The first book - Fifty Shades of Grey, I purchased as an audiobook and it took me a while to decide whether I was going to make the purchase or not. The description of the story wasn't really one the grabbed my attention, but after reading a few reviews and realising that it was set to be one of this years best sellers, I decided that I would have to find out what it was all about.
And I have to say that I was hooked by the first novel. It did take a while to get going but when it did, it was so intense that I couldn't stop listening. When it ended, I just had to read the next one because the story was left on such a cliff hanger. So I purchased the next two books a Kindle e-books and the Trilogy continued.
The second book - Fifty Shades Darker, starts pretty much where the first book left off. There is a time gap of around 4 days of which the details for are filled in pretty quickly. This book had slightly more of a story line and a bit more action, but when I was about half way through, I was sick or reading about the two of them - Christian Grey and Ana Steele, having sex. They seemed to be at it all the time and the sexual theme was certainly more prominent in this second book. The ending of this book was a lot less of a cliff hanger than the first although E.L James was trying to make it gripping and add to the suspense, however it wasn't done at all well.
The reader learns a lot more about Christian and his past from the second book which explains the title and I was intrigued to read the third book - Fifty Shades Freed.
The third book skips quite a lot in time and spends most of the first few chapters going over the bits that have been missed out. There was a lot less sex in this book and much more story line but by the time I was 60% through I was thoroughly bored by it all. I was struggling to get to the end but determined to finish it in case anything exciting happened - which it didn't.
Throughout the trilogy the story has been told through the eyes of Ana Steele and no one else's view point is really presented on the situation. I had got 95% of the way through the third book when suddenly, the story ended and there were two extra chapters tagged on to the end entitled 'Shades of Christian'. The first one was called 'Fifty's First Christmas' and described a situation through Christian's eyes when he was first adopted. The second one was entitled 'Meet Fifty Shades' and told of the first meeting between Ana and Christian, again told through Christian's eyes.
I felt that these chapters were completely unnecessary and because I was already bored by it, I skimmed through these. It felt that the story was starting over again from another point of view and that they had been tagged on to the end of the book just for the sake of it.
I am glad that I have read the Fifty Shades Trilogy because I now feel like I know what everyone else is talking about. I have also recommended it to one of my friends who has enjoyed the first book and can't wait to star the second. But I can't say that I would read it again as it wasn't intellectually stimulating enough for me. The writing was fairly bad quality and lots of words and phrases were continuously, which leads me to believe that it was written quickly without much thought being put into the key descriptions.
I can understand why the nation seems to be enjoying the trilogy because it has brought a breath of fresh air into the literary world, but it has also been created just to make money. The three books could easily have been combined into one, shorter version, instead it was split into three in order to make the author and publishers more money.
There is talk of the film being made and I am looking forward to how that one is going to work, with little plot line and lots of sexual scenes, it will be an interesting viewing.
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