***SPOILER ALERT***

Fifty Shades of Grey is the book that you've probably been hearing the most recent hype about and has quickly found itself on the New York Times Best Seller List. It was written by an English woman named E. L. James. This is her first novel although there are two additional books in this trilogy, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.

I became interested in this book after hearing all the hype about it. Every woman I spoke to seemed to either be reading it or had placed it on the to read list. Mostly people were categorizing it as "mommy porn." The picture that I painted in my head from all the hype led me to believe that the book was based on a middle aged woman who was having a mid life crisis. As part of her desire to explore new things she starts to dabble in a BDSM lifestyle. Boy was I wrong!

The book actually revolves around the life of a young woman named Anastasia Steele or Ana for short. As she is in the home stretch of her senior year in college and about to receive her diploma, she agrees to help her friend whom is sick interview an extremely successful man named Christian Grey. She is immediately drawn to his beauty but also intimidated by his whole demeanor. After the awkward interview, Ana returns home to inform her friend how everything went.

The book continues on with Ana and Christian each feeling a desire to see the other person. They both seem to think neither is good for the other, but there is something that keeps pulling them together. From here the book got to be a little difficult to read. I have never been in a BDSM lifestyle so I found it difficult to judge the accuracy of the book.

At this point in the book Christian presents Ana with his BDSM lifestyle choices only to learn that she is a virgin. She seems to be taken off guard when she truly learns about the things that he is into and almost seems to be torn between completely giving in to his every whim or running for the hills while screaming on the top of her lungs.

They both very quickly put Ana's virginal status behind them and Ana is given a choice. She must decide if she wants to sign a contract with Christian which makes her his submissive or leave altogether. Something deep inside Ana seems to keep drawing her closer to Christian even though she has no sexual experience let alone any knowledge of this lifestyle.

It's very easy to see the different things that Christian does that shows he really has a need to be dominant. He seems to enjoy bossing Ana around with everything right down to eating. I found this all unusual and extremely apparent.

When push comes to shove though Ana must decide what it is she really wants. Stick around with a guy that has authoritarian like qualities or run for the hills. In the long run that's exactly what she does.

This book was a completely new experience for me. I have never been in a BDSM lifestyle so I can't tell if this book is actually accurate. There were a few things that I did not really like. I didn't like that Ana had remained a virgin until she graduated from college but then basically gave it away without really knowing the guy. The dominate role that Christian takes in this book makes my blood boil. I probably wouldn't be able to be in a submissive role, it wouldn't work for me so I couldn't relate with Ana at all. I also thought before it was mentioned in the book that something happened to Christian as a child, only to learn that he is lead into the lifestyle by a much older family friend. One other thing that I noticed is that Ana seems to constantly be talking to her "inner diva/goddess" which in my opinion, got really old, really fast.

Even though I have read this book and found aspects to be interesting it really was not the book for me. I have zero experience with BDSM or a BDSM lifestyle so I had nothing to compare it to. After finishing the book I have no urge to start or finish the 2 remaining books in the sequal.