Monster2

If media coverage is any indication, I'm assuming about 75% of you have read Fifty Shades of Grey by now. I finally succumbed after I devoured The Hunger Games Trilogy on vacation and needed something else to satisfy my new reading fix. 

If you haven't read it, it's about a virgin getting together with the hottest richest man on the planet who takes her into a world full of S&M and annoying email exchanges. 

It is also written by an 8th grader.

That's not true but I wish it was because it would explain why the writing is RIDICULOUSLY AWFUL. It would also explain why the woman refers to her vagina as her "sex". And why almost every sentence is followed with words in italics like "Oh— WOW" or "Holy fuck" or "Whoa, this is so hot" so that the reader is 100% clear what our newly deflowered idiot heroine is thinking.

But still, the sex IS hot, and after dismissing the book initially, I now TOTALLY TOTALLY get it.

(Although, as I am currently on Book #2, I find myself becoming exhausted and hoping that Mr. Grey just lets poor Anastasia get some sleep— whether her "inner goddess" is done doing gymnastics or not.)

But all this is to lead up to a moment I had with my two-year-old daughter. Uh-oh. Where is this going?

You see, I have become infinitely spoiled by my vacation and the ability to read whenever I like. I also have a brand new Kindle that I am finding hard to put down. Plus, there is the aforementioned erotic "literature" that is causing me to be a little too attached to my new reading device. Will I ever want to stop?

So you must forgive me for handing Mazzy an iphone and letting her flip through the app version of The Monster at the End of This Book, Starring Lovable Furry Old Grover while I curled up on the couch with 50 Shades. Is this even legal?

In "The Monster at the End of this Book", in case you are unfamiliar, Grover is repeatedly trying to convince the reader not to turn the page because he is scared of the monster at the end of the book. So he does everything he can with nails, bricks, two-by-fours etc. to secure the pages shut but ends up getting buried by his own efforts every time.

Mazzy has gotten into the habit of screaming "GROVER'S OKAY!" after she turns the last page to discover Grover still alive and well despite being severely injured in the pages before.

Anyway, imagine me reading a rather innocent section of 50 Shades while Mazzy silently flips through her app. Then wandering head-on into a bondage scene with my two-year-old just to my left and wondering if this is how men feel when they surf porn sites at work. Oh my. This is SO wrong…

And then just as Christian Grey takes out his "flogger" and Anastasia thinks "Holy fuck— what's he going to do now?" And then there's something about blindfolding and writhing and pounding and panting and ice cubes and opera and urgency and unraveling and—

"GROVER'S OKAY!!!!"

Holy fuck is right. I really have to read this book after my daughter goes to bed.

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Okay, spill it. Have you read the book? Did you think it was horrifically bad? a total turn-on? or both?