I can’t say I haven’t been warned. Some reviews said Fifty Shades of Grey is the worst book ever while on the flip side people hailed it as the best. I firmly believe that you can’t say you like or dislike something until you give it a try. So I ordered it on Amazon and tried to read it. Yes, I tried but I just can’t finish it.

No book has ever made my blood boil until this one. It’s a record how it has given me a series of firsts: first one I’ve thrown at the wall, first one that made me swear loudly in different languages, and first one that made me hate at the universe why such nonsense earns so much money and attention. At the rate of how my blood pressure rises at the mere thought of this book, reading it thoroughly from beginning to ending might lead to my early demise.

Warning: If you’re a fan, better stop reading here or continue at your own risk.

Anastasia Steele is probably the most annoying character ever written in the history of fiction. She blushes and trips and stammers and apparently doesn’t own a mirror because she has no idea she is a “total babe.” The book is written in first person narrative so we are honored (or punished) to read her nonsensical blabberings that include the love of the expressions “oh my” and “holy crap,” or the endless litany on how god-like Christian Grey, the object of her lust, is. Aside from this, she’s also the queen of inconsistencies. She goes from being a 22-year-old virgin who couldn’t look at CG without blushing crimson to a raging sex machine in just a span of few days. My brain froze at the speed of her metamorphosis.

Now let’s meet our Adonis — Mr. Christian Grey “with burning gray eyes.” He’s a 27-year-old CEO that has a major fondness for S/M and probably holds the biggest collection of toys for this particular hobby of his. He’s also manipulative, arrogant, and he likes to stalk people now and then. But we couldn’t just leave our hero sounding like a total psycho, right? So let’s throw in some smoldering good looks that we get reminded of at every page of this book and a heart for the poor especially those in Darfur. What Ms. E.L. James is trying to say is – Nevermind he’s a sick son of a gun because he’s the physical embodiment of hotness overload plus he contributes to world peace and feeds the world. Got that?

So the total babe and the smolder personified get together and start having lots of sex. He’s the sadist, or let’s use euphemism so it wont hurt much, the dominant. She’s the submissive in which she has to sign a contract for things she has to do and the ones she shouldn’t do. Talk about submission to the highest form. Basically the entire 514 pages is about him spanking her, manipulating her and her crying in pain but demanding for more, at the same time dreaming that one day he’ll change and love her beyond his medieval toys. Yawn.

The thing that I find most irritating about this book is the writer’s repetitive use of some words. Behold, the royal culprits:

1. “The inner goddess.” She’s the alter ego that our heroine found when her libido broke loose.  Someone wrote that Ms. James actually used it not just a couple of times but over fifty-something times! It’s like this — He didn’t give me back my panties. My inner goddess grins at the thought of the things to come. My inner goddess snarls at me for thinking such thoughts. I’m such an idiot, my inner goddess bares her fangs at me…. Seriously, by the time I flipped through page 300 I was already plotting several painful ways to kill the inner goddess.

2. “Oh my!” Probably the one that really gets my goat. It’s almost on every page. “I flush….oh my.” “Oh my, wishes do come true.” “Oh my. Christian rakes his hand through his hair as he gazes at me.” “What…oh my…but…I was…that’s not fair.” Oh. My. God.

 3. “His pants hang from his hips… in that way.” Like, how? Which way? What way? I was practically clawing at the pages for answers and it drove me bananas that I didn’t get any.  Was it repeatedly written for our imagination to work double time? Well, it only made me want to hurt someone.

4. “Don’t bite your lip.” “You’re biting your lip.” “I’m biting my lip.” “You’re biting your lip again.” Oh bite my head instead because I really don’t get the deal with this lip-biting thing!

 I know people didn’t buy this book for its literary (in)competence. They bought it mainly for the sex and that’s where I think it totally failed. Remember it’s written in first person narrative so we get to hear a blow by blow account of the bed scenes from Anastasia Steele herself. Toss in all her blabberings there along with these four phrases/sentences mentioned above and you will feel far from being stimulated.  Geez,  is all I can say.

So I wonder why it’s wildly popular. It certainly has no redeeming quality –thin plot, shockingly poor writing, psycho male protagonist, beyond annoying female progatonist, and sex scenes that amount to an eye roll — what ticks? Or it’s not you, book, but me?

 “Maybe you’re the problem,”  my inner goddess hisses at my ear. Holy crap, she could be right! Oh my, enough ranting then. I better finish my laundry and hang my husband’s pants…in that way.