Fifty Shades of Grey

E.L. James

514 pages

The Writers Coffee Shop Publishing House, May 2011

When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too—but on his own terms.

Shocked yet thrilled by Grey’s singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success—his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family—Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian Grey’s secrets and explores her own dark desires.

Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.

This book is intended for mature audiences.

In the latest book review, I wrote that You Are My Sunshine would be the last book that I read in 2013. I  also wrote that I did it to focus on my final paper. Well, I failed. I read another book after that and I blamed it to the portrait of Jamie Dornan. Why? As you know, Fifty Shades of Grey is adapted in movie and scheduled for Valentine’s Day in 2014. The casting news was a hot topic. I followed the news and found the character portraits, especially Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey, were kinda sexy! Then, I didn’t think twice when I open the book – well, e-book – and read the entire story. I am fully aware that Fifty Shades of Grey featured some ‘adult’ stuffs. Hey, I can considered as an adult, right? Let’s see how  ‘adult’ the book could be.

Fifty Shades of Grey is started with Anastasia Steele, who volunteers to replace her best friend, Kate Kavanagh to go to Seattle and interview Christian Grey, the CEO of Grey Enterprise.  The interview went smooth yet awkward. Ana found that Christian was intimidating. But, she also found him attractive. Days later, they meet again at Clayton’s, the place where Ana’s work as part-timer, in Portland. Ana accompany him to pick some weird stuff like cable tie and duct tape. Then they arranged a next meeting to complete the interview with Kate and her photographer friend, Jose. From their meeting, Ana can see that Christian also interested with her. But he said that he doesn’t do the girlfriend thing. Ana finds out the reason why as she visit on room at Christian’s place. He named it as The Playroom, which filled with things that intentionally give a pain to people while they have sex. Afterwards, Christian offered her a contract that stated he is the Dominant and Ana would be a Submissive. If Ana wants to be him, she has to sign and obey to everything that stated there. Ana is definitely gonna sign it but she wants him more than a sex partner.

Fifty Shades of Grey was blowing my mind! Not only the ‘adult’ parts, but also with the plot itself. I felt the same with Ana, I was very attracted to Christian Grey! Gosh, why bad boys always look interesting? While reading it, I can’t help myself to compare it with Twilight  Saga. It is the fan fic of it after all. Yet, as the story continued to Christian’s past life, I suddenly forgot about the Edward-Bella relationship. Just enjoy the sexy relationship between Ana and Christian *grin* My favorite part of their relationship is when they were talking via e-mail. It was so funny and sweet. No ‘adult’ parts.

Speaking about the ‘adult’ parts, I was glad I was reading it in English, not Bahasa Indonesia. Because if I had it in Bahasa Indonesia, I wasn’t sure I can delete the picture off my mind. Yes, I imagined some picture of my mind of ‘that parts’. I was even googled it and it was awful. I had to stop several times, right – especially when they planned or seem to plan to have sex – before finished it in two weeks. I also put a song in a loop to distract me. It was All Night Long from Rudimental featuring Ella Eyre. It worked. But now on the song always reminded me with this book. But I found the perks of reading in English. I found some new vocabulary like ‘awe’ and ‘arousing’ and some sex terms (‘vanilla sex’). The meaning of the words are kinda hard to find. It made me think if those words only use in erotic terms only. Anyone could explain to me?

Though I learn some new words, I found that the story is poorly written. The dialogues were cheesy. All of the description, except that explain the ‘adult’ activities, were unclear. It is like it was written in a rush. But, believe or not, this romance-erotic book beat all Harry Potter series’ sell. Wow, well done Mr. Grey :p

At last, Fifty Shades of Grey gave me new, different yet ‘arousing’ experience of reading. It’s like my guilty pleasure. Can’t wait to see it on big screen. But I am making sure I watch the NC-17 version not the R. I want to feel ‘the real pleasure’, hahahahaha :D