I'm not reading the sequels. Where to start? The story of the book is known to everybody and their hamster, and the writing had left me with a throbbing erection for hours on end - a brain erection.
The book is a fascinating insight into stockholm syndrome and how poor parenting brings about different kinds of toxic people - Grey and Anasthasia being two nearly archetypical characters. Both are fundamentally insecure, hate themselves and want nothing more than to die - but they go about it in a roundabout way because they're too
scared to raise a hand on themselves.
The writing gets the job done, but struggle to recollect a quotable moment other than the titular "50 shades" thing - however, the book holistically is one of the most intriguing reads I've ever laid eyes on. Whoever wrote it understands the inner workings of a toxic psyche at a fundamental, thorough level - kudos on that.
It's somewhat saddening that this is the is the best-selling book of all time: not because of the sexual smut described herein (which I mostly skipped), but rather because millions of women (however subconsciously) identify with Anasthasia and even more men strive to be Grey.
6/10