If media coverage is any indication, I'm assuming about 75% of you have read Fifty Shades of Grey
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
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?
I’m reading the first book, and have not come to the er, hot and heavy parts yet. I stopped 2 weeks ago and for some reason, haven’t gone back to it yet. Perhaps I should?
And I read it during the toddler’s nap time. No way I could read while he’s right there. Kudos to you for trying, hah!
I had to read it once the little one went to sleep, but it was a long hard wait 😉 the writing was bad, but overall the books were great. I enjoyed themm and I think my husband enjoyed the extra ‘oil’s it gave me.
Read book one. Enjoyed the sex parts as yes, they had some steamy aspects.
The rest of it killed me for the exact things you mentioned, and if she said oh my one more effing time? I (yes,me) was ready to hit the girl.
Her inner goddess can stay away. I am skipping the next two. 😉
Ha that’s supposed to say ‘pep’ (as in pep in my step)
I just finished 50 Shades last night and yes, I too, read it while my daughter was sitting next to me. I couldn’t put the book down! I want to know why Christian is the way he is and if he can change.
I am a teacher and we have posters in our rooms to display what we are currently reading to spark conversation with our students around literacy…..imagine the conversations if I were to write 50 Shades!
The Monster at the End of This Book was one of my favorites growing up! The iPad app is awesome and keeps my daughter busy as well!
I just finished the first book last night. It made me feel conflicted, because the writing is so atrocious and anastasia is truly an idiot, but the hot parts are pretty hot. I didn’t read it around my nine month old, but I did read it in my cubicle at work during lunch. Which was kind of uncomfortable, but it had to be read sometime!
I read the first two chapters and couldn’t continue because it was so ridiculous. Put it down and read the entire Hunger Games Trilogy. Then my friend convinced to keep reading until I at least got to one of the sex scenes, so I did and I was hooked.
Haven’t read it yet. Am like you though – it is hard for me to stop reading anything, whether awesome or atrocious … magazine, book, or blog. I just have to keep reading until I finish. Is kind of like my OCD thing … which is why I rarely read other than blogs (quicker to get through a posting than a book!). Which is kind of sad, but hopefully I will have time when the kids are older. Same for this book in particular, if I read it and get all hot and bothered and then spy my husband across the room well … he better still walk pretty fast otherwise I will be asleep anyway before he gets to me! So it will be wasted on me for now I’m afraid! LOL!
My husband benefitted as well:)
I had no idea it was a trilogy until the book and ended and I was like- wha??? That was the worst and most inclusive ending ever. So I downloaded the second one, against my better judgement. I’m not nearly as into it though- it’s getting incredibly repetitive.
I haven’t read it and to be honest, I don’t think I’m going to. That kind of thing has just never been my cup of tea. I don’t know why I’m so prudish about it, but I’ve always been a big fan of “And then the next morning…” lol
I would have to say that I am in the 25% who haven’t read it. I’ve heard mixed reviews about it, so I’m not jumping up and down to read it.
I do have to admit, though, that I do have a strong urge now to go pull out our copy of The Monster at the End of This Book for a good read. I freaking love that book!!!
After your description, I am kinda afraid to read it! Especially if the writing is that bad. Hilarious tho that you are reading it next to Mazzy. Conflicted!
I read all three. Months ago. The writing makes “Twilight” look Pulitzer-ready. (Although one of the most annoying things in Twilight is Bella saying “Holy Crow!” all the time, so at least Anastasia swears.) The best part is that I thought I was so clever when I figured out it was a Twilight knockoff, only to discover that was how it got written in the first place. Replacing vampirism with S&M: brilliant. Just needed a writer that had a better thesaurus…
Love this post! I’ve been just waiting for someone to tie 50 Shades (of Bad Writing) with Sesame Street and you did it perfectly.
I did read the first two while sitting next to (and blatantly ignoring) my son… Bad Mom!!! But if you ignore the crap writing and idiot protagonist who graduated college having never used a cell phone, email or computer, it was a lot of fun.
PS: If you have an e-reader, search “I flushed” and I think you’ll find about 1000 references. I don’t blame the writer, I blame her moron EDITOR, who should be flogged (and not in a fun Christian Grey way). No one thought to remove all the @#$% British-isms???? The book is set in America yet Ana says things like “I collected my satchel,” as opposed to “I grabbed my bag.” Ugh!!!
Still, I think the movie could be better than the book if they get a decent screenwriter.
