I have to admit that I hated this book so much that it is going to be very difficult to write an objective review. Most of us didn't hate the book. Ratings ranged from ZERO (guess who) to 3.0, with an average of 1.8. A few of us read all three books in the trilogy, mostly because we kept hoping for something more substantial to emerge. Some of us felt the story was engaging while the majority thought it was a bunch of crap. There were some entertaining emails between the two main characters, Ana and Christian, and some of the fringe characters were okay, I guess.
Mostly we thought it was soft porn, overly graphic, disturbing and placed women in a degrading light. It should be a study for all young women in what NOT to look for in a partner. That is, an insecure control freak who likes to slap women around who look like his dead mother and claim it is a mutually fulfilling sex act. REALLY?!! And as if that isn't bad enough, the quality of the writing was so bad we felt our intelligence had been insulted. We also felt saddened that our society has been reduced to accepting this kind of book as main stream.
One interesting comment was that perhaps we, as a group, are more critical because we have read some really good literature and our standard of excellence is much higher. Something to ponder, I know I feel MUCH better now!
And no book is completely bad that gets us all together on Friday morning for some spirited conversation and friendship. Our next meeting is on Friday, October 12 at 9:30 am at the Pinery CC. We will be discussing A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I don't know who, if anyone, is leading the discussion on this. Any volunteers?
We only have one book left on our list after October. Is it time to select some more books? Should we do at at the October meeting?
