50 Shades of Grey

(50 Shades #1)

Author: E.L. James

Publisher: Random House

Release Date: 5/25/11

Genre: Erotic Romance

Source: Bought (Amazon)

Buy: Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Author’s Website: www.eljamesauthor.com

Description

Anastasia Steel has never found a man attractive enough to take into her bed, so she is graduating college a virgin. Not that anyone hasn’t tried, her friend José has always made it known that he wants her to be his. But José is not what she desires. ‘Ana’ just thinks she is doing her sick friend and roommate, Kate, a favor by interviewing the most rich, powerful, and sexy man in the business world. What she doesn’t know is that her life is about to change and that a chance meeting would be the beginning of her sexual awakening.

Christian Grey could have any woman he wanted, drawing women to him like moths to a flame. However, he is not prepared for the woman that will rock his world and shake the very core of his super composed life. He wants her, he HAS to have her, but will she have him even with all that he is? His darkest desires may not be what she wants, but he has to try. Anastasia has awakened something in Christian, but is he prepared to change his ways to get what his heart truly desires?

Review

So I am going to be honest and say that I both loved and hated this book, here is why:

I am going to start with the bad. Writing, writing, writing...the writing was mediocre at best. If you are a Twilight fan you will be able to pick out the author’s favorite expressions from the blockbuster saga, and I would have been ok with this had they not been repeated over and over. Such as ‘stay very still’ and how the character Christian keeps telling Anastasia to stay away from him in cryptic ways. The similarities between Christian/Edward and Anastasia/Bella are extremely apparent, all the way down to their mannerisms. The Author also tends to use certain phrases or descriptive terms multiple times giving the impression that a thesaurus was nowhere in the vicinity of this book being written. Literary buffs beware. Now if you can get past all that there is a really good story being told.

The attraction between the characters rekindles those feelings we all had with our first major crush and sexual experiences. Christian is a brooding sexual deviant and you love him for it. He has a dark past and that just adds dimension to his character which makes him even more attractive. What woman doesn’t want to lick the wounds of the man they love and try to make it better? Anastasia just facilitates the reader’s desire to bed with Christian and experience each tantalizing sexual encounter through her innocent eyes. Unlike some other erotica I have read, the sex scenes are crucial to the story and you don’t feel like you have to skip ahead to get to the good parts. I really enjoyed how each character grew and matured together but in entirely different ways, both being the catalyst for each other's growth.

I give this book 3.5 Moons strictly because of the writing and lack of vocabulary creativity. Other than that the book was enjoyable and a fast read. I plan on reading the next book in the series, Fifty Shades Darker.

Guest Review by:

Alexiyan