A game by Christian Grey

Well, I hear enough accounts of people giving up part way through. But many will soldier on, just so that none can say "Well, you can't comment since you didn't read it".

My wife made it most (all?) the way through, feeling that there must surely be some interesting development to come soon - alas, it never quite did. Perhaps many readers find the same.

Hearing about it as she made her way through it, most criticisms were levelled at the blandness of the sex scenes that barely less vanilla than one might find in Ann Summers level kinky play, the misrepresentation of BDSM as abuse born of abuse, Anastasia's incredible naïvity, and Christian's behaviour being shown as OK. Not talking about the consensual BDSM here, but the various things he does against her wishes to have more control over her life. Oh, and that one can find better-written erotica by amateurs (some of whom are clearly experienced with BDSM, others, like E.L. James, clearly aren't) at Literotica and similar sites.

Anyway, as someone who has read only extracts and synopses, obviously I'm not qualified to talk in too much detail here - only commenting on my perceptions.

I had a funny experience with it. I saw it in a bookstore and bought it as a present for my wife. When i give it, she says she read it on her kindle.. Ok, can happen. So i say : i will give it to your mother for her birthday! It is only when she objected to that, that i became interested in finding out the story..

I've not read it, sounds like a complete load of rubbish to me.

Hahaha.. It is Ruby. And that is what intrigues me.

I did see Charles Dance reading it though.. made me laugh.

Probably get into trouble for posting this... Only for over 16's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvZVpbJ9DzY

Lol, the way he reads it, it sounds great! :-) It sure makes me laugh also

girrafes

I leisurely read the first apx 1/3 of it and was aghast at the bad writing style and the lack of knowledge of the BDSM scene and BDSM in general - I sped read the rest of it and then used the pages to start our fires for the winter. I couldn't believe so many people are so enamoured with this piece of rubbish just because their vanilla lives might be titillated at the thought of something more.

penguins?

Rotffffffpmslmaooooooo - 3 words - My point has - 4 words - My point has been - 5 words - NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION ... or - My point has been made

It sold faster than the Harry Potter stories but almost certainly not more. The three Fifty Shades of Grey stories have achieved sales of 70 million worldwide whereas Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows alone has sold 44 million.

Harry Potter was far more realistic & believable than 50 Shades of Grey

The Bridges of Madison County was a big deal at the time it came out, but that too was a big heaping pile of badly written tripe.

Just like Twilight.

Naw Twilight is well written technically - I just can't get over sparkly Vamps pffffffffffttttt

Oh yeah I remember Bridges of Madison County and tripe might be a bit mild to describe it lol

I had a (weird) conversation with my sister about the book- she liked it very much and said that it had a positive effect on her...uh....romantic life. She said that it inspired her to be more adventurous and open.

Did you untie her?

HAHA - no, we were walking around a lake at the time...the conversation wasn't THAT weird :D

Twilight is a story about an abusive relationship, and "technically" it's written like uneditted fanfiction.

Still, nice if it had a positive effect on *something*.