Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades of Grey

 

 

                                                       Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

                                                                       Published April 3, 2012

Fifty Shades of Grey is a 2011 erotic fiction novel by British author E. L. James. Set largely in Seattle, it is the first installment in a trilogy that traces the deepening relationship between college graduate, Anastasia Steele, and a young business magnate, Christian Grey. It is notable for its explicitly erotic scenes featuring elements of BDSM.
The second and third volumes are titled Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, respectively. Fifty Shades of Grey has topped best-seller lists in the U.S., the U.K., and around the world.The series has sold around ten million copies worldwide, with book rights having been sold in 37 countries.

The plot traces the relationship between recent college graduate, Anastasia Steele, and manipulative billionaire, Christian Grey. Steele is required by Grey to sign a contract allowing him complete control over her life as well as a non-disclosure agreement, something that he's required from all of his previous submissives. Upon learning that she is a virgin, Grey agrees to have sex with her in order to prepare her for later encounters, fully intending that the contract would be signed. As she gets to know him, she learns that his sexual tastes involve bondage, domination, and sadism, and that childhood abuse left him a deeply damaged individual. In order to be his partner, she agrees to experiment with BDSM, but struggles to reconcile who she is (a virgin who has never previously had a boyfriend) with whom Christian wants her to be, his submissive and a to-do-with-as-he-pleases partner in his "Red Room of Pain".

When literature student Anastasia Steele is drafted to interview the successful young entrepreneur Christian Grey for her campus magazine, she finds him attractive, enigmatic and intimidating. Convinced their meeting went badly, she tries to put Grey out of her mind --- until he happens to turn up at the out-of-town hardware store where she works part-time. Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.

Reception to Fifty Shades of Grey has been mixed, with Princeton professor April Alliston writing, "Though no literary masterpiece, 'Fifty Shades' is more than parasitic fan fiction based on the recent 'Twilight' vampire series." The Telegraph criticized the book as "treacly cliché" but also wrote that the sexual politics in Fifty Shades of Grey will have female readers "discussing it for years to come." A reviewer for the Ledger-Enquirer described the book as guilty fun and escapism, but that it "also touches on one aspect of female existence [female submission]. And acknowledging that fact – maybe even appreciating it – shouldn't be a cause for guilt." The New Zealand Herald stated that the book "will win no prizes for its prose" and that "there are some exceedingly awful descriptions," but that it was also an easy read and if you "can suspend your disbelief and your desire to – if you'll pardon the expression – slap the heroine for having so little self respect, you might enjoy it."The Columbus Dispatch also criticized the book but stated that, "Despite the clunky prose, James does cause one to turn the page."Metro News Canada wrote that "suffering through 500 pages of this heroine’s inner dialogue was torturous, and not in the intended, sexy kind of way".Jessica Reaves, of the Chicago Tribune, wrote that the "book's source material isn't great literature", noting that the novel is "sprinkled liberally and repeatedly with asinine phrases", and described it as "depressing".The book has also been criticised for the author's use of British idioms which, syntactically, present a disconnect from the would-be American voice of the protagonist, thus adding further strain to the dialogue.