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"  Much has been written about E L James&amp;#039; Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, a racy romance between 21-year-old college student Anastasia Steele and 27-year-old billionaire Christian Grey, whom Ana meets when she interviews him for her college newspaper. But I don&amp;#039;t think the majority of the reviews quite capture what&amp;#039;s so compelling about the three books (Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed are #2 and #3). Let me explain.  A few pages into the first book, the editor in me was saying, This isn&amp;#039;t written so well. But then I hit chapter 7 when Christian shows Ana his so-called &amp;quot;red room of pain&amp;quot; where she sees whips, chains and rulers hanging from the walls and asks her to sign a contract to become his submissive. I was hooked. The books chronicle the development of Ana&amp;#039;s and Christian&amp;#039;s emotional relationship through plot lines and very explicit sex scenes\u2014which of course are what have made the books so notorious. But here&amp;#039;s the thing: The sex scenes are very tastefully written (no crass words) and move the plot forward as well as develop Ana and Christian as characters. You keep reading because you want to know: How far is Ana willing to go with the whips, chains and spanking for Christian, and how much of the dominant/submissive details is he willing to give up for her? At its core, the books explore the timeless question: Can love conquer all? In many ways, this is a classic romance, portraying the push-and-pull between the hero (Christian) with the tragic character flaw\u2014(because of a troubled childhood he doesn&amp;#039;t have regular boyfriend-girlfriend relationships and instead has only been in dominant/submissive ones) and the heroine (Ana) who wants to save him, or &amp;quot;bring him towards the light&amp;quot; as Ana says often throughout the book. What&amp;#039;s compelling\u2014and addicting\u2014is that Ana and Christian are so real. Their email exchanges and conversations are achingly emotional but in a believable way. Christian is even seeing a therapist to work through his issues. E L James also does a thoughtful job of relaying Ana&amp;#039;s conflicting feelings about Christian and the type of relationship she wants to have with him, which makes Ana infinitely relatable. For example, Ana talks about feeling as though she&amp;#039;s supposed to be appalled by the spanking and whipping, but admits that part of her really likes it. While some of Ana&amp;#039;s inner dialogue (referred to as her &amp;quot;inner goddess&amp;quot;) gets repetitive\u2014she exclaims &amp;quot;Holy cow&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Wow&amp;quot; quite a bit\u2014it didn&amp;#039;t overshadow the engaging story. While Fifty Shades is far from a fine piece of literature, E L James has done something well: She&amp;#039;s tweaked a literary device to make it relatable. What&amp;#039;s so captivating about the books is Christian&amp;#039;s passion and desire for Ana\u2014not just sexually but emotionally. Who doesn&amp;#039;t want someone to love them like that? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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