Harbinger of Books

I am not really sure where to begin this review. To sum it up quite briefly a soon to be college graduate, Ana, meets this fantasy man, Christian, who is a reclusive 26 year old billionaire. She is innocent and virginal and he is a BDSM kind of guy (well sort of). With that I will start with the good parts, Ms James is an emotional writer, there is something about her writing style that is quite compelling and draws you in. I guess it is because I found myself sympathizing with both Christian and Ana plus I wanted to know what happened to Anastasia. Having said that the actual mechanics of the writing was very weak, there was incredibly too much of the same repetitive phrases. I get the whole biting of the lip thing is supposed to be erotic but dang I kept thinking she was not going to have a lip as much as she was going to chew it off.

Now for my issue with the book, I think it is fair for me to sum it up this way which is how much truth should be found in fiction? The characters are just unbelievable; Christian is a 26 year old billionaire who is trying to save the world from hunger?? He also does not seem to work much; I mean why is he so loaded? Then there is Anastasia who has never been interested in sex and then all the sudden she is the multi-orgasmic queen. Not to mention she is a bit uninteresting, I just could not reconcile the idea of a person who love 19th century British novels with her limited vocabulary. Moving on to the next issue which is how does someone with no sexual experience enter into BDSM? Now I know almost nothing about BDSM and the D/s relationship but I would think you would have to be super comfortable with engaging yourself sexually before you could submit to anyone else. Also I never thought BDSM extends to outside of the bedroom that seems rather unhealthy. The other thing I thought was off was that if a young man has so much power and control it would seem he would want to be the submissive in the relationship not the dominant.

In the end this book is rather lackluster this is sad because it had great potential. Both Christian and Ana had some real issues and even if they had been working through them sexually it would have been good. Instead I found a lot of it troubling and it felt like a set up scene for partner abuse, on both sides – he physically and she emotionally. It seems to me like the characters just were not mature enough to engage in this type of relationship and I could not suspend reality that much. I am not going to say I will not read the next one because I am still curious about what happens to Ana. There is always hope that the next book will resolve some of these challenges, but it really is not a priority.