she just couldn't have set
the book in Britain. Did she think she wouldn't get as much of an audience? Did
she believe that the American setting fitted more perfectly for her characters'
backgrounds, or was she really trying to write Twilight? Frankly, if this book
had been set in Britain and honestly, I can see no real reason why it wouldn't
work, I think it might have been a bit better. At least we'd have lost of the
confusing idioms!
There are two other books; FS Darker and FS Freed and I shall not be reading
them. I've no urge to sit through another 500 odd pages (twice!) of this. Oh
and they are making it a movie! Three movies actually! Please, I want to be
spared from this...Twilight was bad enough! But I do sort of want to know how
they are going to do it....make an X-rated version straight to DVD and have a
16+ version at the cinema? If I ever see it I'm going to laugh all the way
through it which is what I did with the book.
With that I'm going to wrap things up. At the end of the day I really didn't
like this novel, it didn't work on a whole number of levels, what with the
writing being so bad and the characters being so unrealistic. The idea is a
good one though, but I wish it had taken a different view or been constructed
with more knowledge. I'm happy that James got somewhere and I've nothing
against her, it just bugs me how such trash can be published and become popular!
I know everyone's got different tastes and are not all book critics, that's
fine, but please let’s just make this a phrase and get back to reading better
novels.
