Fifty Shades of WTF??????

Hey Peeps! I hope everyone is enjoying these beautiful springy days we've been having. I think this past Friday was the most perfect day of 2012 thus far. Sunny, perfect blue sky, puffy, fluffy white clouds and 75 degrees...ahhh. Perfect start to the weekend. Unfortunately, the weekend is NOT supposed to end as beautifully. We are battening down the hatches and preparing for a rainstorm of epic proportions. As much as I love sunny, perfect Saturdays - I REALLY love rainy Sundays! No yard work to do...perfect excuse to curl up with a cup of tea and a great book.

Many of you know that I belong to a long-standing book club. There are 6 of us in the club and we've read everything under the sun - from Madame Bovary to Twilight. And while some of our picks have been overall hits - like Her Sister's Keeper  by Jodi Picoult and  Gone Baby Gone by Denis Lehane- others have been BIG misses - like The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd and the afore-mentioned Twilight- but no matter what, we've powered through them. And although we spend MOST of our meetings talking about topics other than the book we've read and drinking copious amounts of wine - we DO spend a bit of time talking about the book. And sometimes we even cheat and talk about the book before the meeting right after we've finished reading it. So, in other words - we do really read and talk about the books. So, book selection is of utmost importance. Normally we take turns making suggestions and agree on one to read. Our current pick was a suggestion made by none other than this Busy Momma. And now I am horrified that I suggested it. Let me explain.....

I started hearing a lot of buzz about a new book - a hot book - a book that has been FLYING off the shelves...called Fifty Shades of Gray. Written by a Brit, mom of 2 boys, who - at the time - really wanted to stay anonymous. I will admit that I did hear it described as "mommy-porn" and I am not too proud to admit that this might have made it even more intriguing...so, being the wild, cutting-edge gal that I am - I suggested it at our last book club gathering. And it was met with over-all approval. Listen - the Dewey Decimal Divas are NOTHING if we are not cutting-edge. (And yes, that IS our name for our book club. Don't be hatin'...)

So, happily home I went to download this new book club selection. And the next morning, as I worked out on the elliptical at the gym, I started reading the book. And about 10 pages in - the worst, most awful thing that could happen to a reader happened to me. I came to the conclusion that this book, the book that I SUGGESTED for book club, was quite possibly the WORST BOOK EVER WRITTEN. Quite possibly criminal in its killing of countless trees for the paper this story  has been printed on. This presented a problem for me on several levels. First of all - and most upsetting to me -  is that I had picked ANOTHER stinker! I picked The Mermaid Chair - the first stinker that the girls STILL talk about. (I LOVED it and still highly reccomend it) I was also the one who suggested that as mothers of tweens and teens that we read Twilight.  As I recall I was the ONLY one who showed up to the meeting in a Team Edward tee-shirt, a Cullen family hoodie and a Team Cullen baseball hat.  Imagine my shock when I realized that I was the ONLY one who LOVED LOVED LOVED the book SO much that I read the other 3 books over the span of 3 days. The rest of the gals were appalled by the relationship between a "pathetic" teenager and a 100 year old vampire with Sookie going so far as to say that Edward was a classic PEDOPHILE! So, one more bad pick was REALLY going to screw with my book picking mojo. Secondly - and this justs toasts my onions - I hate to give up on a book - any book - I really feel that I owe it to myself and the author to power through. But this book - and peeps, keep in mind that I am only about 20 pages in at this point - is SO badly written - that I really don't think I can do it. And I have read some doozies - I read all 1100 pages of Martin Chuzzlewit, I read all of the Little House on the Prairie books - and let's just admit it - they're boring, I even finished A Fine Balance  and A Map of the World even though they were the most depressing books I have ever read and  I thought I would kill myself after finishing each one. I have staying power people - I can read me some books. But this book is testing my every sensibility.

Here's the problem: As I have already said - the writing is just awful. But I can live with awful writing. (Hell - I can scroll thru some of my own posts and point to some pretty awful writing!) I am REALLY having a problem with the relationship between these 2 main characters. By now- unless you've been living under a rock - you know that this book is flying off the shelves because of the graphic sex scenes contained within its pages. But the sex isn't your average Jackie Collins type of sex. It's SICKO!!!! The main character - Christian Gray -  is a sexual dominant. He is also a billionaire and incredibly good looking. The female main character is about to graduate from college, is bookish and really describes herself as your basic "zero" - not good looking, not too smart - nothing special. The perfect woman to fall into this type of misogynistic relationship. She becomes this guys submissive sexual toy/partner. He makes her sign a CONTRACT wherin she agrees to eat what he tells her to eat, excercise where, when and how he tells her to, dress as he wishes her to dress and of course perform as he expects in the bedroom. And by "bedroom" - I really mean torture chamber that happens to have a bed in it! Reading this book is making me physically angry and I just want to slap this girl silly!!! She admits that she is "scared" and that it doesn't "feel right" - but the dimwit signs on anyway!!!! WTF???? We are not talking about signing a gym contract, or a lease on a car or even a lease on an apartment..we are talking about signing a contact that allows a guy to tie you up, blindfold you and do WHATEVER HE WANTS TO Do to your body regardless of whether you want him to do it or how it might debase you. It just goes against everything I believe in - and it's killing me!

So - I sent out an SOS to the other Divas and we've picked a new book. I figured that if they hated Twilight, they would despise this one - right? Not so...Here's the crazy thing...the very Diva who HATED Bella from Twilight plowed through this entire trilogy and is really trying to convince me to finish at least the first two books. Apparently, the tables turn in the second book.

I really don't think I can do it.

The author of this ridiculous book was on 20/20 last night. (So much for remaining anonymous) She described the book as an opportunity for us working mommies to "escape from reality". A time for us to just get away and fantasize about a different life. But to me - this is much less of a fanatsy and much more of a nightmare. I was perfectly happy NOT knowing that this kind of thing even existed! I really don't need to know about some of these devices and I-don't-know-whats that this lady describes.

So - what to do? Should I go up and try to plow through my mommy-porn tonight? I don't think so. Poor PC. At first he was rather excited about the prospect of his wife reading this new, hot, sexy book. Imagine his pure disappointment when he found me in a lather - and not a sexy lather - a lather of ANGER - as I sat reading this book. Instead of a night of sexy, sexy the poor guy had to listen to me rant and rave about this book that took woman-kind back hundreds or even THOUSANDS of years!!! So much for mommy-porn....