This is honestly the first “Erotic Romance” book I’ve ever picked up or attempted to read. Having said that, I am not the typical reader of such books so I have nothing to compare it to. I have heard from others that it’s too soft core. Still others have said it was just repetitive throughout the entire series and nothing new ever really happened. Then you have a lot of people who think it’s the best book and book series ever.
This leads me to believe that your actual experience with such things talked about in the book may be the number one factor in determining how good you think the book is. This also leads me to believe that the greatest following of this book is probably young adults and even teens, which was not who the book was intended for.
Having said that, the story is somewhat intriguing and I enjoy Christian’s character because he’s such a “big baller”. He lives life at a large scale and is probably what any woman would consider a “dream” guy except for his dirty little secret, however, his dirty little secret can be exceptionally erotic for most women as well.
There are things that I learned from this book through Christian and his red room of pain and there are terms that I learned of that I didn’t realize existed before. It definitely provides for some entertainment if your spouse or partner reads it as well, even just from the teasing aspect.
I like to call my girlfriend Ms Steele and sometimes she calls me Christian, just to joke around. I would say the first book is something that’s interesting to read just for the story line of it all and how it unfolds but I’ll also tell you I stopped reading halfway through the second book as it failed to keep my attention.
The take away value from this book is that you get to see what EL James thinks a dream guy would look like with the added factor of his little “issue” and see how a normal woman would respond to such a thing and how that plays out. There may be even some ideas in here to spice up your sex life.
I am an avid reader of erotic romance and have read quite a few books with BDSM relationships in them. I could not understand what the whole hype was about after I tried hard to read the first book but could not finish it. But when you said most of the readers are teens and young adults it all made sense. But when you said, He lives life at a large scale and is probably what any woman would consider a “dream” guy except for his dirty little secret, however, his dirty little secret can be exceptionally erotic for most women as well.
Hi Lalya, thanks for commenting. It’s honestly the first book I’ve ever read in the erotic romance category. I didn’t realize that was the theme of every erotic romance. Now that you said that though, it makes sense.
From what I know on books and publishing it’s all about the marketing of the book. The easier to read (teens especially) the faster it will actually spread.
For example, the twilight series is so simply written that when I read it I was confused as well. I’m sure there will be a fifty shades movie coming soon.
The same seems to be true for every genre. I have read a lot of the fantasy genre like Lord of the Rings. Now, I really enjoy the movies, but honestly, the books are nowhere near as good as other series I’ve read like The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan or even The Shannara Series by Terry Brooks, yet Lord of the Rings is attributed to be one of the greatest novels of all time.
And that’s really the theme of life. How many people can make a better cheeseburger than McDonalds? Probably everyone, but how many people can setup thousands of restaurants world wide in the best locations with a great delivery system? Not too many!