50 shades of... well not a lot really

So I'm a little, well maybe a lot late on this summer read bandwagon as it's now basically winter, but what can I say? I've been busy and it wasn't until I moved away from home and everyone around me is talking about 50 shades of grey that I decided maybe there was more to it than it first seemed.

So, one poor roomates trilogy is going through it's paces like no book should, they've been passed successively down a line of seven of us and there's a motivation to keep reading as the person in the queue behind you wants you to simply hurry up so that they can read your book.

Yes, this is what really happens in a girls flat.

So I'm reading, and not a lot is happening, I keep reading and not a lot else happens... keep reading and nope... still nothing.

Some people (I live with some of these people) are infatuated with Mr Grey

I am waiting to fall in love with this mythical character and I haven't and if it hasn't happened yet I don't think it ever will.

He just seems clumsy more than mysterious

and emo more than intellectual which leads me onto another gripe with this book. There seems to be a whole lot of telling the audience that this is what this character is like, but no showing us.

We are told that Mr Grey is wonderfully intelligent and succesful and incredible, but nothing he does or says demonstrates a particularly superior intelligence, nor the skills to be successful in business. Instead we assume that he is because the author tells us that he is, and actually all he seems to do relating to work is to answer the phone coldly saying "Grey" give a one word answer, then hang up. His work seems to resemble a secretary directing calls to the appropriate departments not an entrepreneurial machine.

The realtionship, is the other part of the book that we are supposed to fall in love with, but it seems very self indulgent on Greys part, and unhealthy on Ana's behalf. It's not the kind of relationship a couple should strive for, it's laced with flaws that mean that kind of relationship would not be strong and so full of trust like the book claims, because unfortunately we are humans who have basic needs in a relationship to feel wanted, accepted like we can trust, be happy, be confident, supported and loved.

Perhaps that's the appeal, it's an impossible relationship that has got readers obsessed, something that would never work in real life, so the more that people can't have it- the more people want it?

I know, I know it sounds like I'm slandering this book to the ground, and perhaps I'm misinformed, perhaps the other two books that follow suddenly make this first book make sense, and it all clicks into place, and then the infatuation begins...maybe

But I don't know if i can bring myself to pick up the next book. I wonder if perhaps I am opposed to books that need another book to 'make sense' - a book by itself should be a stand-alone great story in it's own right.

Another part of me is sad that women have gone crazy over a book of this genre, and that we've not all read in a wave of womenkind an empowering or inspirational story that has shaped how we act and changed our thinking to kinder, happier and more loving.