I’m reading it… I’m on book 2 and yeah, have a hard time reading while the kids are awake… The good news is, me and the other moms at baseball practice have cast the entire movie, Hollywood can relax. (Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Julia Roberts, Blake Lively)
Lol, I haven’t read it but I did read several articles about it and believe it was originally self-published so blaming her editor is still blaming her. Plus, crap writing is crap writing, editors can do only so much before their brains explode. 🙂
It started as Twilight fanfic and was originally self published. Yeah. That’s all I’ll say about that LOL
50 Shades is my newly downloaded read for our trip to Hawaii next week. We’ve had the Grover apps (1 and 2, did you know there’s a second one with Elmo?!) for a while now and my kids love it.
haven’t had a chance to read others’ comments but soooo glad for this post!
everyone i know is reading the books and LOVING them and no one, NO ONEEEEEE, seems to notice that the writing is horrible. HORRIBLE. before i knew what the E.L. of E.L. James stood for i pictured someone, a male, in their late 60s writing it. 20-somethings do NOT speak that way. annoying to be reading and have them talk THAT WAY. and the actual writing…it’s just so elementary. the whole thing.
that said 🙂 i read all 3 in about 7 days but still, the writing KILLED ME.
i get the intrigue but you’re the first person i’ve heard admit the writing SUCKS & when i bring it up i just gets stares…so THANK YOU!
It hooked me then, too, and, like you, I tried to read the book while my almost 2-year-old was playing beside me and felt 50 shades of wrong.
And I kinda hope her inner goddess breaks her neck in an unfortunate back flip landing.
Um, horrifically bad!!!!!
I blogged about this this week too……horrible!!!
I love that u called the author an 8th grader!!!
http://lgoogoogaga.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/bullets-for-breakfast/
You want to read sex scenes that are graphic and well written, read Laurel K Hamilton or Nora Roberts. Though I after reading all of their books, I am to the point where I go, yeah ok, they’re having mind blowing sex again. Whatever. And turn about three pages ahead lol.
Guess I am old lol, those oh-wow mind-blowing sex scenes make me gag….don’t know a man who thinks like that or does stuff like that….or a woman who reacts like that, for that matter. Unless your guys do? Hmmmm??
That being said, I am not reading that book just on principle…because everyone else is doing it! I am one of those who runs the other way when “everyone else” does it, reads it, sees it, has it. The stuff I have read or seen after awesome or must see/do/have reviews just make me go, huh? Besides the reviews for this are less than stellar. And bondage and dominant males are not for me – goes right against my femininist background!
Good things happening for the hubbies as a result though! 🙂
This has me CRACKING UP. Hilarious. I also really want to go read 50 Shades of Grey now. Maybe without my toddler.
I just recently had pneumonia and was on bed rest for a week, ugh. Anyway, I decided it was a good time to read Fifty Shades of Gray…since it was all over the news I figured I give it a shot. I’m a huge romance (steamy) novel reader…OK I read just about anything, but steamy romances are my fav. So I read book one… a slow going start, but I kept going. In the end I read all 3 books. The steamy parts are just that steamy! I found it to be an easy read (maybe it’s the 8th grade writing). But that’s just my take on it.
I downloaded the sample to see what all the fuss is about because as the author of “Searching for My Wand”, a novel that I released in Dec and have not yet generated this much interest in, I was curious. I Sooooo don’t get it. As Courtney said, no 20 somethings talk like that no matter what their background. I admit a part of me wants to read the whole thing just to see why? Why this book and not others? As an author, it is really frustrating!
i hooked up my kindle just for 50 shades and now i can’t stop , hunger games check, fifty check, and i can’t stop either, maybe now i have some free time with daniel getting older, but i need series’.. i recommend the irish born trilogy, nora roberts – very good, now i’m on book 2 of game of thrones…. will a single novel ever be enough ever again???
OHMIGOD! The Monster At The End Of This Book was MY FAVOURITE when I was a kid!!!! 50 Shades Of Grey though? I have zero interest in reading it. I heard she wrote it because she felt Twilight was too deprived of sex. Okay, then.
Welcome to the wonderful world of self-publishing. TRUST ESTABLISHED PUBLISHERS – we vet thousands of shit manuscripts so you don’t have to.
I’m listening to it. Audio book version. The reader is pretty much awful. And there’s a lot of “holy crap,” which backs up your “written by an 8th grader” opinion.
that said, it’s ok. What is NOT ok? listening to it while you’re trying to do a 6 mile training walk. It’s uncomfortable. I shoulda just got the read-alone version.
Ok, I’m dating myself here, but no one will do this film version better than the young Mickey Rourke from his “9 1/2 Weeks” days. Just sayin’
Haven’t read it. . . got to be only a matter of time. But I love your italic asides. Too. Funny.
Now, I kind of want to read it so that a) my husband can see more action from my twitterpated self, and b) I can make jokes in italics.
I read the first one and then got the second one since the ending left me with a “what?!” feeling. by the end of the 2nd one, i couldn’t wait for it to be over. So far I have made a conscious decision to forego getting the 3rd one. Although if I find out that one of them dies i may reconsider so it will have all been worth it.
I wonder how many readers are in my percentile:
I’ve read Monster at the End of This Book a thousand times but not one page of 50 Shades of Grey.
Sad but true confessions of a middle-aged blogger who is not interested in any more flogging than I already get.
So to speak.
I have only read the excerpt that was on Jezebel, and agree totally with your assessment. That said, the women I know who are reading it are definitely giving their husbands something to be thankful for.
