Review: 50 Shades Darker

2 posts in one day! After not posting for a month or so…anyway…I’m on a roll!

So I just finished my review of 50 shades of Grey, and I thought while the material is still fresh in my mind, I’d write the review for the sequel as well. I finished 50 Shades Darker yesterday. (SPOILER WARNING!!! Again if you have not read & one day plan on reading this series, there be spoilers ahead! Beware! You’ve been warned!)

4 out of 5 stars for 50 Shades Darker –

Though the plot for this book was still ‘Where, when, how, how long do we have sex?’, there were things, other than sex, going on! Whoohoo!  You get a mentally unstable ex submissive, who wants to kill someone with a gun though we’re not completely sure who. You get workplace sexual harassment and blackmail galore. You get insecure Ana and even more insecure and mentally disturbed Grey. You get even more foil condom unwrapping and Grey hiding them in unknown places. (Honestly, I’m unnerved by the amount of condoms his man uses, how he produces them from out of nowhere, & then vanish as if they never existed. Oh! I get it now! Grey is a multibillionaire magician!) You get more Olympic gymnast inner goddess, but this round she’s upped her game, not only is she a gymnast, but she’s also a nudist ballerina! (I think I like the inner goddess more than Ana sometimes.) You get art galleries, sailing, bars, house buying, a whole whopping 3 pages of Grey missing when his helicopter goes down, more snarky emails, a shitty marriage proposal, and a decent marriage proposal. You finally get to meet the woman who started it all…Mrs. Robinson. AND you learn Grey’s unrevealed, deep down, dirty, secret that he has never shared  with anyone…except his psychiatrist. (I’m so glad this man has a psychiatrist…he needs one.)

The soundtrack for this book has got to be awesome. Many songs and artists are mentioned throughout the book, but it’s the ones the author hints at that I like best. Such as, twice inspiration, or whatever, hits Anastasia ‘like a wrecking ball.’ All I could think about after that was Miley Cyrus swinging naked on her wrecking ball, then the song would get stuck in my head, then my husband would roll his eyes when I would belt it out through our house…and if you’ve read the 1^st book, you know what eye rolling leads to…

Another example of Ms. James subliminal music messages? Ana is constantly calling Grey her ‘Fifty’. Well that pulled me right out of the story, because I thought Grey was a stone cold, savvy, designer suit wearing, business man…not a rapper.

So why 4 stars? I liked it better than the 1^st book. The writing still isn’t quite up to par. (Do we really need to discuss the music all the time…most of that could have been edited out). It still made me giggle at times, so it did get some kind of reaction out of me. Ana irritates me still. Grey irritates me more so though.

Again, I’m not leaving the links, it’s a bestselling novel, search it on Amazon. You’ll find it.

Have you read the 50 Shades books? What did you think?

Review: 50 Shades of Grey

Yeah, I know, I’m super late on all the uproar surrounding 50 Shades. I honestly wasn’t planning on reading it at all until my sis-in-law, said she loved it, has read it twice, and wanted me to see the movie with her. So, even after all the horrible things I’d heard about it, I thought I’d give it a shot. How bad could it possibly be???

In passing yesterday, someone asked me what I thought of 50 Shades so far. (I’ve finished the 1st 2 books). Here is my review 50 Shades, book 1. (SPOILERS AHEAD, if you have not read and are considering reading this book, you’ve been warned).

3 out of 5 stars for 50 Shades of Grey –

I’m going to ignore the terrible writing part, because we’ve all heard about it. There really was no plot to this book. It is all about sex…and Ana’s inner goddess that is apparently an Olympic gymnast…& her subconscious that constantly piers over her thick rimmed glasses to raise an are-you-serious brow at Ana’s mostly ridiculous reasons for wanting Mr. Grey. He’s hot, that’s about it. Never mind that he’s a control freak stalker wanting to beat you into submission. The thing that got me was that Ana’s a smart cookie. Anyone that smart would have been running for the hills as soon as Grey whipped out the NDA and the Sub contract. But once Ana’s cherry has been popped, she becomes this wanton sex goddess, who’s strangely fantastic at giving mouth massages in the bathtub.

There’s this electric all-consuming charge between them and when it ignites Ana’s panties go flying and Grey whips out the ever present foil condom package in his pocket. That should also be a red flag. THIS MAN CARRIES CONDOMS EVERYWHERE!!!! Seriously he must buy stock in them! And once used, where the hell does he dispose of them? There were times when he stuck a used one in his pocket!?!?! I sure the hell hope he threw it away. I would hate to be his housekeeper, be doing his laundry, and find a used condom in one of his pockets. Then again, his housekeeper in the book would probably just giggle, blush, flush, shake her head, and throw it away for him.

I was more intrigued by the supporting ensemble of characters than Ana and Christian. Cheers to Ana though for ditching Grey’s ass at the very end.

I gave it 3 stars because I actually finished it. Yeah, yeah, the writing, blah, blah, blah…it had me giggling a few times, mostly at their snarky emails back and forth, and a couple of one liners thrown in here and there. Would I read it again? Probably not, but it’s not a book that by the end I was ready to throw across the room or burn in the fireplace. So yeah, 3 stars.

I’m not posting links for this one, if you want it head over to Amazon and search for it. OR head to your local Walmart.

Have you read it? What did you think?