Fifty Shades of Grey

Male review:

Story: 8 / 10
Characters: 6
Setting: 6
Prose: 4

Fifty Shades of Grey is a surprisingly good book. I've asked countless woman what they thought of it and they always described it as a terrible book and a guilty pleasure. Obviously, I was curious and it was a good opportunity to explore more romance novels.

Turns out the story is actually fascinating. The reader is taken on a first love adventure with a university alumnus who is rather difficult to impress. The relationship creates an intriguing conflict from the start and the story flows around the secretive pair nicely. The prose is rather weak. However, it never really detracts from the strengths of the plot. There is also far too much erotica, but maybe that comes with the genre. My impression is that most people that really disliked the book have these aforementioned criticisms. If you can overcome these two shortcomings, this is a worthwhile read and a strange adventure.

I've also heard that this was Twilight fan fiction, but sadly it is too difficult to find. In fact, this book is quite a bit better than Twilight.