Fifty Shades of Grey

Book One of the Fifty Shades Trilogy

By: E. L. James

Narrated by: Becca Battoe

Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

More than 150 million copies sold worldwide.

When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana’s quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too - but on his own terms.

Shocked yet thrilled by Grey’s singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success - his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family - Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian Grey’s secrets and explores her own dark desires.

This audiobook is intended for mature audiences.

Look for E L James’ passionate new love story, The Mister, coming April 16, 2019.

©2011 E L James (P)2012 Random House

Critic reviews

• Finalist, GoodReads Choice Awards, Best Romance

The only thing worse than the plot is the narrator

Would you try another book from E. L. James and/or Becca Battoe?

Absolutely not.

What could E. L. James have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Bought a thesaurus. Every other page was either something being "hot" or the supposed English college grad saying/thinking "holy crap!" Seriously, if you want me to believe this character is obsessed with classic British literature, you need to make her sound at least SLIGHTLY less vapid than the girls on Jersey Shore.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Her voice is incredibly nasally, and her "male" voices all sound the same, which is basically like you would expect a young girl making fun of a man to sound. It was incredibly distracting and made it impossible not to want to slap each of the male characters the moment they spoke.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Sadness that I wasted a credit on it.

Ugh, glad it's over

This book is so poorly composed, the writing is terrible! If I have to hear "My inner goddess" one more time I think I'll flip out. This overreaching soft core porn novel is overshadowed by any romance novel you can pick up in paperback. I am so tired of the "powerful" woman character that isn't powerful at all. Anastasia is everything I dislike about woman characters, seemingly intelligent yet drops everything for a handsome man. Here he is, suggesting horrible things and she thinks it's ok because of his handsome face. Sigh. Maybe the other books redeem her character, but there is no way I would ever spend my time listening to this back and forth romance of two people I could care less about. Maybe if it was written better, leave out some of the inner goddess BS and make her character have a bit more depth beyond "Oh my, he wants me?" and "don't buy me things, I am not a prostitute". The same dialog over and over and over. The sex scenes were ok and as any roman novel reader will attest to those are important, but the story supporting the sex scenes was just so annoying and felt very "high-schoolish". The narrator did a good job, I am having a hard time giving them good marks simply because it was so difficult to listen to the dialog. I do not recommend this book and I am not sure why it has so much popularity.

A Disappointment

I purchased this book because of all of the hype and was badly disappointed. Honestly, the premise seemed to me to be a lot like the Twilight stories. Other than the 'porn parts' the story seemed directed to the 12 to 14 yr old girl set. I found the heroine to be completely and totally unrealistic. I mean seriously, a normal, healthy, attractive female of 22+ years - recent college graduate and she had absolutely zero sexual experience.
The narration sounded more mature than the first narrator but only slightly. I would have guessed that the main character was 13 to 16 years old from the dialog and her general demeanor. I will not be purchasing the other two books in the series.

The worst!

Would you try another book from E. L. James and/or Becca Battoe?

Never

What was most disappointing about E. L. James’s story?

How bad it was!

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Becca Battoe?

Anyone else!

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

All.

Any additional comments?

Should be banned not because of sexual content but because of the prose.

This book is nothing but bad pronography

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I can't imagine a psychology that would travel along with this very long. It may be the best evidence we have that an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of computers can come up with what we call a book. If it is porn you want there is plenty of that wherever but don't pay premium dollars for this stuff.

Has Fifty Shades of Grey turned you off from other books in this genre?

I traffic rarely in pornography (but I do from time to time) so the answer is no.

How could the performance have been better?

Do not write this book or see to its narration in the first instance. As an aside I should think that women would be especially disturbed by this work as the female "protagonist" is as dumb as a box of rocks.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Fifty Shades of Grey?

The whole thing.

Any additional comments?

No.

Not what I expected

Got boring real fast, the girl is very insecure. It was more hyped then necessary.

I won’t be grabbing the next book in the series.

It is the worst book I've ever listen to. It is poorly written with dull, overworked, childish love crap that goes on for pages with sophomoric dialogue and e-mails. Ana, the female lead did not sound like a collage graduate. She sounded more like an immature teeny bopper. Oh the irony, Ana has a degree in literature.

I can't imagine how anyone could think this book is in the least bit interesting or worth reading even with the erotica.

The narrator is monotone and sounds as bored with the book as I was.

The only one who has won with this book is the author who is probably laughing all the way to the bank. I just wish I had not contributed to that deposit.

Worst narration I have ever heard.

Would you try another book from E L James and/or Becca Battoe?

From E L James, yes. From Becca Battle, never.

Would you be willing to try another one of Becca Battoe’s performances?

I think she is the same girl who did the opening lines for "Baby Got Back".

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Every time I hear "Oh My" in that Valley Girl accent I have the reaction of nausea.

Any additional comments?

The story is great, but I can't focus on it or take it seriously due to the terrible narrating. Her Valley Girl accent is so annoying, it would be perfect for comedy but is ridiculous for this story. My husband and I are listening to it in the car and are choking through it for the sake of the story. Do not buy this audio book, just buy the book.

Poorly written. Annoyingly performed.

What disappointed you about Fifty Shades of Grey?

The writing was average and predictable. The imagery was cliché and the characters were flat.

What didn’t you like about Becca Battoe’s performance?

Her voice was annoying. It went up like a valley girl and moaned at the end of each sentence like a teenager. What's worse, her pathetic attempt at a male voice made Grey laughable instead of sexy.

Any additional comments?

Save your credits.

Don't believe the hype!

Wow, what a total disappointment. I have never had a issue with not wanting to finish a book, but this was a real struggle. It's completely overrated and overhyped. I see a lot of other reviews saying all of negative things that I would say. Terrible writing. Repetitive. Drawn-out. Just bad all around. I'm really surprised this wasn't published by Harlequin. It's just that redundant and poorly written.

Listening to the audiobook actually made this a lot more painful then it should have been due to the fact that there is a ton of emailing that goes on between the 2 main characters and the narrarator is forced to read every single detail of every single email including the to, the from, the subject, the date and time, the content, and the email signature. This is excrutiating to listen to over and over and over again. Couldn't they have texted instead for crying out loud!

Before you spend your hard earned dollars on this book, take the reviews to heart and at the very most borrow it from a friend who already wasted the cash on it. Atleast then you will only be wasting your time and not your money.