Review: Fifty Shades of Grey

[technomom]

Originally published at Enemy of Entropy. You can comment here or there.


Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

My rat­ing: 3 of 5 stars

I didn’t intend to read this book, as I’d largely heard snark about it. A dear friend rec­om­mended it, though, so I finally gave it a read.

The writ­ing def­i­nitely needs pol­ish and a good edi­tor - I couldn’t pos­si­bly give it more than 3 stars due to that alone. The sexy is there, though, and that’s the whole pur­pose of the book. It does fol­low most of the tra­di­tional romance tropes, which explains most of its accep­tance, but the addi­tion of spicier sex seems to be what has every­one talk­ing. (I’d call it spicy more than truly kinky.)

The entire plot takes place in just three weeks, which isn’t bad in the romance world. That doesn’t leave much time for char­ac­ter growth, but there is a lit­tle. That brings the book up a star from where I’d put most romance novels.

If you want some light, sexy sum­mer read­ing and don’t mind the fact that this is so very obvi­ously a self-​​published first novel, go for it. Some peo­ple will want to read it just because of all the uproar, I imag­ine. If you’re look­ing for lit­er­a­ture or true erot­ica, pass this one up.

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