50 Shades of Embarrassing

So, let's talk smut.


Like countless other women of all ages, I have been reading the 50 Shades series by EL James. As you're probably aware, the series follows young innocent Anastasia Steele as she is seduced by the wealthy and mysterious Christian Grey. Apparently, the series was started as Twilight fan fiction (?), and the characters are supposedly based on Bella Swan and Edward Cullen (which, I don't know what the Hell that's supposed to mean. If anything, the characters remind me of Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton from the True Blood series. Not that anyone in this series is or has anything to do with vampires.)

Also as you're probably aware, this series is being categorized as "erotica". There are a LOT of very graphic sex scenes, many involving BDSM. This shit is getting middle aged (and young) womens' panties in a bunch all the livelong day. It's all anyone wants to talk about these days. So of course, curiosity got the best of me and I decided to dive right in, despite reading NUMEROUS horrid reviews on Amazon.

Okay, so here's the humiliating thing.

I. Am. So. Into. These. Books!

The worst part is, I'm not even into the sex scenes! They do nothing (or very little, at least) for me. I'm not remotely into anything involving BDSM, and I actually kind of skim over the sex scenes for the most part. I am actually 100% into the story!

And, you guys! The writing is ATROCIOUS! The whole story is COMPLETELY unbelieveable. The heroine has little to no personality, and there is basically NO reason that the wealthy, devastatingly gorgeous billionaire (yes, BILLIONAIRE) Christian Grey would even acknowledge her, let alone fall deeply and madly in love with her. The author of the book is British, and she keeps putting Britishisms into the 100% American characters' dialogue (saying "you look smart" instead of "you look nice", "holiday" instead of "vacation", etc.). The relatively young (in their early-late twenties) characters speak as though they're 65, and live during the early 1900's. The phrase "oh crap!" or "holy shit!" or "oh jeez!" is used EVERY THREE WORDS. All I can picture while reading it is Kirsten Dunst's character in Drop Dead Gorgeous ("oh crap, oh jeez!"). In fact, several Amazon reviewers actually ran counters on various phrases, and came up with something like 95 repetitions of some form of "oh crap" (occasionally upgraded to "double crap"). And Anastasia is constantly referring to her infuriatingly annoying "inner Goddess". Constantly. If she's not referring to her "inner Goddess", she's instead being chided by her subconscious. Who wears horn-rimmed glasses. Christian is, again, a BILLIONAIRE, self-made, at the age of 27. He is also DROP-DEAD gorgeous, a sex god, very well-endowed, an accomplished pianist, and a PILOT. Yep, a pilot. He owns his own company, and works for about 10 minutes a week (if that). Oh, and he speaks fluent French. And assumably every other language imaginable. Why not?

That said, I can't put this silly shit down. I'm midway through the second book (Fifty Shades Darker). In fact, as soon as I'm done writing this, I'm probably going to go scurry off to my bedroom, snuggle up in bed, and read about young Ana chewing her lips as her subconscious rolls her eyes and her inner goddess does back flips in her cheerleader costume. (Yeah.)


Seriously, I'm going to go read my smut now.