Lisa Fries

Another 2.5 rating if half stars existed.

Ok so stuff actually happens in this book! Like there's kind of a plot! And there's tons of smut! So what's the problem? - this book is about 100-200 pages too long. It all just gets really repetitive, even the smut. And ya know, the plot is still not great. There's a lot of bits that feel really unbelievable or big conflicts that resolve 2 pages later - a lot of it feels unnecessary. Christian is also as insanely controlling as ever, which weirdly continues to be less scary to Ana then his penchant for pain.

I watched the movie right after finishing this. While it's no Oscar winner, they cut a lot of the unnecessary fat, rewrite some of the bigger leaps to make more sense and soften Christians wild control issues. I rarely say a movie is better than the book, but plotwise that definitely applies here.

Did I keep reading it though? Yes. Did I finish it? Yes. Am I going to read the 3rd book? Yes.

Plot: 1 out of 5; Smut: 4.6 out of 5. Wish I could give half stars, cause this is a solid 2.5

Terrible story, the first 1/3rd was hard to get through. I put it down for a couple months before picking it back up to finish; cause I hate not finishing. Once the smut geared up it got more readable, but it really is just that. The whole abuse=BDSM plot line is bad. It's the guy being a stalker/insanely controlling that's really worrisome. It's also a very 2011 book and even feels dated more than that. I was 25 in 2011, at that point I had a smart phone for ~3 years. I get that Ana's a “bookish” gal, but her being so flustered by technology is a weird thing that comes up constantly. She's ~22, not 60.

The ending is abrupt and dumb - though it's clearly done so that you want to read the next book. My ebook had that 1st two chapters of the next book and that satiated my curiosity enough for now.

I'd read the next two if I didn't have anything else to read