I had the misfortune of being assigned by my book club to read E.L. James' "Fifty Shades of Grey", the British authors book originally penned as "Twighlight" fanfiction, then re-written, with original characters, making it a standalone piece. It is the first in a trilogy and, I know, I am late to the ball game here as it has been reviewed, praised and written about a thousand times, but not yet, by me.
It is nothing but pornography disguised as more pornography, it is pulp for the feeble minded the novel's target audience and demographic - sex starved women, getting their kicks from reading about sex, while they starve their husbands of any physical contact.
For me it contained nothing new…older man with a bondage fetish seduces younger woman….never read or seen that before have we?
The plot is uninspired and unoriginal, the characters plastic and the writing poor.
I read it through to the end, I had to, as it is book club membership policy to do so.
When the first Tuesday of the month came around and we, the book club members, converged for our monthly meeting to discuss the book I knew immediately that the women in our group would praise and fawn over the book. They all have probably fantasized themselves in a scenario involving the protagonist, Christian Grey. I even suspected that some of them had probably masturbated while reading the book.
It is pure filth.
I was not incorrect in my musings.
"Oh, I couldn't put it down" said one.
"I loved it" said another.
So, two hours went by and we talked about how great the book was, I lied, of course, said I enjoyed it, that I thought it was great, etc, etc.
Yesterday I resigned from the club.
Fifty shades of Grey? Fifty shades of shit!!
