Today I finished reading the “Fifty Shades” trilogy by E L James. I have to say, I have very mixed reviews about it.
The first book, “Fifty Shades of Grey”, in my honest opinion, was terrible. There was a hint of a background story but nothing more than that, leaving the main story being quite literally sex scene after sex scene…some of which could bring a tear to your eye. The writing itself was fairly poor, words and phrases were repeated very close together and there wasn’t a wide variety of vocabulary. One good point I can make about it is the description of the characters, which was vivid and of great detail. Therefore, a I had a clear image in my mind from the very beginning. I couldn’t warm to Christian Grey in the first book, his character was perceived as cold and bossy, and not a gentleman at all. However, the character of Anastasia Steele was a very easy character to like; she started off as a clumsy, unconfident girl and transformed into a wonderfully headstrong and sensible young women. Overall, I’m not particularly fond of the first book in the trilogy. Although, I can understand why it’s caused such a storm around the world; the main character is a God of a man. It’s a romance novel, but with a huge, huge difference.
The second book, “Fifty Shades Deeper”, was a completely different book to the first one. It had the main story, the story of Ana and Christians ‘relationship’ but as well as that it drama, excitement and suspense. There were unexpected cliffhangers throughout that kept me glued to the book. Questions were answered about Christians mysterious and vivid personality, and his background was explained in some detail. This made me grow to like his character; I understood why he was the was he was, and somehow that made everything far more reasonable. Character’s that were introduced to us in the first book were more involved in the second, characters such as Mrs Lincoln, who I took an instant dislike too. James’s writing seemed to have improved as well, much more varied words were used in passages of text which made the book much more enjoyable to read. In fact, I read the book in a matter of days, it was that gripping and exciting. It was definitely worth reading the first book in order to read this one. Suddenly, this was no longer a soppy, romantic trilogy,; it became much more than that.
The final book in the trilogy, “Fifty Shades Freed”, started off very slowly. It was nowhere near as exciting and anticipating as the second. The writing style of the first few chapters was, although slightly confusing, very very good. We as the readers were filled in on everything that had happened in the time period between the second and third books, but in a way that kept us hooked and interested. However, as the story continued, the excitement grew. Again the book became impossible to put down, I was literally reading hundreds of pages in a single setting. More or less all of our questions were answered and theories proved wrong. I had my heart in my mouth at times, the story was just that good. I felt an overwhelming sadness at times, and physically laughed out loud at others. In this final book, E L James’s writing was at it’s best as she was writing more of a thriller story than a romance novel.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the second and third books in the Fifty Shades trilogy. The first seemed like a bit of a let down after all the media hype there’s been over it. It certainly didn’t live up to some of the reviews it had been given. It is definitely worth reading though, just so that you can read the second and third books, which do actually have stories to them and aren’t just badly written porn.
hayleighspeaking 