The long awaited movie version of Fifty Shades of Grey will be released on the 13th of February. This is the perfect time to go with your girlfriends or your significant other to see Mr. Grey and Miss Steele in full screen glory. All this, while you binge your heart out on movie concessions after the most adored and most dreaded holiday of the year — Valentine ’s Day.
*If you haven’t read the book but plan on going to the movie, you may not want to read the spoilers below.*
Why I love it.
Firstly, I’ll point out the painfully obvious. Christian Grey is the babe we just can't get enough of. On the surface he seems like a millionaire who is too caught up in his own world to get a girlfriend. But as you get to know him, you become more and more intrigued. Slowly you get sucked in by his personality, and you just can’t stop reading. I absolutely loved his evolution as a character during the book.
It’s also the story most readers fantasize about. You happen to fall in love with a man who is:
A. Insanely physically attractive
B. Able to have mentally stimulating conversations
C. Gives up his bad boy ways to be with you, a feat no woman has previously been able to accomplish.
If you don’t get sucked in by the character development, the love story definitely will swindle you into reading more.
Finally, the dirty, the romantic, and everything in between. Although this book didn't make me want to run into a red room of pain, the detailed descriptions of Christian and Ana’s time in the play room was more than enough. What I found most interesting about this was that it brought the unmentionable factors of BDSM into the public arena, making it not so taboo. That being said, there are definitely some parts that need to be addressed.
Why I hate it.
While it is a great read, this book contains some physical and psychological abuse. Christian treats Ana as a toy multiple times throughout the book. For example, when she has to use a safe word in the red room because he would bring her to the edge of pleasure, only to let her fall back down over and over again until she mentally couldn’t handle it anymore. Also, she willingly backs down to him for the sole purpose of not making him angry. Why is that? Some say it’s because she’s afraid of him while others say it’s because she cares. Either way, you see Ana get stripped down mentally until she breaks. Whether Christian or Ana consciously know that some sort of domestic violence is happening obviously can’t be known.
I know this book is fun to read, but people need to remember that it is just a book. It shouldn’t be praised as a literary classic, but it also shouldn’t be thrown out of bookstores for touching on taboo and risqué topics. Everyone reads a book differently. I personally read the trilogy and loved almost all of it. Whether you decide to love it or hate it, the choice is entirely up to you.
