Fifty Shades of Grey

First things first, if you didn't already know, this story was originally a Twilight fanfiction story distributed for free. It's “slightly” reworked, meaning the character names are changed. But, if you're familiar with the Twilight characters, it should be pretty easy to spot who was supposed to be who. Since it's revised, the author gets to charge lots of money for her story, because now it's “real fiction” and has “no connection anymore to Twilight”. So, is it worth your money? Heck no.

Lazy author aside, this is just not a good story. There's certainly a lot of sex, especially of the “S&M” variety, so if that's what you're after, you won't be disappointed. However, if you want character development, a logical plot, or a well-paced story, you are out of luck. Hey, it's just like Twilight, minus the sex.

The story focuses on virgin Bella Ana, who falls forEdward Christian, a millionaire with a dark past who also happens to like BDSM. And .. that's about it. Not much really happens in this story. Once Ana and Christian meet and learn about one another, the rest of the story is a struggle between Ana deciding if she can handle the BDSM lifestyle and be with Christian. She can. Sex. No, she can't. More sex. But she really cares about Christian. Sex. Now she's really mad at him. Has sex anyway..... You get the picture.

The characters were a bit ridiculous at times. Ana seemed at first like she could be an independent, strong-willed female character who was NOT driven by her irrational lust for a boy. Oh wait, just kidding. She is supposed to be a virgin who never really had a serious boyfriend. All of the sudden she's having amazing sex and totally falling for Christian even though he stalks and controls her? This makes total sense. Just like Twilight ;)

I honestly only read this book because it has become a best-seller, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was. Maybe it was a good story and I was missing out.... Naaaaa. Little actually happens in this book, and we don't even find out that much about the character's back-stories, especially Christian's. The first book ends in such an obvious way to get you to buy the next one. The problem is, there's not enough here to keep me reading. I sense it'll just be more Ana/Christian should we/shouldn't we drama with a couple more scraps of back-story thrown in for good measure. No thanks.