Fifty Shades Darker - Book Review

Time for round two!

I’ve given each of you a week to digest the Fifty Shades of Grey review, and now it’s time to move on to the next book; Fifty Shades Darker. I must admit, I did enjoy this book a bit more than the first one of this series, but did also find that many of the flaws I commented on in last week’s review are apparent. I will briefly touch on these reoccurring flaws in this review, but I do not want to tackle them in detail, through fear of making this review overly repetitive (just like the books themselves!).

The first thing I noticed once I had read this book, was the slight character development for Christian, and I quite enjoyed this. I liked the way that there was a focus on Christian fighting his past and inner demons, but then these parts seemed to be ruined by Ana’s constant whining at him as she wants to know more. I also felt as though this futile attempt to explore his history was the author’s way of trying to justify his character’s overly possessive nature, which just didn’t convince me.

No matter what the author attempts to tell us about him, there is no denying that Christian is overbearing, which is a different trait entirely to being dominant. Furthermore, I personally would find this irritating if I were Ana, and therefore don’t understand how she could remain so calm at him when he is questioning her every move.

The pair of them are still overly fictitious. Don’t get me wrong, I know that this is a fictitious novel, but I still want the characters to be somewhat believable and human. On top of this, even with this mention of slight character development, there still isn’t as much as I would expect or desire from a sequel. It’s also worth pointing out that Ana’s inner goddess, self-concisions and irritating sayings still make an appearance, so if you found this irritating in the first book, be prepared to want to leap into the book and kill her!

As I mentioned in the introduction, I found this book repetitive, and I felt that there are an exhausting number of ups and downs in the relationship (pardon the pun). It all seems very immature, almost like its two teenagers who keep breaking up and getting back together. I know every couple argue, but theirs is a bit excessive.

Now, let’s have a few positive notes.

The writing has improved slightly from the first book, and I liked the extra characters and additional storylines that were explored. These extra side plots gave some good dimension, and actually gave me something to be interested in for five minutes. The only flaw I had with these parts was the pacing, as I felt as though if the pacing had been worked more, then the author could have dragged out some of the interesting drama.  

I also quite like the email style parts. I know these were used a couple of times in the first book, but they are used more notably within the novel. Not only are they easy to read, I like the way that the subject or signatures change, and this is something that I thought was a smart idea.

Similar to the first book, no matter how many flaws and bad parts I felt this book had, I still read it in its entirety, and will still read the third one. No matter how much I dislike these books, there’s still something inside of me that wants to know the character’s futures, even though I already feel that they’ll be predictable. I can’t work out whether that’s just me as a reader who has to finish a series, or if E. L. James is smarter than I’m giving her credit for…who knows.