“50 Shades of…” You Can’t Really Write E.L. James

When I heard about the fuss over the new 50 Shades of Grey best-selling series, I was intrigued. I wanted to get my hands on those books and soak in every bit of them. Little did I know it was just another silly, shallow, over-the-top erotic novel to turn people on but not bring depth or anything of substance to the surface. Does every book have to do that? No. But to praise E.L. James series as a masterpiece (which my sister and many others have done) is ridiculous.  

Let’s face it. The only reason this book made it to the best-selling list is because it is full of sex and crazy, down-right naughty S&M moments to feed everyone’s curiosity when it comes to things they would never or have never tried in bed. That’s it! Nothing else in this book makes it worthy to be called a best-seller. The fact that it is and so many other worthy books that should have made it to the list are not is a sad fact.

E.L. James was smart. She knew sex sells so she gave the world what they wanted, a guilty pleasure trip for every woman in the world to ohh and ahh over as if the main character Christian Grey is every woman’s dream. And many women around the world gushed over this overly-rich, sex-crazed man as if he were a knight in shining armor. I was disgusted by his character. Does this sound romantic to you? The man pays a girl, Anastasia Steele, to pretty much be his little pet to do with whatever he wants sexually. The book is filled with bondage/submission, sadist/masochistic crap that I find appalling and cruel, not even close to romantic that so many women tout it as. In one scene of the book, Christian starts to spank Anastasia as she cries from the pain. Seriously? Let’s all praise this as something we hope every chivalrous gentleman in our lives will do, because who doesn’t love being physically abused by your lover?

The only reason I even read the book (more like perused through it) was to see what the hype was about. Let me tell you, the only thing selling this book is the explicitly raunchy, “don’t try this at home” sex scenes. The writing is appalling! And that’s an understatement! James uses the “F” word in almost every sentence and a lot of other crude terms that just make the book seem trailer-trashy. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was written by a seventeen year old girl who just discovered the “F” word and thinks it’s cool to overuse it.

Sorry to all the E.L. James fans out there, I just felt like ranting on a book that makes men believe this is what women want. At the end of the day though, really examine what this book is teaching. Yes, men go ahead and abuse women physically because they’ll learn to love it. Yes, pay them for sex because who couldn’t use the extra cash? Yes, treat them like your own pet to use for whatever purpose you want. It’s definitely not a book that deserves the praise, but that’s just my “goody-goody” opinion.

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