When the original Fifty Shades Of Grey came out, I chose not to review it. And then it exploded – and everyone read it, even my mum, swiftly followed by the film version.
What started as fan fiction has snowballed into a marketing phenomenon, and the latest instalment came recently when EL James released Grey, the story of Fifty Shades told from the ‘hero’ Christian Grey’s viewpoint.
She says fans begged her to write it, but sadly for those fans, she’s short-changed them with 557 pages of the same dialogue interspersed with scant new tidbits about the character.
What we do learn about him is through dreams of his drug-addled mum, flashbacks to being adopted into a loving family as a scarred and mute child – and through a seemingly interminable inner monologue that reveals him to be a sex-addicted stalker, obsessed with making virgin Anastasia Steele his submissive.
In his over ego-inflated mind, he pits himself against literary heroes Darcy, Rochester and Angel Clare, while typical Grey thoughts include “I stalk towards her like she’s my prey”. Just creepy.
