Fifty Shades Darker by E.L. James

Title: Fifty Shades Darker
Author: E.L. James
Release Date: September 15th, 2012
Publisher: The Writer's Coffee Shop
Pages: 532
Format: iBook
Acquired: Bought
Interest: Series
Others in the Series: Fifty Shades of Grey
Age Group: Still very, very adult

Daunted by the singular sexual tastes and dark secrets of the beautiful, tormented young entrepreneur Christian Grey, Anastasia Steele has broken off their relationship to start a new career with a Seattle publishing house. But desire for Christian still dominates her every waking thought, and when he proposes a new arrangement, Anastasia cannot resist. They rekindle their searing sensual affair, and Anastasia learns more about the harrowing past of her damaged, driven and demanding Fifty Shades. While Christian wrestles with his inner demons, Anastasia must confront the anger and envy of the women who came before her, and make the most important decision of her life

I was a little surprised with myself. I have no idea what made me pick up the second book or buy the third book, but I figured, I would take a chance. And obviously, there isn't much change.

The story does pick up immediately after the last book ended and it does get a little better. There is more originality that sticks its head out of this book and that makes me a little happy, but still there was just too many similarities that I couldn't stop rolling my eyes over. And just like it's predecessor, I feel like the author spent way too much time on the character's "I love you" and "I need you" and "I can't live without you" and gag! Dude! These dudes haven't even known each other two months! And I am so not exaggerating. If love were really that easy everyone would be screwing around like these two were. I wish James kept it more on the real side.

Okay, so some things that were done that I liked. As I mentioned before, there was a little originality. A lot of the character's though still had similarities to the other book (example: Jose/Jacob, Mia/Alice, Grace/Esme or maybe Carlisle, I'm not sure). And like the other book the main character was incredibly beautiful and had hot men falling for her left and right and she didn't even realize it. And the main male character has a haunted past and doesn't think of himself good enough, and everyone's self-esteem is to the ground.

That was not a very good list of the things I liked, so here's the real list: There was a lot of tension between Ana and Elena. I really liked that James decided to bring in some ex-submissive's from Christians' past. It really made his entire relationship with Ana just a little more complicated. We finally get to dig into Christian's past and find out a little more about him in general.

And, we actually see character development. And I know there are probably gasps going around, but it's true. Ana does the unthinkable: she grows some damn balls! The girl finally stands up for herself, it's like halle-fucking-lujah! This is a big difference from our Bella comparison, so I'll give James two thumbs up for that. And, our Christian get's just a little bit softer. But don't worry, there is still a lot, and I mean a lot of kinky sex going around.

So, why did this receive a 1? Well, as an English major, a book lover, and a wannabe writer myself I just cannot excuse the grammar in this novel. I am not the greatest writer in the world, but at least I know that reader's hate insta-love, there was still a lot of things were I just wanted to say, "That's not possible, how could you that," because a lot of the stuff that was written it was just like there was no hint, there was no foreshadowing of that, I'm sorry, you're wrong.

Does this book have potential as it is now? Absolutely not, I have no idea what the publishing house was thinking, but okay. Does it have potential in the future? Of course it does, especially with all the work that is being put in (even though I would have to say it's pretty sloppy work).

I seriously question that author's motives and whether she practices this lifestyle or not. I know that has nothing to do with the book, but a girl can't help but wonder.

The character's still need a lot of help, her writing needs a lot of help (I'm serious, in one page I found over three "Christian's" starting the sentence in a row. That's a work of an amateur!), and I feel like the story isn't tight enough. But aside from that, James does know how to keep her readers. In one week, so much stuff happened that it could be made into a Lifetime movie series.

And honestly, there is only one reason I bought the third book and that was because of the way it ended. All I can say is that things are getting pretty damn serious and dangerous now.