50 Shades of Quek

Hello all, this is how I am spending my Saturday night this week. It has almost been a whole year since I last posted on this, so I hope that you have missed me and you are dying for the next instalment of my unparalleled quality reading material. Actually what I really do hope is that you are doing something a little more exciting on a Saturday, and NOT reading this garbage.

Speaking of reading stuff, I have been reading 50 Shades of Gray for the past few weeks. Why a few weeks you ask? Because I only read it on the train to work, which is about 15 minutes a day. This time frame that I have allowed gives you a hint of what I think about the book; it's not very engaging, nor captivating, however for some reason I am still compelled to try and finish the book.

Ok so how does this help you? It doesn't, I've decided to just write a review on it so read on if you want. If you don't, things may get better so stick with me for at least the rest of this paragraph. Or the next.

In my very modest and amateur opinion, this book has been edited to an acceptable level..........and that is probably the best thing I could say about the book. E.L James is repetitive when she is required to get visual in her articulations, however the way she has evolved the characters feels natural and believable. I don't know if that is an easy thing to accomplish, seeing that NOTHING truly compelling actually ever happens. In comparison, stuff actually happens in Twilight. Not much, but at least there was some. My unsure nature comes from the fact that I have never read one of these kind of relationship books and, if they all have a similar feel regardless if there is BDSM or not, it will probably be my last. (Just trying to recover some heterosexuality there if you don't mind)

I'm not going to turn into another hater - there are tons of those already. The fact of the matter is that I have now read 80% of the book and plan to finish it. Therefore there must be something that keeps me going. I have concluded that it is the dynamics of the characters that has kept me going - the psyche of both Christian and Anastasia. It was good for the first 40% of the book and after that it has been getting a little stale, as per my previous comment made on James's repetitiveness.

Would I recommend this book? Perhaps. Probably not. Actually just outright no, based on the fact that there are a lot of better reads out there. If the BDSM part is scaring you off - don't worry it is established early on that that aspect is kept pretty light. Unless it is going to get hardcore in the last 20%. There are no real opportune times to read this book either. Reading it on the train gets awkward when Miss Steele and Mr Grey get frisky. One, you become a little self concious reading the content with all these randoms around you, two you become even more self concious when you are standing up to disembark the train , and three it doesn't really help you focus in on the right mindset to start work. If the purpose of bedtime reading is to help you fall asleep, Fifty Shades does not help there either. In a way it's a little annoying; at first you just wanted to fall asleep but now you have read for five minutes and now you don't feel like sleeping...........

I personally wanted to see what the hype was about, and so far I have had no regrets reading the book over the past few weeks. Coming from investing all the time taken to read the Twilight Trilogy, I have been calloused against the feeling of disappointment. No homo yolo.