It is very unlikely of me to go with the hype and it is unusual for me to know what book is in or out at the moment. It has always been like this; if I were to pick a book to read, I go with my instincts, my feeling at a given moment. And most of the time, I either pick a book that goes with my emotion or go against it. It is that simple of an equation.
For some inexplicable reason, 50 Shades of Grey landed into my hands. I do not know for what reason or if it just because of the unbelievable hype it had already built, making every woman so enamoured or intrigued by it that they just have to buy all the books in the trilogy and let their girlfriends or relatives jump in the bandwagon.
I read the first chapters without knowing what the book really is about. I had already formed a preconceived notion about it but as I can see now, it did not come at par or even close with what I thought it to be. Going through the first chapters sparked the expectation of another cheesy novel; a genre I am not so very fond of. But as the read pages in the book got thicker, I also came to realize that I had prejudged it wrongly.
As the story delved deeper to the inner workings of Christian Grey and as the mysteries unfold little by little, I could not stop myself any longer from turning the pages on to know more. Add to it the building anguish and frustration of Ana Steele to establish a loving and normal relationship with a man who just could not give her that satisfaction. Like Ana, the reader also builds, in the process, a love-hate relationship with her object of affection.
A lot of people had already labelled the trilogy as a "mommy porn" because of the incorporation of BDSM in the novel and as everyone knows, BDSM is a term that has got a bad footing in the society because of its unnatural and sadistic nature. It is not for everyone, yes, but I have to commend the wordplay of the writer for making the unbearable quite bearable. At least she is still leaving something for the imagination to conceive by using 'apex of the thigh' rather than just going directly at it.
I think the label does not do the book any justice at all. It maybe a notch higher sensual than the collective has grown accustomed to but in the end, the novel is just another love story that anyone would love to root for and see work out in the end, with the occasional vanilla sex or none.
