The One with Fifty Shades of Gray

Workout update:  Saturday, I almost died, thanks to a stitch in my side while I was running.  It started after the first 60-stint of running and continued until the end.  Yesterday, I started my Week 2 routine:  7 rounds of 2 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking.  I only added an extra three minutes of walking to that, and I did it all the way through without stopping.

Sadly, all this is causing me to GAIN weight, which was actually the opposite of what I was going for.

So Fifty Shades of Gray.  For those of you that haven't heard of it, it's the first book in this trilogy of "novels" about this guy who's hardcore into S&M.  And then there's this girl he wants, who's all like, "Oooh!  But I want you to LOVE ME."  They're terribly-written, repetitive, awful, awful books that have, inexplicably, taken the world by storm.

I'm reading the first one (which I bought on my Nook so if I'm reading it in public, I won't be judged.  Or worse, have someone start a conversation with me about them.)  I can't.  Stop.  Reading it.

It reads like fan fiction (which it is.  It was originally a fan fiction for Twilight.  Blech.) and the author uses the same phrases constantly.  She's always talking about her Inner Goddess, and she's just the whiniest, most pathetic, worst character in the history of literature.

And yet, I'm still reading.

I don't entirely understand the popularity of it all.  Some people are calling it "Mommy Porn," as it seems to be a bunch of middle-aged woman reading it.  My mother-in-law refuses to believe it started out as fan fiction.  My hairdresser (who is actually my age) told me that women of all ages come in and want to talk about the book.

It's legitimately one of the worst books I've ever read.

And yet, I'm still reading.

I refuse to read the second and third books, though, especially since a friend of mine told me what happens, and it's all just infuriating.

The weirdest thing about it, I think, is that the public libraries here refuse to carry it.  I can't remember the reasoning, as I had never heard of the books before when I was working there and we got an e-mail saying we weren't going to be carrying it.  I wish I could remember why.  (Here's an interesting article about why many libraries won't be carrying it.)

Aside from those reasons, it doesn't make much sense, because the library carries the A.N. Roquelaure (Ann Rice) Sleeping Beauty Trilogy, which I read in college and which is FILTHY in a way that the 50 Shades books could only hope to be.  And then there are the oft-read, tattered copies of the books by Zane the library carries.  I read one page of one of those and was shocked.  (And I'm no prude.)

All this to say, the library carries erotica, but apparently, not flash-in-the-pan, badly written, fan fiction erotica.  Which this series is.

And yet?  I'm still reading.