WARNING: SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't read these books yet and don't
want to ruin the experience then please do not read any further. I will
not be offended, I'd much rather you enjoy the them properly.
If you have read them, then do read on ...
I really don't know where to begin with
this review of the Fifty Shades Trilogy. I'm not even sure what
possessed me to read it in the first place. I guess there was so
much hype about it that I was curious to see what all the fuss was
about. Unfortunately I was to be deeply disappointed.
I've read lots of stories about how
these books have transformed the lives of so many women, making them
more adventurous in the bedroom, and that they've found the lead
character, Mr Christian Grey, to be their ideal man.
From the very first chapter I found
that he was more of a creepy old man than the picture of my ideal. His character in the book was supposed to be about 27, but
he seemed to be portrayed as someone much older than this.
His main focus in the books was young
Anastasia Steele, who seemed to be much younger than the 22 that she
was supposed to be. With this age difference in mind, however
unintentional, it made for some quite uncomfortable reading.
The main draw to these novels for many
people is undoubtedly the sheer amount of descriptive sexual
encounters that is prevalent throughout all three books. Take all of
this away though and there isn't really much of a plot. In fact,
remove all of the sex completely and what remains would probably fit
into a single book.
Now, I don't want to come across here
as any kind of prude. I have no issues with the level of detail,
other than the fact that it leaves nothing to the imagination.
There is something to be said for giving away the simplest of details
and letting the readers fill in the rest. I would rather not have it
shoved in my face at every opportunity, a little credit would be nice
for being able to fill in the gaps.
It seemed somewhat absurd to me that
Anastasia Steele is first introduced as a fairly shy and studious
girl, with little experience with men, and within weeks she is
transformed into some kind of voracious sex goddess by an
overbearing, dominant man with supposed childhood issues. The issues
being the root cause of his behaviour.
The way the story is written you'd be
forgiven for thinking that a man had thought of it, especially how
the two characters interact with one another. The woman is at fault
most of the time and has to conform to his preferences, but whenever
she has any real issues and tries to talk about them he just
distracts her with sex every time. The most frustrating part being
that she lets him succeed.
I found the believability of the whole
thing took a complete nose-dive when it came to his seemingly endless
wealth, although it's not ever clear quite how he amassed such a status.
Buying the company that she'd just started to work for, and having
numerous jets, helicopters, houses, cars. A lot of the time it
seemed to be a massive advert for Audi, BlackBerry and Apple. (Hmmm,
I wonder if they got any royalties for that …)
I just couldn't get my head around
these characters, both having a complete change around and getting
married and pregnant all in the space of less than a year.
You're probably wondering why I
continued reading these books if I found them so annoying in so many
ways, and this is a question I have been asking myself. At times the
whole experience put me off reading completely, making it seem more
of an effort than a pleasure.
I suppose I was curious to know if it would
ever get any better, and to see exactly where she was going to go
with the whole thing.
As it turns out, the ending was pretty
naff. The resolution of it all being him spilling his early life
story to her and filling in the gaps. Well, it wasn't very
interesting as we kind of knew most of it anyway, and it left no
resolution for me as a reader. It was more of a 'was that it?' kind
of feeling.
And just when I thought the pain was
all over, there was more. The final pages were a complete rehash of
the very first pages, only from his point of view rather than hers. What
a waste of time that was, they seemed more like page fillers for the
sake of it rather than interesting content.
It was a huge sense of relief when I
finally finished it, knowing now that I can go on to read something
far more enjoyable, with more substance to it.
The only good thing to really come out
of reading these novels was to pick up tips on how not to write my
own stories. But you know, if that's a standard that's getting
published, then there's hope for the rest of us … I hope …
Rating: 1/5
This post was supposed to have been my week 3 check in for the Four Stories in September that I began earlier in the month.
