I have already exposed the dark underpinnings that drive the Real Housewives franchise into the homes of the not-so-innocent and easily addicted. But I have just discovered something even worse. It is more sinister and surprisingly even more poorly written than a reality TV show: Fifty Shades of Grey. Apparently this series (yes, gentle readers, this is a series of 3 prose-less books) was written to appease Twilight fans, also takes place in/near Seattle, and although I haven’t read Twilight and never intend to, I imagine the same visceral feeling of wanting to rip your eyeballs out with a spoon is induced.

…or is it? RUN, RUN NOW!

I have only read the first of the three books, and since only small traces of brain ended up in my hair, I will use what I have left to describe to you the utter agony that is Fifty Shades of Grey. The “author” E.L James introduces you to a virginal character just finishing college (how sad), living quite a simple life of tea drinking and nonchalantly mentioned literary references (who the fuck cares about Tess of the D’Urbervilles) until she meets a BDSM-crazed wealthy megalomaniac. The plot is nonexistent and stretches the same trope across an entire book: will Anastasia or won’t Anastasia sign onto being Christian Grey’s sexual submissive? And yes, ‘sign,’ because he gives her an actual contract about what being in a Dom/sub relationship entails, I’m assuming as a convenient education for the naïve reader, which the author also presents to said reader 3 freakin’ times in case they are either incapable of forming long-term memories or have already lost too much brain juice from continuing to read this drivel. I do this for you, dear readers.

Step 1: This is all lies.
Step 2: Buy a real book.

The most hilarious part of the book isn’t the fact that Anastasia Steele continues to try to get Christian Grey to love her despite his inability to love based on his harsh, orphaned, crack-mothered upbringing, nor is it the mere choice of their names. The most hilarious part is the actual writing. Every so often, the “author” seems to have drunkenly fallen into a thesaurus, and chosen to place a completely and unnecessarily pompous word into the text. Examples: situ, concupiscent, proffered (a fuller list can be found here). Even more amusing, the “author” has also chosen to speak about sexual encounters as if she intends to teach a kindergartener (quick tip: if you want to write about something sexy, stop referring to your lady bits as “my sex.” It’s just a cop-out). Also, no one gets off solely by having their nipples played with, and very few women are as multi-orgasmic as Anastasia apparently claims to be. Three orgasms in one sexual encounter? Take a Xanax, girl.

So many unsatisfied housewives just collectively sighed.

But the best, absolute BEST part of this book is the “author’s” choice of exclamation, particularly the overuse of the phrase “oh my.” The first time I read this, I immediately heard it in George Takei’s voice. Then, as it kept popping up, George Takei actually entered the scenes himself, looking down on Anastasia in the Red Room of Pain, with a little glimmer in his eye while he softly announces approval, “oh my.” Nothing beats the random, seemingly teleported presence of George Takei as Anastasia Steele climaxes from a riding crop slapping her in “her sex” over and over again. Mr. Takei, thank you for turning this book into the parody we all need (Fifty Shades of Takei is already copyrighted, so nice try).

So there you have it: a completely pointless review of daytime smut that you should only read in kindle-form whilst in public. I’ve already made plans to see this movie on Valentine’s Day with some ladies so that we can do a social psychology experiment in observing how many women leave pissed off from the theater, mad that their boyfriends don’t have the same passion for them as Christian does. The Good Doctor doesn’t know how good he has it. Happy Weekend, all! This is Kitty, signing out.