A few weeks back I had a hushed conversation I imagine many other women have had recently that went along the lines of: Have your read it? It’s the best book! Great for your sex life! Really hot! You must read it! My husband has never been happier! And, much like Moses parting the waters, this conversation opened up a whole new world to me of which I had gone completely unawares. Suddenly I started reading about Fifty Shades of Grey everywhere. Literally. My curiosity was piqued, I went on amazon and read the revues, my curiosity plummeted and I figured I had better things to do with my time than read second-rate BDSM erotica.

Who’m I kidding? My snobbishness lasted all of five minutes and then I downloaded the first book on my kindle. I have now read all three, and figured I’d put my two cents into the Fifty shades discussions.

The writing is ABYSMAL. The plot is non-existent, you constantly feel like something is going to happen any minute, but nothing ever does, except for a lot of sex because apparently Christian likes to “fuck hard”. And while we’re on the subject, I simply cannot believe that the author couldn’t come up with any way to describe down there other than “down there” and every time I had to read that Christian “reached his release” I wanted to whack the author upside the head with the largest and heaviest edition of Webster’s English Dictionary. The writing was tedious. The characters were annoying. The sex was far-fetched, because honestly Ana, she was always ready. I swear to God. He looked at her and she was ready. Not even in the first five minutes of mind-boggling passion that is the start of any good relationship is the woman always ready. Four, five times a day. Every day.

At first I thought the author was a man, but it’s a woman. I couldn’t believe it. But then I thought, well, I wouldn’t mind having 4 or 5 (or more, as she often has multiples at each session) mind-blowing orgasms a day. But it’s unlikely, or rather unrealistic, so maybe the author’s just putting her own wishful thinking to paper. I mean, Christian, he’s like the sex master of all time, he always touches her perfectly, reads her minutest body cues and reacts appropriately, he tells her to come and she does, on command. Hell, I wouldn’t mind a partner like that (but without all the controlling, mind-fuck crap that constitutes the rest of the book). The truth, of course, is that in real life most women have more consistently satisfying relationships with their electronics than they do with their partners.

To say Christian is controlling is the understatement of the century, he makes maniacal stalkers look benign and friendly. Yes, he’s rich, and gorgeous (which we know because we’re told on every other page) but he is also completely psychotic, so there’s that. And Ana? Oh my God, the whining, the indecision, the ineptitude! She gets mad at him constantly, she never does anything about it, honestly, I never knew which character I wanted to stab the most all through the books.

So why, you may ask did I read all three books? Well, I really do have a hard time walking away from a series, generally I make sure I’m going to like the books before I start reading them, but there was so much hype around this one I didn’t think it could possibly be bad. Also, there’s the train wreck factor, once I started I simply couldn’t turn away from the train wreck. And I’m an optimist, I kept expecting it to get better.

Okay, I don’t want to seem shrewish, the books are readable, I managed to get through three of them. But don’t go in expecting a really good book. Some of the sex scenes are titillating, but they leave nothing to the imagination, so if you like to fill in your own blanks, you’ll want to skip over them, in which case you’ll be done with all three books in about thirty minutes. If you’re just looking for an easy beach read then go for it, but you need a high tolerance for annoying characters and bad editing, on the other hand since everybody’s talking about the Fifty Shades phenomenon you’ll be able to put in your two cents. These are mine, don’t be mad at me if you don’t agree, there are enough books out there to satisfy all our different tastes, these here just weren’t to mine.

Also, for a really hilarious review with a sentiment very similar to mine but much better expressed I suggest you head over to this site here: http://msannomalley.com/2012/05/21/fifty-shades-of-bullht-or-yes-i-caved/