Today is Valentine’s Day, and instead of doing something corny and super romantic, I decided to review two questionable romance books. I’m talking about Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James and After by Anna Todd. Truth is I had no idea what to post, and I’ve been meaning to write reviews for both of these books, and Valentine’s Day is as good as any other day to do it.

I decided to review both books together not only because both come from fanfictions, but because both have questionable relationship dynamics and belong to the same genre. Even though they are similar, each book still has very different storylines, but I’ll get to that later. First, let me review each one separately.

In review: Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

I’m just gonna put it out there, and I don’t care what people might think. I really really really enjoyed this book. It was funny, entertaining, captivating, cringy, sexy, and overall a nice read. It’s not a masterpiece and far away from being the best book in its genre, but it does what is supposed to do: entertain. I totally understand why it’s a bestseller. I wanted to keep on reading, I was having fun, cringing, laughing, and cringing again. There was something that kept me coming for more and made my reading so enjoyable, and that is all I wanted, to have a good time.

As much fun as I had while reading Fifty Shades of Grey, I still saw a lot of red flags regarding their relationship. It’s not a spoiler that Christian Grey is a possessive and controller with no knowledge of boundaries. Their relationship is toxic, but Ana recognises that it is bad, and she will get hurt, even though she still doesn’t back off (that’s another story). And when things would get too much out of hand for her, she would speak up. Ana was still trying to find a way to change what she didn’t like in the relationship, and Christian little by little was allowing it to happen. But this still is a book about a bad relationship, although acknowledging that allowed me to enjoy this book.

Also, I can’t avoid mentioning the sex scenes since this is erotica. I’m not going into the BDSM stuff because I don’t know anything about that world apart from the definitions. So reading erotica vs adult romance means the sex descriptions are more explicit, more extended, and more frequent. And there is a fine line between good writing and cringe-worthy lines when it comes to sex scenes. You can probably guess, Fifty Shades of Grey is full of cringe. Most of the times, I would be rolling my eyes, cringe, laugh it off, and occasionally, applaud when the author would do a fairly good job. But towards the end, it became boring. There were too much sex scenes and for too long.

The sex is the core of this genre, but it should have been spaced differently and never placed in front of the plot. Ana and Christian wouldn’t be separated from each other for too long or else there wasn’t any sex. And I felt that time apart was missing, because the story isn’t that bad. It questions the lines between possession and love, and I wish it focused more on that instead of using the sex as a crutch to grab the reader.

In review: After by Anna Todd

I’ve been debated for too long if I should do a review of this book or not. I was actually enjoying it a lot until I wasn’t anymore. It went from 5 stars to 1 at lightning speed. But I believe that this book is a great way to show how a toxic relationship works, how someone in a toxic relationship thinks, and how a relationship is not supposed to be. I just wanted the book to take that path instead of having a five-books story.

At first, it’s all fun and games with the bad boy attitude, but then there was one moment, one red stain on the rug that changed my perception of the story for good. Suddenly, I was witnessing the beginning of an abusive relationship that was one slap away from becoming physical violence. I still read the whole thing with my blood boiling in my veins and unable to understand how that story came to be. For me, fanfiction is a desire to see a particular situation, and I can’t understand how someone wished to see this type of relationship. It’s not a story of good girl fall in love with a bad boy, it’s how many abusive relationships start.

The story is so bland, the characters lack personality, and it’s overall boring when there isn’t any sex happening. The writing is pretentious while throwing fancy words everywhere and being out of tune with the age of the characters. And it’s so bad that makes the book funny. Except when it’s not. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. For me, there’s a split in the middle separating a story that I was enjoying to read from one that I avidly dislike.

Fifty Shades of Grey vs After

There isn’t that much both stories have in common. The female protagonists are both virgins and taking degrees in literature, but one is 24 years old about to graduate, and the other is 18 and starting her first year. While the male protagonists are older than their partners and sexually active. Otherwise, they are completely different people. Christian Grey is rich, mysterious, and runs its own empire before turn 30. While, Hardin is the typical bad boy with piercings, tattoos, dark clothes, don’t-give-a-fuck attitude, and you don’t know what he’s doing in college. Fifty Shades of Grey focuses on the practice of BDSM and to introduce a “normal” person to that world, and After is about losing your virginity and exploring sexuality inside the heterosexual world.

What really made me enjoy one story over the other was the main character mentality. I’m going to put aside the fact that Tessa is very bland and that her personality is only told to the reader and never shown, and focus on their inner dialogue. Both books are told from the female protagonist POV in first-person, so we also get the thought process.

Ana always had a conflicted mind with everything that was happening, most of it due to her lack of self-esteem. Thankfully, she had moments of clarity and realization that the relationship was far away from what she wanted. Even though, Ana kept coming back to Christian, she knew she should stay away. And the fact that the relationship is acknowledged as being bad is important.

Meanwhile, Tessa never realizes the relationship is bad no matter how many times Hardin hurts her feelings. She is always questioning why he doesn’t see that, but never speaks up or thinks about stepping away from the relationship. So I’m reading about a person getting into an abusive relationship without realizing (it happens), but it’s never mentioned once that the relationship is toxic. Every character acts like it’s a normal relationship, that Hardin has the behaviour of a “bad boy” and that is the excuse for everything.

Two very bad relationships

I’ve been trying to keep a distinction between the two relationships because they have different scales. In Fifty Shades of Grey, I consider the relationship to be bad and toxic because Christian is possessive over Ana. He controls what she drinks, what she eats, what she dresses, when she sleeps, where she is, he is jealous over her male friends, and he has no respect for boundaries.

While in After, I describe the relationship as abusive since Tessa has moments she fears Hardin. He is a control freak, manipulator, mistreats her, he’s violent, jealous and possessive over her when other male friends are present, and even threatens her (at this point, I was just waiting for things to get physical).

Tessa’s relationship is the more problematic of the two, and it’s not being handled properly which makes me mad. I believe that After could have been a great book if instead of doing something “shocking” and “unbelievable” to make the reader by the next book, it had a retrospective reflection on the relationship. That’s all I asked for. I can read and “enjoy” a book about abusive relationships as long as it’s not portrait as being normal and okay.

Bottom line, both books are terrible examples of erotica and deal poorly with toxic relationships. Fifty Shades of Grey is better since at least mentions the situation is bad, and I wish I could give a TED Talk about After and how a relationship shouldn’t be.