Fifty Shade of Grey

Ok to start with, originally I didn't actually buy this book, my husband thought it would be a good wheeze to put it on my ipad, mostly I think for embarassment factor, so I thought 'oh no miladdo I am not playing that, I shall read this book and then laugh at you'.

Sadly, the joke remained on me! I had seen that this book had been spotted being read by umpteen celebs and been hyped as if it was the next instalment to the karma sutra... trust me on this... neither is the case. 

So what do we have?  Well ostensibly the story (thin though it is) is about a very damaged man who meets an incredibly innocent young woman (a virgin no less... don't get many of them to the pound these days) and their ensuing "romance" if you can call it that.  I know I wouldn't.

What was good about the book?  Depends on your point of view really, if you want a story, good writing, a decent plot, then you will be sadly disappointed. If you just want copious amounts of repetitive sex then rock on this is the book for you!

My main quibble is the author's absolute lack of descriptive vocabulary, she only seems to know one word for sexy... "HOT" that's pretty much it.   I was a bit shocked that given there are such things as online thesaurus's she didn't take the time to bother to try and find some alternative options to that one word. For shame!

Sooo let's take a moment to have a little go at that shall we?  If you pop the word HOT into a thesaurus you get 

baking, blazing, blistering, boiling, broiling, burning, calescent, close, decalescent, febrile, fevered, feverish, feverous, fiery, flaming, heated, humid, igneous, incandescent, like an oven, on fire, ovenlike, parching, piping, recalescent, red*, roasting, scalding, scorching, searing, sizzling, smoking, steaming, stuffy, sultry, summery, sweltering, sweltry, thermogenic, torrid, tropic, tropical, very warm, warm, white*

Now that's not bad is it... whilst the word 'hot' really is about temperature there are quite a few words there that could quite easily apply to the sexiness of an individual or a situation. no?

Now let's put in the word "SEXY" and see what you get. 

arousing, come-hither, cuddly, flirtatious, hot*, inviting, kissable, libidinous, mature, provocative, provoking, racy, risqué, seductive, sensual, sensuous, slinky, spicy*, steamy, suggestive, titillating, voluptuous

adorable, alluring, beautiful*, charming, covetable, enticing, fascinating, fetching

That took me all of 30 seconds... so seriously this author couldn't take 30 seconds to come up with another word for HOT????

And if you get really really adventurous and pop in the word 'ATTRACTIVE' you get

adorable, agreeable, alluring, beautiful, beckoning, bewitching, captivating, charming, comely, enchanting, engaging, enthralling, enticing, fair, fascinating, fetching, glamorous, good-looking, gorgeous, handsome, hunky, interesting, inviting, looker, lovely, luring, magnetic, mesmeric, pleasant, pleasing, prepossessing, pretty, provocative, seductive, stunning, taking, tantalizing, teasing, tempting, winning, winsome

So there you have it... basically the writer of this book was just lazy. Hmmm should I pop that into the thesaurus... yeah let's just for fun.

apathetic, asleep on the job, careless, comatose, dallying, dilatory, drowsy, dull, flagging, idle, inattentive, indifferent, indolent, inert, lackadaisical, laggard, lagging, languid, languorous, lethargic, lifeless, loafing, neglectful, out of it, passive, procrastinating, remiss, shiftless, slack, sleepy, slothful, slow, slow-moving, snoozy, somnolent, supine, tardy, tired, torpid, trifling, unconcerned, unenergetic, unindustrious, unpersevering, unready, weary

Well there you go... another 30 seconds of my life I won't get back

My other issue with this book was the actual characters... the girl is wetter than a weekend in Ireland, she has all the spine of... well... an amoeba and the all hailed Christian Grey?  Seriously I would kick that twat so hard in his privates that sex would be the last thing on his mind, he would be too busy trying to breathe! 

What the devil was this writer trying to do, put back women's sexuality by about 100 years?  Not only was this book a terrible representation of BDSM and sex play in general but it also advocates stalking, bullying and other generally undesirable attributes in a relationship.  It's one thing to be manly and take control in a relationship, but come on... when does stalking ever become acceptable?