Opinions please on 50 shades of grey

Colleagues at work have been raving at the trilogy of books that include 50 shades of grey. I like a good read so I was tempted to download them. Then a friend of mine told me that she found them disturbing due to the focus on domestic violence/mental cruelty. I've read the blurbs and I'm not entirely sure what to make of them.

So, has anybody here read them? Without giving away the storyline too much can you give a critique?

Maybe a few more opinions may help me make my mind up.

I've read them (found them free and wanted to see what all the fuss was about). They're OK, badly written "chick flick" type books mainly, with typical "Mary Sue" characters (the male is rich, gorgeous and generous, the female thinks she's nothing special but has men falling over her, looks fantastic in anything she wears and gets swept off her feet by the main character). The plot is quite ridiculous, but it does suck you in I guess!
There is the element of controlling behaviour from the main character onto the main female. Not sure I'd deem it domestic violence - it is supposedly based on a voluntary sub/dom relationship but the female lead isn't keen on the lifestyle, but gives it a try (then doesn't like it). Still consensual, I guess, but the controlling aspect of the relationship does blur the lines - is she doing it because she wants to or just because she's afraid to lose him if she doesn't?
Will colour the text in white as it contains spoilers, but highlight the following paragraph to reveal a few examples of the controlling behaviour:
- Christian forces Ana to go onto birth control without her input - initially the pill, then demands she has the shot because she missed the pill
- He doesn't want her to get a job as he wants her to stay in his house and keep him company when he is around, yet he is allowed to continue his work as he sees fit
- When she does get a job, he purchases the company so that he can control whether she goes on company trips and who she works with
- He buys her a car and has her one sold as he is not happy with her driving an old banger
At the end of the day, it's just a book, but if Ana was my friend I would definately be highly concerned about her relationship!

I have to say, the sex scenes get old very quickly. They are very unrealistic to be honest, and although part of me is quite jealous of her ability to orgasm on command, I have to say I would be feeling very chafed and achey if I had sex as often as she did

Ironically, the bit I enjoyed most was the second half of the third book - where the author finally ditches the constant sex scenes and Christian's controlling behaviour eases off quite a bit, and it actually seems like a half decent cheesy girly book that I might actually pay some money for.

Mummy porn...

Don't understand all the fuss

It was apparently originally written as Twilight fanfiction, then published with a few tweaks to make it 'original'. On that basis I have avoided it.

Thanks for your input, it sounds like a raunchy Mills & Boon

Thanks guys, that was really.........eerrmmmm............helpful

To be fair, I read an article that compares the fanfic to the book and they are very similar - BUT similar to each other, not to Twilight. The only real similarities were than they had the main characters as Bella and Edward, then changed them to Ana and Christian. They kept the family structure a bit similar and I guess the characters somewhat resemble Bella and Edward physically but the whole storyline is a unique one IMO. I'd heard the fanfic thing before reading the 50 shades books and kept waiting for it to reveal Christian was really a vampire or have some other kind of Twilight-esque plot to it but it doesn't really.

think Jilly cooper with not as much of a story,and more Sex, have to say, pretty much argree with krlyr, got bored of it all in the first one, theres only so many ways to get it on, found the second a bit better, and actually thought the last one was pretty good in a mindless easy reading kind of way

Do you need to read all 3 in order? Or could I skip the first one and the second two still make sense?

You do really, cos you get what Christian is in the first one