It's obvious this novel started off as a Twilight fan fiction. Ana Steele is portrayed as an innocent and naive young woman who cannot help falling in love with a powerful and mysterious man. The plot had potential, but the characters lack development. After meeting Christian, Ana's entire life revolves around him. Ana is never portrayed as a strong, female character, which I find very problematic.

The sex scenes in the novel are creative at their core, but eventually become redundant because of language. James uses the same language in every scene. There's only so many times you can read the term "my sex" or "inner goddess" before becoming bored. The lack of creative dialogue and the euphemisms make the sex scenes painful by the end of the novel.

Fifty Shades of Grey is far from a literary classic. While reading this novel, I found numerous grammatical and punctuation errors. The sloppy editing detracted from the novel. EL James uses British slang throughout the novel as well. As someone who grew up in the area she was writing about, it was clear she had no grasp on the culture of the Pacific Northwest. Her geographical knowledge of the Pacific Northwest was shown to be very minimal as well. She would frequently refer to geographic landmarks or major cities that made very little sense in the context of the story. While these aspects of the novel may not distract other readers, I myself found it very annoying and a terrible representation of the Pacific Northwest.

I believe many people can find some entertainment and enjoyment from these novels. If you are able to overlook the terrible language and grammatical errors, by all means, enjoy the novel. My fiancé refers to this series as "Wal-Mart Erotica." It's basic erotica that is still suitable for sale at Wal-Mart, which should serve as an indicator as to how well the sex scenes are written. If erotica is what you're looking for, it's easy to find much more creative, high quality erotica in book stores or online.

This book clearly demonstrates a lack of sufficient research in addition to a lack of quality editing. EL James writes as if she merely read a Wikipedia article on BDSM. Since reading the second book, I've become even more disappointed in the series. EL James paints a very inaccurate picture of the BDSM culture. Without giving away anything, after reading Christian's motives for choosing his subs, I'm greatly disturbed by the book. I still would not recommend this book to anyone unless you're dead-set on reading damaging stereotypes, repetitive sex scenes, and weak character development all wrapped up in a poorly edited "book." My roommate has lost my copy of this book and I am not upset about it in the least.