I did not read the print version of Fifty Shades of Grey however, I am reading book 2 in the Shades trilogy, and I do miss the narration....I may have to purchase the audio version of the second book.

The scene where Ana first experiences pain as pleasure in the Red Room Of.....

I did have an extreme reaction to this book and it made me hot.

I have read a lot of comments where listeners did not like the narrator....I have to say...Give her a chance. I did not immediately like her either, but as the story cranks up....she really grew on my and became Anastasia Steele.


I am just a little surprised to see that this racy book is such a best seller....who is buying it??? What is the demographic?

I never re-read/listen to a story.

I have not listened to her before. I think she reads well, but i thought her voice was a bit young for the role, it was a little distracting. I think she would have been an excellent young Carrie Bradshaw in The Carrie Diaries.

unconventional adult love story

wouldnt want to give anything away. it is a lovely adult love story.

Christian. He is a very troubled man and Ana helps him see that he's a good person.

Not sure

It made me laugh and cry.

I've read all 3 books and they are very well written. I like the email exchange between Ana and Christian. I think it was needed to read all the lines of the emails as they change the subject line and signature lines in the emails. I do agree that it would have been nice to have a man read Christians parts. Overall it was good. I will probably listen to this trilogy more than once.

I am gonna listen to the rest of the trilogy. I'm hoping she's gonna kill this bum!

She needs to loose about 95% of the holy comments. Holy crap!, Holy Moses!, Holy Sh!*!, etc. It made her sound like a 13 year old.

I didn't think her voice for Anastasia was bad like everyone else is raving about. I just thing the author wrote her to sound too young with a lot of her terminology. I think she should have made Christen sound like more like the pervert that he was!

Angry at the idiot that Christen was. And happy at the end.

I think Christen need to invest some of his fortune into therapy so maybe he can have a normal life...Pervert!

Better writing, character development (i.e., not relying on stereotypes), and scene construction. Dialogue is poor at best. The interior dialogue of Anastasia is preposterous.

Learned to write. Her use of adverbs is appalling.

Sort of-- the Christian Grey character voice is laughable. But of course, the narrator had horrible material with which to work.

Almost all.

This "novel" seems like it is written by a teenager. I'm embarrassed for the person from my book club who chose it. Good grief, I will have to suffer through it for her sake. I cannot believe this got published in a world where Russell Banks, Dennis Lehane, Barbara Kingsolver, P.D. James, Tom Franklin, Michael Koryta and others exist-- all of whom write 80 levels above E.L. James.

I don't know, but it's really popular so a lot of people do.....

No

She was fine

I couldn't cut a character. I just wouldn't read the book.

I am a total ROMANCAHOLIC and I have read and listened to plenty of books that were edgey but if the story was good and in decent taste I am fine with the books. After getting into this one, I felt very sick to my stomach and couldn't finish it. That's not how I want to feel when reading a romance.

I have not read the book so I cannot comment on the honestly. I would guess I would speed read the E-mail portions- because I could - a little hard to do when having it read to you.

It is an interesting look from Anastasia's point not having any clue about the lifestyle of Christen-

She does a good jobe of switching characters. Believable in the varied emothions.

This would be appropriate for anyone 'new' to the erotic fiction genre, or someone who thinks the "Twilight" series is great literature.

The stilted, affected prose created a huge issue with the flow of the book. EL James tries to present her characters as evolved and realistic, but the dialog betrays her lack of experience. Its obvious that the author is British, using very formal language descriptively, but trying to channel a 20-something American girl through phrases like "awesomely hot" leaves the reader confused and annoyed. No one talks like this!

Becca Battoe has a weird cadence to her voice that is absolutely grating. It amplifies the poor dialog between characters in such a way that I had to take small doses of the book. Another reviewer called it a 'Judy Bloom" voice, and I couldn't agree more! I felt like a voyeur watching some pervy old guy and a 14 year old vs. two apparently consenting adults. I'd consider Aasne Vigesaa, who has a youthful, but clear voice and seems to understand emotion to convey mood in a story (hear her read for Women of the Otherworld series). She has sensuality; but can be demure without the offensive, breathy undertones of a juvenile.

This book had no editorial changes. How else can we explain that the main character lives in Vancouver, but must travel through Portland to get to Seattle?

I think its unfortunate that this book has had the success it has on the coattails of the 'Twilight' books. I didn't like that work either, seeing that truly amazing literature is being pushed aside for horrible writing that speaks to no more than a 5th grade comprehension level. Expansion of genres like erotic fiction is a welcome side effect, but this book shouldn't be considered there either. "Fifty Shades" is truly a Cinderella story, but it doesn't live up to its hype, good for the author, bad for the reader.

no

What story? It felt more like and introduction to bondage. Half of the book was Ana reading the contract between dominate and submissive.

I think that men beating women in any form is wrong. I don't know why this book is so highly rated.

I downloaded this book because I was curious about all the hype. What a waste! Frankly, I am disturbed that so many women find this book erotic.