The author is EL James. From what I found on her site, she's a mother of two, and looks to be in her thirties or forties. Fifty Shades of Grey is her first book along with Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed. From what I've heard from numerous sources she originally wrote this book as a Twilight fanfiction, and I can definitely see the similarities. I find her writing skills fairly poor, but she's good at holding attention.

Anastasia Steele is a young, innocent virgin who knows absolutely nothing about sex or any kind of alternative sexual lifestyles. She's your average plain girl with big eyes, frizzy hair, and a tendency to fall over her own feet. Much like Bella in Twilight. Anastasia meets Christian Grey. He's a billionaire who happens to be the most beautiful thing on the face of the earth. All the ladies want him, but he has eyes for plain Ana. He's very similar to Edward.

This book has been called "Mommy porn" by several people, and that might be a pretty good term for it. There are quite a few sex scenes, though I don't think they're that great. Christian is teaching Ana about the wonders of BDSM, unfortunately I think this book is just giving BDSM a poor image. He doesn't have the best of reasons for wanting to participate in the lifestyle, and Ana really is completely clueless about it. She refers to it as strange often, and remarks on how she wishes that he was "normal". Little things like that throughout are really bothersome in my opinion.

One thing you'll have to keep in mind is that this isn't a very well written book. In fact, I'd almost say it's poorly written. If it weren't for the sex, I'd believe an 8th grader wrote it. Be prepared to read the words Holy shit, Holy crap, Holy fuck, or Holy hell at least every other page.

As for the sex, it's really not that great. The first couple times are pretty good, but after that they start to seem like the same thing in different locations. The BDSM aspect is also highly off. It doesn't show anything about how a "normal" BDSM relationship would be, and there are too many contradictions for it to make any sense. There also aren't any of the more "extreme" elements of BDSM. Anyone who is vanilla or doesn't know much about it might be fascinated, but it really doesn't show an appropriate relationship, and people need to understand that BDSM just isn't like that.

The cover of the book just says "Fifty Shades of Grey" in the corner, and has a picture of a silver neck tie going across. I read it at work sometimes, and would say it's discreet, of course with all the hype this book is getting, people will probably recognize it.

I find myself addicted to the book mostly because I hate to not finish something once I start reading. It really is good at holding attention, I just wish the author would have been more mature about it. I think she was way more focused on making money on it than she was trying to make a book that shows what a BDSM relationship should be.

It seems like it was written by someone who did some research without ever being involved in that type of relationship.

There are a lot of parts that just infuriate me. I do plan on reading the other two books though, just because I want to know what happens, and I like books that make me feel. Even if it is utter rage.