There was no way I could escape the hype, when my boyfriend handed me a magazine interview with the author of "Fifty Shade of Grey," E.L. James. It sounded exciting, but as I read the interview, it sounded more and more like she was a bumbling author who stumbled upon accidental fame, admitting that she was mostly a blog writer and did not expect to get published. Her husband seemed to want nothing to do with the whole matter, and I wondered if I should take his advice. Unfortunately, both my mom and sister were reading this with two varied opinions. My sister, really liking it, but my mom, not so much.

Despite my reading tastes being more similar to my mom's, I decided to take a stab at it and was atrociously disappointed. The only good thing I discovered is why it has been referred to as "mommy porn," which is because most of the women who are responsible for E.L. James' fame were stay at home mom's and wives who had never explored a BDSM aspect of their sexuality, or had never voiced their wishes to their husband's for fear that they would be considered "sick" or "weird."

Although, Fifty Shades is quite Vanilla, the only Grey in here is the poorly portrayed issues of consent with Anastasia's character. Most people familiar know very well the intricacies of the contract and safety words and willingness. I feel that the way her character was developed, it can cause even more confusion for those who are interested in BDSM but have never tried it, or for men who already think they know what women want. The portrayal of Anastasia is very communicative of the "yes means no" dilemma (SPOILER: Grey takes her virginity before she signs the BDSM contract) and I am afraid that someone might try things with a partner who then takes advantage of them if they say they do not like something and really mean it. I'm afraid of the instance in which the partner ignores a safety word and many other things.

Suffice to say, the cons outweigh the pros.

I hate that this book has become so popular so fast.

I am not sure what to say in my follow-up, except that I still do not like this book or this series and hope to never pick it up again. Since first writing this review, I have had the opportunity to exchange conversations with people who both liked and disliked this book. I certainly respect any reader's opinion whether or not their opinion is the same as mine, but I do hope that anyone is making informed choices about what they do with the material moving forward. Again, I will reiterate that this book is by no means a tutorial on certain practices and I would encourage curious minds to look up more material.