My review of Fifty Shades of Grey
Taking a break from my normal posts about yoga, wellness and other things holistic to talk about my new obsession which I share with about 35 million other people in dozens of other countries – Fifty Shades of Grey.
I’ve heard a lot about this book the last year and no doubt you have unless you were living in a tent in the Himlayas with no WIFI or contact with any other human being on the current planet. I remember my friend a year ago was telling me about the book and I he could say all flushed and fevered looking was ” That book…. WOW!” No much of a review and it didn’t really sell me on it.
So how did I end up buying this book? I wasn’t seeking out to read it. These days, most the books I read are non-fiction about business, marketing, yoga, health and wellness. We had just bought some stuff on Amazon and the total was $42. The shipping was about $16 unless your order total was $50 so I looked at the cost of the book, I needed something to read on the airplane for my flight out to San Diego anyway and found it for $8. I didn’t think much of it and I wasn’t even that excited about starting to read it.
So about 3 weeks later I started it on my return flight from Philadelphia to San Diego, I actually had forgotten about it on my outward bound flight. What a flight that was. Even the whining and screaming of obnoxious toddlers on the plane couldn’t get distracted. I was sitting next to a conservative looking woman on the first leg of my flight and for the second leg was seated next to a young man in his late 20s. I felt kind of strange reading this book next to a strange man, I kept worrying that he would start to read my book along with me but it was too engrossing to put down or to care what anyone else thought.
What is it about this book with it’s kinky sex acts and with taboo subjects like bondage, submission, corporal punishment, enslavement, sadism, loss of innocence, and masochism that gets your soccer mom’s panties all in a twist? When I put the book down for brief moments I felt myself completely lost in the Anastasia’s and Christian world, jet-setting, fine dining, private jets, masquerade balls in Seattle.
Who wouldn’t want to be the innocent and beguiling Anastasia Steele who utterly captivates the untamed and devilish billionaire Tycoon Christian Grey? What would that be like to have a strapping 27 year old with abs and eyes like Ryan Gosling (I vote for him to play him in the movie) courting, protecting, spoiling and obsessing over them? What would that be like to have someone make sure all of your needs from your physical fitness needs in the form of setting up a personal trainer, your transport needs (a new Audi? Guten Tag!) , personal beauty services arranged (waxing and haircuts at the privacy of your home arranged) as well as the finest and most expensive haute couture fashion bought for you (without you even having to go out and buy it…. the personal shopper comes to you) as well as having 24 hour security keeping you out of harm’s way?
It’s all the trappings of wealth, power and status that attracts Ana to Christian but his dark past and obsessive jealous also suffocates her.
I am about midway through the trilogy. I have finished the first book and am about half way through the second book. I’m sure a few days from now I will be half way through the third book.
Would it be worth it to you to lose your independence, sense of self and loss of boundaries of personal and emotional space to have an obsessive, dark, demonic, torrid, all-engrossing and completely overwhelming and insanely jealous life long love affair like Anastasia and Christian do?