I Read Fifty Shades of Grey So You Don’t Have to

What do you think the fastest selling paperback book of all time is? Go ahead, take a guess. Is it the Bible? Harry Potter? Maybe even Lord of the Rings?

No. It is an erotic romance published in 2011, by the name of Fifty Shades of Grey.

Let that sink in for a moment. Instead of a book that billions of people believe was written by the literal creator of the universe, the fastest selling paperback book of all time is an erotica about a rebellious, quirky literature student and a dominant, manipulative billionaire.

I’m not normally one to read romance novels, let alone outright smut like Fifty Shades of Grey. But when I discovered that it was the fastest selling paperback book of all time, I was curious what all the fuss was about. So when I found a copy on the ground while scooting around my neighborhood, I picked it up and took it home. And proceeded to read it.

The first 100 pages of Fifty Shades are actually, in my humble opinion, not bad. They have suspense, character development, and, of course, romance. And they even stay wholesome, with not even a single sex scene. After completing these first 100 pages, I as the reader was feeling pretty optimistic about the rest of the book.

Then came the sex scenes.

I have nothing against smut. I think it’s a perfectly valid form of sexual expression. However, I also think that E.L. James would have done well to consider a simple piece of advice: everything in moderation.

You see, once you get past around the 100 page mark, Fifty Shades goes full on erotica mode. Once the proper plot points have been set up, the entire rest of the book becomes 1) sex scenes, 2) sexual innuendos preceding sex scenes, and 3) occasional filler scenes.

Of course, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with this. In literature, sex can be a great vehicle to give life to your story, since it shows your characters at their most vulnerable. But you have to know when enough is enough.

Once I found myself past the book’s halfway point, I put the book down, because there were just too many sex scenes. So far, I haven’t read on. Maybe I’m not qualified to comment on Fifty Shades, since I haven’t reached the ending. But I still think that I read enough of it to get the general idea. Yes, it is written from a female perspective. But that doesn’t change the fact that it at some point starts reading like a transcription of the thoughts of a high school gym teacher.

For example, consider the following passage:

He nods slowly, and then he grins, teasing. “Could get really ugly.”

“Ugly, how?”

“Oh, you know, explosions, car chases, kidnapping, incarceration.”

“You’d kidnap me?”

“Oh yes.” He grins.

“Hold me against my will?” Jeez, this is hot.

“Oh yes.” he nods.

Sounds scary, I know. But let’s try not to kinkshame. The fact that Fifty Shades openly fetishizes kidnapping is actually an important step forward towards the sexual liberation of society.

Despite not finishing it, I did enjoy some parts of Fifty Shades. It was decently well written, and it had interesting characters. Ana, for example — the main character — has a decent amount of life to her. There are lots of situations where Ana could easily resort to acting like a cliche, but then doesn’t. I appreciate James for writing Ana that way, since it keeps the story fresh.

The character of Christian — Ana’s billionaire love interest — is also interesting. Since Christian is not the book’s main character, we are not given direct access to his thoughts the way we are with Ana. This puts us deeper into Ana’s shoes as we try to figure out what he is thinking. Christian also has some interesting psychological issues, which tie into a complex and traumatic past that is slowly revealed over the course of the plotline. He has an obsession with power and control, and James uses this obsession to shed light on masculine psychology in an interesting way.

Overall, I thought that Fifty Shades of Grey was well written and decently engaging. However, at a certain point there was just too much smut. I’m also not a 40 year old single women, so I’m probably not the book’s target audience. In any case, though, I’m glad that I was able to enjoy certain parts of it.