It was the dead of the night, and Maria was dead to the world. Her legs sunk into the mattress, the weight lifted away, her mind finally tranquil when the first pebble hit her bedroom window. The cul-de-sac she lived on was quiet; a safe space away from the city, the throng of trees a shelter from the concrete jungle that her days played out in.
The first time I fell in love, I thought it would be forever. We had kids names planned and I had our futures mapped out in my mind. He was the first man to meet my parents – in all my twenties so far, I haven’t met another man worthy of the honour. But it became unhealthy – or maybe it always was, and I just never saw it – we loved each other obsessively, aggressively and more dangerously with every day that passed.
I don’t buy books unless I’m sure. They generally have to pass a test – would I want to pass them on to my future generation? If not, I take them out at the library. Of course, the popularity of Fifty Shades Of Grey ensured that it was not available in my library for months and I was too curious to wait, so I picked up the trilogy from a book store and got stuck in.
Most readers would say it wasn’t written for literary merit, it was written for enjoyment, and that’s evident in its blatant tribute to Twilight and the constant use of ‘mercurial’ and ‘inner goddess’. But it was Christian Grey’s control issues that I couldn’t get my head around.
