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Book Review of Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades, Bk 1)

Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades, Bk 1)
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Actually this book is basically a re-telling of the Beauty and The Beast tale ─ the characters are archetypal, the story is an old one out of legend. One of the tales from 50s' literary past can be traced to "The King and the Beggar-maid," a Medieval romance which tells the legend of the prince Cophetua and his unorthodox love for the beggar Penelophon. C. S. Lewis often used Cophetua and the beggar girl as an image of God's love for the unlovely. In The Problem of Pain, for instance, he writes, "We cannot even wish, in our better moments, that [God] could reconcile Himself to our present impurities - no more than the beggar maid could wish that King Cophetua should be content with her rags and dirt..."
50 Shades story is a strong & familiar one, of redemption through love. Of putting another's life first. Above all, it is about Sacred marriage the joining, often of opposites, which restores peace.

P.S. Our heros name, not coincidentally, is Christian.