Fifty Shades of Grey
Fifty Shades, Book #1
By E.L. James
ISBN# 9781612130293
Author’s Website: http://www.eljamesauthor.com/
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi
Anastasia’s roommate and best friend, Kate, has been working to secure an interview with billionaire, Christian Grey, for several months. So it would only figure that come the morning of the interview she has the flu. She begs Ana to go and do the interview in her steed as it could take months to reschedule. Ana reluctantly agrees and shows up completely unprepared for the interview, not knowing anything about Mr. Grey, and being armed only with Kate’s list of questions that include embarrassing gems like ‘Are you gay?’! Christian took everything in stride and even suggested she look into his company’s intern program once she graduates. But ultimately she couldn’t get away from him fast enough!
So imagine her surprise when she gets back home and days later he shows up in the hardware store she works at! He said he’s in town to prepare for her and Kate’s graduation (he’s a presenter) and he offers himself up for a photo shoot to go along with Kate’s article on him. Then he asks Ana out for coffee and then a trip to Seattle in his helicopter. Ana finds herself quickly crushing on Christian and thought he was into her as well, but he’s sending mixed signals telling her she should steer clear of him, that he isn’t a good man and definitely not the flowers and romance kind of guy.
“Anastasia, I’m not a hearts and flowers kind of man, I don’t do romance. My tastes are very singular. You should steer clear of me.” He closes his eyes as if in defeat. “There’s something about you, though, and I’m finding it impossible to stay away. But I think you’ve figured that out already.”
Seattle left Ana reeling though. Christian makes her sign a non-disclosure agreement, shows her his playroom (or red room of pain as Ana calls it), and asks her to enter into a relationship with him as his submissive! Needless to say, she comes back home with a lot to process and consider!
After much internal debate and several discussions with Christian, she ultimately decides to give things a try. She learns a lot about Christian. He’s a very generous man, both with his wealth and pleasure. He can have a dangerous edge to him at times, but also can be very playful and fun. But most of all he is tortured by his past, a past he won’t share, and one that makes him the way he is and that leaves him needing to cause pain.
“Why don’t you like to be touched” Ana whispered, staring up into soft grey eyes.
“Because I’m fifty shades of fucked-up, Anastasia”
Christian and Ana learn to compromise in their relationship, she letting him dominate like he needs to and him learning to be ‘more’ for her.
“I’ve never wanted more, until I met you.”
However, Christian still has some walls that he won’t knock down that keeps Ana at arm’s length. The two become so important to each other, but one wrong move, could send it all crashing down around them with devastating consequences.
Wow, wow, wow! This is the first time I’ve finished a book and had absolutely no idea how to rate it. I actually really liked this book most of the way through … you got that right? *Most* of the way through. As I neared the end of the book I was filled with a sense of dread to finish it. I just knew that Christian was going to do something stupid to ruin everything and I didn’t want him to! I didn’t want to read that part to make me hate him. But, read it I did. And, no I don’t hate him even now, but the end of this book was very emotional. Usually, I love emotional reads so this should rank up there, a 4 or 5 star review right? However, I couldn’t rate it that high because of how the book left me feeling. It leaves you in a major cliffhanger and left me completely devastated! I did like the majority of this book though so I ended up settling on 3 stars, but only because I had to force myself to rate it somehow.
I realize that this book came out several years ago, and most people that were interested in it have already read the book, watched the movie, and bought the t-shirt…
Or maybe bought the sex toys instead …
But for whatever reason I’ve put this book off, even with my smut loving heart! However, I have finally read it! And, honestly I expected it to be much kinkier than it actually was! Over half of the book was spent with Ana debating to give the lifestyle a try or not and then ironing out the details of Christian’s contract … only to NOT sign it! When they got to the kink, Christian tried to take it easier on her knowing it was all new to her, and he gave in to having quite a bit of ‘Vanilla Sex’ with her as well, a first for him. There was nothing in the book that would really make you cringe, but you can definitely understand how Ana felt by the end of the book and could sympathize with her.
I actually really enjoyed the playful side of Christian that only Ana could bring out. It was a lot of fun to see and showed there was hope for his tortured soul after all.
Of course with that huge cliffhanger, I want nothing more than to dive into the next book in the series, but sadly I have deadlines on other reviews so it’ll have to wait ….
I’ll leave you with a song that I feel fits this book perfectly, The Master of Puppets by Metallica.
“It is so erotic. Truly I am a marionette and he is the master puppeteer.”
