Grey and The Power of Fanfiction

Grey is the fourth and newest book to be released for the Fifty Shades of Grey book series by E. L. James. It backtracks in the series in order to tell the events of the first book from the perspective of the titular character, Christian Grey. This effort desires to achieve two things: 1) To develop Christian Grey as a character in terms of depth and motivation, and 2) To further endear him to the reader by way of  his unguarded thoughts and vulnerabilities in regards to himself as well as Anastasia Steele. As those of us who have read her previous works are used to by this point, E.L. James’s lack of abilities as a writer and creative thinking in relation to narrative structure and vocabulary causes this to fall flat.

Christian Grey: A Study of Character and BDSM

When I first heard about the infamous book in any kind of detail, it was my friend relaying the basic plot of the books to me. News of the film adaptation had just cropped up online, and my curiosity into the franchise was piqued enough to ask her about them. She was ready to tell me about the interesting sex-scenes and the two characters at the helm of the BDSM-flavored romp: Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. While she was less than impressed by the plot, the writing, the abuse, and the bland bondage, she was interested by one male lead by which the story took its name. She told me about his backstory and I found myself mostly dismissive, as I didn’t buy what the author had fed her for his reasoning for being into the scene, nor was I interested in the shallow paddling it advertised.