Fifty Shades of Grey book 1 - book discontinued by Vintage Books - review by Tessa Taboo

Of all the reviews of this book on EF, if you happen to land on mine, you can be assured of two things:
1. There will be no spoilers here.
2. I'm not reviewing from a biased point of view of someone in a BDSM relationship.

First, the basics:
The book is about Anastasia Steele, a clumsy awkward and innocent college student, and Christian Grey, a bajillionare who happens to be into BDSM. They meet under the terms of fate. There is a lot of ups and downs, and a lot of him trying to persuade her to be 'his'. And... of course... some juicy stuff.

There are TONS of bad reviews of this book, and they usually fall into one of two categories: Someone in a BDSM relationship who thinks that EL James (the author) is giving a bad rap to BDSM, or, someone who was expecting a literary masterpiece.

Regarding the former: Fifty Shades of Grey was never intended to be an educational book. It is fiction, and that is all. It doesn't appear that EL James is in a BDSM relationship herself, so there is no way she would know what it's REALLY like. But I'm sure she didn't write it with the mindset of bringing awareness to the kink community. She wrote it as a fantasy piece. Mom porn, if you will. And it serves that purpose.

Regarding the latter: The popularity of this book has NOTHING to do with the literary genius of it. It's all about the risque content, the suspense, the fact that women are getting turned on by things that they maybe hadn't considered before, and the whole 'dirty little secret' aspect of it all. I'm not saying the plot isn't good... because it is. I read all three of the books in ONE weekend. I couldn't put them down once I started. And I'm CERTAINLY not the only one who's done that.

The bottom line: If you are looking for an instructional manual on BDSM, this isn't it. If you want some ideas for how to bring kink into the bedroom, or just a little erotica to read, this is the way to go.

Fun fact: This series started out as a Twilight fan fiction piece, posted by EL James under a pen name on a Twilight forum. There are a lot of similarities between the books: the setting in Seattle, the awkward girl, the guy who thinks he's a monster, and even how a few of the events are played out. Does that mean that if you hated Twilight, you won't like this either? Hell no! It's much more adult, much less sparkly vampire, and WAY hotter than Twilight could ever be!

It's kind of hard to write a follow up for a book, so all I can really say is that I can't wait for the movie. I'm anxious to see who they cast! I think that this truly one of my favorite books. Sure, it wasn't written perfectly, but I loved the story. It's like a modern day fairy tale.