I just finished book three. I also could barely get past the first chapter of book 1 because the writing was so bad…but then, yes, something happens around page 80 and there’s no turning back. I say this as an English lit major and a pretty serious reader: it’s only smut for me from here on in. (I just downloaded Bared to You by Sylvia Day–highly recommended by fellow post-Grey smut-seekers).
That’s what my friend’s mom said! LOL I haven’t` seen it
I read the books in about 3 days, like you I had some problems with how the author wrote it,I did giggle alot when ever her inner goddess made comments, but my biggest problem with the book was this.. Christian Grey was drop dead gorgeous, women fell all over theirselves in his presence..But her description of him was Opie Taylor..Wait.. What ?
I haven’t read it. Is this shit the new Wifey?
Oh my god— I used to sneak into my mom’s room and read that book when she wasn’t home. I knew exactly where she hid it.
I could not take one more grammatical error/unfinished sentence with spacing throughout a page in “50 Shades” … Not to mention her annoying “oh my” after EVERYTHING!!!!!
GREAT post!!
I read all three in about four days on my Kindle. If I were a slow reader, I never could have made it through even the first one. I’m one of those people who has to see how things end, so even though I hated the first one, I read the other two. I have to say, the third one at least had a SUBPLOT, which the other two lacked. But the writing was atrocious in all three. ATROCIOUS.
Oh my. Gasp. Flushed. Holy crap. GOOD POINT WELL MADE, AS EVER, MISS STEELE. (Does she only have a vocabulary of 100 words?)
I haven’t read it, but dear lord everyone is talking about it. I love the juxtaposition of reading it while Mazzy reads Grover. Hysterical.
PS-That Grover book was my brother’s absolute favorite growing up.
Okay, I’m a bit late to the party here, but I am a friend of Ilana’s and we had a long phone conversation about this. And I just feel that I need to plug my genre here…
Let me start by saying I have not read 50 shades, though I have been told about it by quite a few and those share the same sentiment that the writing is awful.
Heed Dorothy’s advice! If you were turned on by this book but thought the writing prosaic, or worse, stupid, I encourage you to hit the romance and/or erotica section of your local book store or download.
I started reading romance novels about seven years ago. It was seriously, an accident, but I was hooked. Three and a half years ago, I started writing my own romance novels. I joke about the fact that it is porn for women, but the thing that makes it porn for women is not just the sex scenes–though there are plenty of steamy ones out there–but the romance. Anyone who is married, especially, will never feel that excitement of falling in love for the first time ever again. Love changes, and the unknown portion of when it’s first happening to you, can’t happen again. That’s why it’s so much fun to live vicariously through these characters–well written characters!–and becomesa turn on for us.
Please know, there are many talented writers, well educated authors, that have written these books. Some of them moonlight as authors and have huge careers, even though they are professors and lawyers, and of course, mothers. Not only that, there are many more genres to choose from besides contemporary.(Check out Romance Writers of America–Romance is the hottest selling genre of books. Period.)
I write historic Regency romance and a lot of research and history go into my work. It’s Jane Austen with explicit sex. What could be bad? And I too, will probably self-publish soon. There’s a lot of competition out there for romance writers and self-publishing is a good option for those who want to share their stories without waiting years for a book deal.
Just hoping some of you explore the genre and have faith that there are well written versions out there. Versions that, unfortunately, have not had the dumb luck to become main stream and get a movie deal.(It makes me want to cry a little bit for the talent that’s been looked over). Though I must admit, I hope to have the same dumb luck one day!
Still haven’t read it, but I’m seriously thinking about getting it and only reading the sex parts. Apparently, they’re the only part of the entire trilogy that are bearable.
But I LOVE The Monster at the End of This Book! Loved it as a kid and love reading it to Lil’ Bit now.
And what does it say about me that I’m more excited to talk about Grover than kinky Christian Grey?
Terrible. And hot. You’ve done a fantastic review 😉 Also, yes, the super-British sayings! “I’m not usually one to throw my toys out of he pram.” Does that even make sense in London? I’m finished the first 2, but am taking a break before trudging through (skipping to the good parts, ahem) part 3.
Off topic, Monster at the End of this Book was my absolute FAVOURITE book as a kid. My mother would read it to me and make funny voice but when my father read it, he wouldn’t make the voices and I would get mad at him for this. Finally, by page 4 (of a book that I think has maybe 7 or 8 pages) I would get so mad that I would finally dismiss my father and say “Daddy, I think you should just stop reading now.”
Anyone else been dismissed by a 4 yr old?
And as far as Fifty Shades, by the time I got to the 3rd book, my brain actually stopped registering the whole “inner goddess” and “subconscious” crap. It was a good thing.
Never read 50 Shades… though from your comments, you might enjoy Nicky Charles’ paranormal romance werewolf series (Laws of the Lycans series) starting with “The Mating” (werewolf term for marriage, though there are some 50 shades type activities, too)… but overall awesome series. Starts hot and heavy, but unlike 50 Shades (from other people’s comments), the storyline as a whole is well written and pretty seamless over the 5 books. The best part??? The entire series is FREE! I, too, can’t read them while my son is awake. Haha.