I Judged Fifty Shades of Grey. Then I Actually Read It.
The Fifty Shades trilogy always popped up on my Netflix home page, but I never cared to watch it as I am not a big fan of the genre. I didn’t even know it was based on the novels of the same name.
One day I was bored and watched the films and surprisingly my crazy teenage brain loved them, although there were many flaws with the character arcs, storyline and representation of the BDSM culture, but I still thought they were engaging as long as you don’t question anything and just watch them as movies.
So, I wanted to read the book and when I read the first book, I never thought that this would be such a page turner for me. The minute I held it in my hands; I didn’t want to put it down.
As I wrote earlier, I watched the trilogy before reading the books and coming back to the source material felt more intense than I expected. The romantic narrative was enthralling as Christian and Anastasia felt so passionate, alive and electric while that goated album kept chiming in my head as I turned the pages.
The book made me more inquisitive about BDSM (don’t blame me) and what I got to know from critics that this book absolutely misrepresented the BDSM community. I felt there were many red flags concerning Christian. In reality, the roles dominant and submissive are decided after mutual consent from both partners with no necessary connection to trauma and abuse.
The unusual and highly structured contract between Grey and Ana invited further ridicule. Having I watched the trilogy, I understood that E.L James intended to show the evolution of Christian Grey from a control freak to someone more emotionally shaped by his relationship with Anastasia. As mentioned earlier, if you read the story without overanalyzing and treat it purely as fiction, it can still be an engaging experience.
Summary of the book.
Fifty Shades of Grey deals with an intense, more complicated relationship between Anastasia Steele, a literature student and Christian Grey, a wealthy, enigmatic businessman who is not what he appears to be on the surface. When Anastasia interviews Christian, she becomes drawn into his mysterious world and soon finds herself in a relationship that challenges her emotionally and psychologically.
also, pls consider reading my previous review.
Sources and Credits.
Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James.
Promotional images and film stills were sourced from Pinterest for illustrative purposes.
All rights to the images belong to their respective copyright holders.