50 Shades of.... Red

I read a lot of books.  A lot.   So when the buzz started online about "50 Shades" I figured I'd put my name on the library waiting list and see what all the talk was about.   I didn't know what the book was about, but I thought I'd read that it was an intense romance/ drama kind of thing.  Whatever.  I figured it would be months before I got the book (I was number 700-something on the waiting list!) and I'd see then what all the fuss was about.

Well.

I received the book last week.  I was surprised that I got it so quickly, but I soon figured out why.

I started to read it one evening and quickly found myself shocked and deeply embarrassed by what I was seeing.  I put it down, hiding it carefully in my bedroom so that my 9 year-old wouldn't pick it up and check it out.  (She often wants to know what I'm reading, and 99% of the time that's fine... it's mostly Christian fiction or review books that come from Christian publishing companies.)

The next night, I picked it up again, thinking that I must be missing something that has made this book so popular.   I skipped ahead in the book, thinking that maybe there was just one section of that... stuff.  Nope.  Every chapter I flipped to was the same.  Porn.  Descriptions of things that no reasonable person should be reading or even thinking about... yet they're described with terms like "love". 

I finally skipped to the end, thinking that maybe there was a plot hidden in there somewhere.  Nope.  Not as far as I could tell.  Granted, I may have skipped too much to really get the plot, but as far as I could tell, it was chapter after chapter of an innocent young girl subjecting herself to the depraved desires of a powerful older man.

Why is this book so popular?  Are we, as a society, so messed up that we think a book with something called a "red room of pain" is a fairy tale romance? 

There are plenty of posts online both for and against reading this book.  Meg Hunter-Kilmer posts one of the best: "Why I Won't Read...".    

As for me, lesson learned.   Always read the full book description before diving into a new book!

P.S.  Please note that I've made the conscious decision NOT to link to this book, or even use the full title, as I usually do, via my Amazon Affiliate account.  I am not interested in helping the sale of this book in any way!

This post may contain sponsored reviews or affiliate links- see my policy here.