valencia Writes

I’m not a professional book critic. Hell, I’m not even a professional writer just yet, but I am an avid reader and I wanted to write a review about “The Mister” by E L James. Ms. James is the author of the Fifty Shades of Grey series. Her novels have brought erotic romance into the mainstream spotlight, creating a trilogy of movies that have earned hundreds of millions at the box office and have made her a household name.

Her follow-up to the Fifty Shades series is called, “The Mister,” and many professional critics have given lackluster reviews of it at best, calling it boring, repetitive, excruciating, and “a mess.” I’ll admit, there are some parts of it where I can see their point, but I don’t agree with them. I think it’s because I know what she was trying to do with this book.

What I saw when I read it wasn’t a mess, but a genuine attempt at an author trying to move away from pure erotica into a deeper narrative that included elements of romance, passion, and the erotica that her readers have come to expect. During that journey, there were a few miss opportunities that I think could have pleased those critics, and we will talk about those in a moment.

For now, I want to focus on what went right.

1. Unlike Fifty Shades of Grey, James works hard to give this book a better sense of place. She includes vivid descriptions of settings: Maxim’s houses, various locations in England and Albania, etc. The reader has a good sense of each setting. I could almost hear the waves crashing when Maxim and Aleissa go to The Hideout. I could feel the cold air whipping against them, the wet sand beneath their feet. I could feel how cold and Aleissa felt as she walked through the rain just to get to and from work. There is a great deal of detail there that, while not always pertinent to the story, it does seem to help us understand how the character feels in that moment and how that physical sensation is often a reflection of the character’s mental state.
2. James also provides a emotional detail with the characters. We know what they are feeling and why they are feeling it. Granted, I can see how some critics feel that the inner monologues that the characters have with themselves (there are a number of them) seem to be quite repetitive, I assert that it is a reflection of the fact that they are still emotionally stuck in a particular place. Maxim has lost his brother; a man who he looked up to and loved more than he ever admitted to himself or his older sibling. His brother, Kit, died only a short time before the novel begins and it makes sense that Maxim would continue to grieve and have the same repetitive feelings of loss and deeply missing his brother. Aleissa has also experienced an extreme trauma as well. She just escaped a dangerous situation at home and then is thrust into an even more dangerous situation once she leaves Albania. She is then placed in the position of hiding so she can work toward her freedom, all the while she still remains in a prison of her own emotions and the traditions with which she was raised.
3. Ok. I’m a sucker for slow burn romances. What I liked about their “courtship” is that there is a good slow burn quality to it. They don’t just jump on each other. They have subtle moments between one another that show tenderness and vulnerability of both characters. They are both in a place of heartache and loss. They are both reaching out for something they do not understand. They discover one another through fate, but appear to be brought together to heal one another’s wounds. I like that small gestures and details show their growing affection for one another. Maxim offering her the umbrella. Aleissa checking his bedroom wastebasket and finding that he’s no longer sleeping around like he used to. Maxim realizing that he’s being messy and cleaning up after himself. Aleissa noticing that he also shares her love of music.
4. The sex. Ok. We knew there would be sex in this book. It’s a given. Critics shouldn’t really be surprised or bitch about that. Truthfully, there are only so many ways you can have sex and I’m pretty sure EL James went through many of them while writing Fifty Shades. I like the sex scenes in this book better because she focuses on the detail and romance of each touch and kiss. No, it’s not realistic. Good God. It’s not suppose to be realistic. I do like the description of the gentle touches, the description of the sensations each of them feel…. (The dialogue – ok – it’s not all that great, but I don’t think pillow talk is supposed to be. There really is only so much you can say during that time.)

Now, here are a couple of missed opportunities…

1. The novel starts off with a prologue that gets the reader’s blood pumping. It’s actually beginning to feel like a crime novel, a thriller, or a mystery of some kind. We only get about two pages of it – Aleissia running frantically through a forest as she is being chased by a unknown assailant. There is fear and it feels very present. We see one of our main characters going through a trauma, but we never revisit that happened; not even in her dreams. We don’t go into Aleissia’s mind to find out her journey from Albania to England. We don’t get the background on why her mother entrusted these men with her daughter. We don’t find out what happened to the other girls.
2. Both main characters are grieving in one way or another. We hear their internal monologues about their grief…more so with Aleissia, but we don’t really delve much deeper than the descriptions of what occurred. They both have unhealthy ways of dealing with their grief, but we don’t really see them move beyond it or even try to go to therapy and deal with the matter in a healthy way.

It’s an enjoyable read if you are a fan of a slow-burn romance, and a rich narrative. This story doesn’t have to be spurred along by anything else other than the story itself. I’ve read other reviews that critique this novel because it doesn’t follow the same lines as the Fifty Shades books. Those critics are wrong. This book stands on its own and should not be judged because it doesn’t take on the same exact mold as Fifty Shades. The Mister isn’t part of that series, so why view this book as if it needed to be written the same way and set in the same world?

This novel is an enjoyable read for EL James fans, and for people that love a romance wrapped in a bit of mystery and intrigue.