i'm shocked this book made it to the bestsellers lists and that women were brazen enough to walk up to counters and buy it. take away the first 30 or so pages, and the emails that are clustered in intervals and the whole thing is sex. bad sex at that.
where to start? the main character - anastasia (ok, the names are ridiculous - a kid in grade 5 would name her main character anastasia steele. ugg) - is a twenty-something virgin who is inexplicable attracted to said grey. he's a victim of some type, which is supposed to explain his sadism (and maybe supposed soften our judgement of him?) but no amount of plot reasoning can excuse a guy who list gynelogical equipment, nipple clamping, and various fistings in his contracts.
in many ways it's like Twilight - with it's whole only-with-you theme (in this case, mr grey breaks his usual rules of sexual conduct to act more like a boyfriend than a master). oh, that reminds me of the grossed part - when he meets anastasia's father and mentions he's buying her a car. the dad is all gung-ho about him, his money, and his gifts - all without finding out if his little girl wants any of it. it makes the dad look like a pimp.