Erotic Book Club (E.B.C) 2019

Translating Love (Feedback)

A Fifty Shades fanfic: I was completely pulled into this story when I read the description. And honestly, it's really more understanding and romantic than the real Fifty Shades story. But I'm not disrespecting the real story but this fanfic one just really got me. And here's why: the author made Christian look like a good handsome wealthy man with no malice attitude towards life and Ana sounds like a self-confident woman with ambition and goals. I just fall in love with this story. And something tells me that I will be more soon. And even though I have read the real Fifty Shades story and/or watched the movies. This fanfic story is just too hard to put down.

JaszmeneSmith

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This was my first fan fiction novel so I was unsure of what to expect. I read up to chapter 7 and outside of a few things like character names I'm not seeing much similarities.

The author does well on character portrayal. Ana comes across as a plain Jane focused on her studies. She is easily wowed by the handsome CEO's interest in her. This makes her prey. Unlike the original Ana, she does not come across as innocent nor naive.

Christian's character is very passionate about his work.

The pace of the story is a bit fast. For example, the main characters have had very little interaction but by the second night of the trip, Christian is falling for her.

The author does a reasonably good job with the writing. There are minor grammatical errors, not enough to diminish the storyline.

Additionally, it does seem like an interesting plot. I will continue to read.

csuigar

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I think the summary lays out what happens in the story pretty clearly but I would have liked a separate chapter that outlines it and includes the rating and any other things the author might want the reader to know. I know that type of thing normally isn't featured in actual novels but it gives readers on here more insight into what to anticipate.

I appreciate a slow burn but in terms of development, I thought this was written the opposite way. Ana gets hired, goes to Russia, and dates Christian all in maybe the first five chapters. It was difficult for me to connect with Ana in any way because, while I think that narration does give us visuals with the description (that aspect was very well done), there's barely anything about how Ana is feeling. You would expect this since it's first-person but it's mostly her talking about nursing and obsessing over her new job and how hot Christian is. She doesn't come off as having much depth.

I also thought that the beginning of the story felt like an info dump summary. We learn that Ana is responsible and efficient, knows Russian for the job she applied for and that she's a nursing student. I think this should have been mentioned casually as the story progressed, instead of being explained to us in the first chapter.

The brief perspective change to Christian was also a little jarring. It would have worked if the story switched back and forth between two but that's not applicable here. It shifts to his point of view more than halfway through chapter six and that's it. And it seemed kind of pointless. Because it added nothing besides showing him about to masturbate.

I haven't read the original book so I don't know how true this is to it or how it deviates away, but Christian actually seems like a nice guy and I can understand why Ana would be drawn to him. At least in the first seven chapters, I read.

I did like the author's writing style; however, there's a lot of punctuation and grammatical errors that need to be amended. I think once they are that story itself will flow much better. We also received insight into Christian's job and what kind of software it is he sells. Since this story is heavily focused on his job, it was good that information was provided to us.

_rumandcocacola

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First a confession - I've never read 50 Shades of Grey so I cannot speak to if the characters are nearly anywhere close to the original characters. Instead, this review will be focused on technical parts of writing and will be treating this as if it's an original work.

I enjoyed the narration of inner thoughts. It meant that Ana as a character was well fleshed out and as a reader, I got to know her well. However, on the flip side of that, I found her inner narration a little overwhelming as if the balance between inner monologue and the actual action is off. This causes the story to feel a bit heavy with telling rather than showing. Some potential consideration and techniques to help with that:

In the opening, consider adding snippets of scenes to show some of her habits and background interspersed with narration.

When describing emotions like surprise or shock, consider describing body reactions - eyes widen, gasping of breath, etc. This will also help cut down on the number of adverbs you may feel you need to use

On a purely personal but I didn't quite feel the chemistry between the two though it's hard to put a finger on it. To me, there would be more hungry stares than wide smiles that betray too much emotion. Maybe some pleased looks were thrown in there when she acts the way he wants. Some intense eye contact may also help. Some common traits amongst dominants (which I know Christian Grey to be) seems like it's missing as if he is too vulnerable from the get-go. I didn't feel that initial rigidity described by Ana so you may want to revisit and pull back on some of the smiles for instance.

Also, just a quick heads up that some of the paragraphs run long and on the phone became quite hard to read and follow. It should be an easy fix for that!

I do want to mention that I absolutely love the title of the book and I think how it came together to tie with the story is bloody brilliant.

Overall, I think the writing is definitely getting there and with some technical improvements, can really shine.

Pixiestormcrow