Fifty Shades Darker
E L James
I am appalled to admit that I’ve now read the second book in the ‘Fifty Shades’ trilogy. I want to say it was a waste of time, and it was in a way, but I didn’t have access to anything else to read, so it was at least some form of reading material! I didn’t like it any more than the first – but read on for my critique.
The beginning to this novel is obvious after the ending of the first book. The weight Ana loses, and that fact that it is remarked upon a million times at the beginning, then just forgotten as they get back together again (I’m not spoiling anything for you here, it was obvious they would from this being a trilogy!). Naturally all those clothes that the private shopper bought still fit regardless.I skimmed most of the sex scenes as boring, repetitive and in some cases, disgusting. I have to say that they’re well done for sex scenes if you must have them, but again, I felt cheap reading them. There is some relief to them, as James skips a couple, but the rest of the time Christian and Ana are at it like rutting dogs.
Ana is always stuck on how ‘beautiful’ Christian is. And when Christian comes, he always says ‘Oh Ana’. It gets way too repetitive and annoying. I know that Christian belongs to Ana, and that she loves him, so she doesn’t need to keep thinking about it! And his constant surprise that she is wet for him. Duh, she wouldn’t be kissing your face off if she wasn’t. Not to mention the constant ignition of her blood.
The ending is just pathetic. I found the whole helicopter gone wrong storyline as a weird adjunct to the rest of the book, and it felt like it had been tacked on just to add a bit of drama. Elena, yeah, not much I can say there, but that’s there, and it’s sort of annoying and pretty transparent. I could see the ending coming for that so easily too!
This book has the same obvious flaws as the first in that Ana refers to her subconscious and Inner Goddess as separate people. Those points basically broke any of the sexyness of the prelude to sex scenes that there was. Referring to Christian as Fifty is irritating too. Not to mention the ‘firsts’ they have together, and Christian’s jealousy even though Ana was a virgin, and of course she wouldn’t sleep with anyone else!
Chaste kisses are handed out left right and centre. But they are never anything like that! It’s always leading into sex. I think at the end it turns out they have been together for a grand total of 16 days before Christian is wanting to have Ana as his forever.
The causes of those scars are so obvious to me. Ana is blissfully ignorant, and yet she’s willing to force Christian into doing what she wants. They are as bad as each other! Of course, it’s Ana that is portrayed as sexmad and insatiable. Christian is also that way, but Ana is just unforgivable. Her forays into sex games is interesting to an extent,
Something I thought that could have been worked more upon, but did work well, was the quick chapters with the shrink. Ana and Christian could sure do with more psychotherapy. Ana can not have just cured him! Forcing someone to do something doesn’t fix them, particularly with the issues that Christian professes to have.
Sometimes it feels like James should have just stuck to the romance and left out the drama. The helicopter, the Elena storyline and harrassment at Ana’s workplace. Pretty pathetic really. The harassment is something I ‘enjoyed’ because it broke things up a bit from the sex scenes. Oh! And the Leila storyline! So memorable I forgot to mention it until now. Seriously, a deranged woman is going to get past the ever-awesome Taylor? I don’t think so. Not believable at all.
I honestly don’t know why I keep reading these books. Maybe because I don’t own many books on the computer, and it is way too easy to just sit down and be distracted from my other work and read them, rather than hiding a book under my desk!
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I'm feeling a little better about not being alone in disliking the 'Gray' series. It just wasn't my cup of tea.<br />Nice review.
If you scoot around some blogs, you'll find there's lots of us who didn't love the Grey series! I'm happily reading something else more awesome now.<br /><br />Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Great review! I did read the Fifty Shades trilogy, and while I like it, I agree with many of your points! New follower, thanks for stopping by my blog as well!<br /><br />Candace<br />http://endlessdaysofbooks.blogspot.com/
Thanks! I always feel like I have more to say about books I didn't throughly enjoy – so I think that makes a better review.