What are some books similar to the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy?

It’s probably going to make be sound boorish, but when you say “similar”, what exactly do you mean? Poorly written pablum, or are you looking for books about the BDSM lifestyle?

I like the love story between the two of them. And bdsm in a love story isn’t a must but it doesn’t bother me

The Story of O.
That is my guess. I haven’t read either.

@syz Amen.

I will admit – haven’t read it, but I have nevertheless read reviews concerning it. When you say ‘love’ story..Is this love, really? Is love about the power balance in a relationship…and about submission as well as dominance?...Their relationship seemed…slightly forceful? (And definitely abnormally sick.) A spatula. Really? A SPATULA??
I’m sorry but defining this as ‘love’ is probably an insult to the whole concept of..love.
Maybe extremely passionate..and violent. But I wouldn’t describe what they have as ‘love’. Purely sexual relationship does not mean love. It is an erotica thing, not love story.

Sorry, I just had to comment on this.

It’s worth noting that there is no BDSM in 50 Shades of Grey. There are plenty abusive caricatures of the practice, but nothing approaching the actual practice. As for similar literature, the whole series began as fan fiction for Twilight (another story about an abusive relationship written as if it were a tale of deepest love). If you have not read that series, then, perhaps you should give it a try. Otherwise, just pick up any romance novel anywhere.

@filmfann I haven’t read 50 Shades of Grey but I have read the Story of O. It really isn’t a love story. I have trouble even calling it erotic in anything more than a technical sense. That book is literally about the dehumanization of a woman. And I don’t mean that in some sort of pearl-clutching outrage. The titualar female is literally kidnapped, trained to be a sex slave, her body subject completely to the whims of her masked keepers and then turned out into the keeping of the man the brought her there. By the end she aspires to be an object to be broken in service of other peoples desires.

It makes for a really good horror, but I think you’d need some pretty out there kinks to find it sexy. It makes American Psycho look like Winnie the Pooh.