Fifty Shades of Grey

I have a painful gut reaction to many sitcoms. I can feel when a bad setup is coming, when someone is doing something stupid and from that something supposedly funny will come. Except, I don't find it funny. And it makes my gut hurt.

That's how I felt from the first page of 50 Shades. My gut hurt from how stupid the characters were acting and how stupid everything was going to follow from their actions.

There is something about fan fiction that is palpable. And the stench of it is painfully obvious here. Anastsia is supposedly clumsy (like Bella) but then she's dancing and cooking in one scene early on. Gyrating with knives is not exactly the behavior of a clutz. (Seriously, experience speaking here.) Grey is a cold-blooded controlling stalker, just like the Twilight “hero.” Ugh.

I mean, I really enjoy retellings of old fairy tales. I enjoy the story when Marvel reboots their universe (as they do every few years.) But this re-imagination of Twilight does a piss poor job of it. It takes out the possibility of magic that the supernatural characters permit. It makes the innocent heroine utterly ridiculous by ramping her age up to 21, while having her act like a tweenager. And then Grey has such a sick and sad back story that it just makes his entire rational pathetic. He's no hero, he's no Romeo, he's just a sick and twisted man who passes his abuse on to others. Hence his great attration to the virginal Anastasia.

As for the sex, let's just say that erotica isn't my cup of tea. I've read enough to know. And what I've read was much better than this. MUCH! The scenes are neither well-written, nor well-imagined. Blah.

Finally, I never ever ever ever ever want to hear about your inner goddess. This book RUINED the entire concept for me. If she's talking to you or dancing at you or what-not... keep it to yourself. And stay the fuck away from me. Even if I had liked something else about the book, this particular detail would have made me hate the book.