Currently wrapping up the second (Fifty Shades Darker). The writing is extremely elementary and unimaginative. I'm being totally serious when I say that the Twilight series was better written. Yes totally serious. I didn't bother watching the movie because I've heard nothing but bad things about it. It even looked unexceptional from the trailer. And that Crazy in Love remake gets on my nerves at any rate.
Christian as an independent character is rather interesting. I'm struggling with finishing the second installment, but he's the only reason I keep on keeping on. Past that it's more of the same. After the first 2-3 bdsm scenes, all further sex scenes are superfluous. They should be used to add more development to the characters or the plot for that matter; neither of which they do. I can see one, maybe two max, in the second book. However having sex scene after sex scene just tells me there's nothing more to the story. And there are some contrivances I don't agree with at all (namely the helicopter missing fiasco). At this point it just seems as if the writer was drumming up any and everything she could to meet her page quota.
Yes I'll stick with it because I've gone this far with it and why give up now. But I'm underwhelmed by it all. In my opinion, the first book had great potential. Tension should have been the focus. Less emphasis on bondage and more emphasis on their relationship and Christian's unwillingness to commit to a "vanilla" relationship. This battle of wills between Christian and his demons and Anastasia's desire to have a real relationship could have and should have been the final act of the first book and nearly all of the second book. As it stands now, these characters played their cards too soon and there's really nothing to look forward to. I haven't read the final book, so I could be totally mistaken. But it's looking like I've already read the best this series has to offer.