E.L. James and Her Limited Vocabulary

So, I’ve been reading the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.

Now is the designated moment when you are to think to yourself, “Ooh! I loooove those books!” or “What a waste of time.”

As I have not yet completed the series, I cannot say that I have formed a complete opinion on that subject, but it is safe to say that my preferance is leaning toward the “waste of time” choice.

I’ve been trying my darndest to forget the fact that these books were originally Twilight fan fiction. Sadly, if you take away the vampire/werewolf angle, all the reminders are there. The lead character is named Anastasia Steele (it seems E.L. has a hint of Danielle Steel’s imagination) who is a self-described plain jane. She is reminiscent of Bella Swan in the fact that she falls down alot, though she has slightly more personality- or should I say personalitieS, as she refers often to her inner goddess and subconscious as seperate entities within herself?

The question is, what makes a write like this try to make us believe that EVERY male mentioned in these books is unfailingly attracted to our main character? I understand that many men can be attracted to a somewhat normal looking gal, (as this seems to happen to me quite frequently) but really?! Not every sequal in my life is filled with another incident of would-be rape by my boss or my best male friend. And I will fully admit that not EVERY guy I come in contact with is attracted to me. There was that one guy that one time…

Moving on.

The biggest flaw I’ve noticed thusfar in these books is the repetitive mentioning of Anastasia’s love interest’s beauty. E.L. has surely gotten this idea from Stephanie Meyer. Christian Grey is described as beautiful, adonis-like, and HOT. Don’t get me wrong, but why the fuck does every main character in a book need to be so fucking perfect? Can’t they have a perfect face with an acne problem? Or maybe just a hint of a pot-belly going on? I have been in love a few times, and none of those people were exceedingly perfect to look at. Of course, if Christian Grey wasn’t so beautiful, Ana would never even look twice at him, because he is a controlling, stalkerish asshole. Do you think she would have let him spank her mercilessly if he looked like John Malkovich? I think not.

Let us not forget how “mercurial” he is. This is not in the god-like sense. It is in the “I’m bi-polar” sense. But let me just ask- what 22 year old woman describes ANYONE as mercurial? I love descriptive words, but even I would never use this one. And most definitely not repeatedly. I would instead have worded such sentences this way- “The dude once again forgot to take his meds, which caused him to be entirely too moody, and made me want to punch him.”

The thing is, I really want to like these books. The S&M factor is quite intriguing. Or at least it WOULD be, if Ana hadn’t ruined the only attribute of interest that Christian possessed. It’s not fair that because virginal Ana isn’t into caning, Christian has to put aside his darker desires. E.L. could have at least made it believable. I do not think a man who is used to beating women mercilessly is really going to be satisfied with a little spanking here and there. He sounds hardly more adventurous than my Rockstar after he’s gotten into the Jim Beam.  I think a prequal based on Christian’s Red Room of Pain BEFORE he met Ana would be much more interesting.

Also, I would like to point out that a woman does NOT come every time a guy says, “Come for me, baby.” And a man does not always come at the exact moment that the woman he’s fucking comes. It would be more believable if he came right in the middle of her orgasm and pulled out, leaving her to finish up her orgasm manually while yelling, “You fucker! You never wait for me!”

That’s all I have to say about that.