Surely the greatest thing to come from the Fifty Shades series is these cookies.

When I first heard about Fifty Shades of Grey,I was instantly intrigued. A book, I heard, that had women in a whirlwind of excitement as they read through pages of erotic fiction that explored extreme sexual fantasies in such a graphic way that it was borderline porn. Naturally I went out and read it straight away, only to find that despite the hyped up reviews and scandalized whispers of friends, I was sincerely disappointed by the book, both in terms of style and story.

I can only assume it’s the curiosity of the scandal that the book encourages, owing to the author’s bold use of such explicit language, which entices the public to read Fifty Shades, because it certainly isn’t the written style. After only the first few pages I found myself struggling to keep an interest in Ana’s perspective and if I had a pound for every time the phrase ‘Oh My’ was uttered…! The plot itself certainly isn’t a wonder to behold. In essence, I found myself thinking that the main crux of the storyline runs parallel to the Twilight saga, minus the glitter. The male heart throb Christian Grey is presented as a sexy yet distant character with unusual attributes that are shielded from those around him… ring any bells? And like a certain famous vampire, Christian Grey also catches the eye of an unsuspecting innocent female and leads her into a murky world, alienating her from her family and friends.

Ana plays the submissive to Christian’s dominant.

Written in the same distressing, self-pitying style as the Twilight books, the story unfolds from heroine (if we can call her that) Ana’s outlook as she unveils Christian’s dark secret. Enveloped by her love for him, it becomes a deeply intense relationship revolving around his need to be the dominant sexual being while she sits on the fence contemplating whether or not she should agree to enter into his sadistic world and sign the contract he offers her regarding his sexual desires and hard and soft limits of sexual activity.

It really does sound an incredibly exciting read when one hears of the explicit nature of the book, yet where it failed to impress me is that it never seems to develop in any direction. Although the sex scenes are impressively intense to read, each is very similar to the last, meaning I found myself reading pages and pages of the same sexual acts coupled with the same tormented emotions of Ana, which after a while takes the edge off the exciting and raw explicit parts and numbs them, making a rather boring and depressing read, where I could practically predict what was going to happen next. The answer to the dilemma that Ana faces really is incredibly simple to anyone with a functioning brain: get rid of the tool. Yet instead of an empowering female who tells Christian where to go, Ana instead begins to devolve at each page turn becoming more and more pathetic as she rids herself of any self-respect with her need to please what can only be described an overbearing, irrational control freak, who, had he presented himself so any real woman with wit, intelligence and respect for herself would have found himself kicked to the kerb in an instant. I personally was absolutely thrilled by the end of the first book when she finally had the backbone to break up with him; I’d only been hoping she’d find the gumption to do it chapters beforehand. I won’t be reading the next instalment because quite frankly, there are better books to read and better ways of spending my time other than listening to the complaints of a girl who should really take her issues to the Jeremy Kyle show where she and Christian could resolve their issues, walk in opposite directions, and Ana could finally have a sit down and chat with the therapist she so clearly needs.

Is this the natural home for Ana and Christian?