I finally finished the Shades of Grey Trilogy this weekend. I was pretty consistent in my rating of the books on Goodreads without even looking back to see what I had rated the other books. It took me a whole month to finish the last one. Yes, life has been busy, but really? I just wasn't that into it.Here are my thoughts on these books.
Yes, there is a lot of sex. But there is also a lot of sex in a Harlequin romance and my Grandma read those. I get the whole "naughty side" with the S&M stuff but other than the really bad spanking in the first one I think most married couples have ventured somewhere in that realm just to keep things exciting.
What really bothered me about these books is that I think that they are just on the right side of domestic violence. Yes I know, she was all for everything but let's look at what we warn our girls about.
If a man does not want you to be with your friends (or family, or work, go out of the house, etc) because he is jealous of them=domestic violence
If you are afraid of your partner=domestic violence
If you are constantly worried that something you do is going to anger your partner=domestic violence
You're partner is constantly stalking you=domestic violence
Yes, I know it's just a story. But A LOT of women, young and old, are reading it. I'd hate to think that young women would think it was ROMANTIC to be with someone who did those things.
But OH, he had a troubled youth! Yeah, well correct me if I'm wrong but so did most abusers. In most cases you aren't going to be able to fix them no matter how much you love them. Anastasia and Christian are like most of the young couples I've heard of that start with him smothering her and ends with him in jail and her raising 3 kids on her own in a safe house.
Anyhow, that's my two cents, if you wanted them or not :wink: What did you think?
**ETA OMG LOVE this review haha so funny! It does have "spoilers" though so don't read it if you haven't finished the books yet (and want to)
I take my hat off to anyone who has managed to read all three books without throwing them in a fire!
ReplyDeleteI read about three quarters of the first book and have not read any more.
In my opinion it was a trashy, badly written piece of crap!
And yes, I agree with you about the message it could send to young women about domestic violence.
All the publicity these books have received is NOT GOOD.
Okay first of all this was piss poor writing all over the place.
ReplyDeleteHow the hell she got a book deal is beyond me. There are so many writers, real writers who can string a sentence together, who can't. this manuscript was only purchased for the sex. Please.
2nd of all I applaud you Julie for saying what we normal gals are thinking. I tried to read it. It pissed me off for all the reasons you stated(and the piss poor writing.)
And no I won't be going to see the movie either. And to think this bad writer is now a multi-millionaire from the movie rights and books.
I also managed to read all 3 of them. I will admit to skipping the sex scenes by the 3rd book because they were just regurgitation of the first book and by book 3 I was yawning.
ReplyDeleteI honestly just thought it was a modern day bodice ripper romance. They read a lot like the historical romance books that Fabio was on the cover of just no cuffs! LOL
I got sick of her inner goddess.. The only thing that really made me smile was "Laters Baby" and thats only because my high school sweetheart used to say that to me all the time (it was the 90's)