I sincerely hope it fails.

It's terrible to hope such a thing.  But I can't remember the last time I've experienced such a hatred towards a book.

And I love books.  I mean love, love, love!

I put off reading that book because I was feeling a bit elitist, I guess.  I don't know.  I knew it was popular, I saw it every every time I went into the bookstore or meandered through the books and magazines at Target.  I knew it was about sex and that it is highly erotic, but that had nothing to do with why I wasn't anxious to pick it up and read.  I have no problem reading erotica, I've read it.  Anais Nin, the godmother of erotica, is one of my favorite writers.

But then I found myself between books, and the movie to that book was coming out.  In a momentarily lapse of reason, I hit the "buy" button on my Nook and within seconds Fifty Shades of Crap, oops, I mean Grey was in my virtual library.  So, I started to read.  It only took a few pages...

The main character sounds less like an English major in college and more like a twelve-year-old swooning over Justin Bieber.  The writing is so bad its existence as a published novel is an insult to those who have studied writing and have spent years honing their craft.  The grammar is terrible, the writing atrocious.  Exclamation marks are in abundance, which is a mark of a writer who tried to show emphasis for a feeling that they couldn't express in, well, words.

Those who love to read are well aware of book hangovers.  But most often it is the good book hangover we experience.  The time after we've just finished a book that has left us so emotionally drained we can't think of starting another book for days.  Most recently, for me it was Vanessa Diffenbaugh's The Language of Flowers.  Although I didn't read all of Fifty Shades (I couldn't, I just couldn't, I tell you!), I had a bad book hangover for two days.  I found myself walking around the house muttering incoherently to myself about how bad the book was.  And when the trailer for the film would come on TV, I felt the strong need to vomit.  Confused, perplexed as to how in the world it ever made it into print.

But I think what bothers me most is that there are women out there who love this book and are quite outspoken about it.  Again, it's not the sex (or type of sex I should say), but about the quality of how the book was written.  I didn't get as far as the BDSM, so I can't say anything about that, but it's a book of erotica poorly written.  Is this what we want the world we think is sexy?  A virgin who acts all giggly and can't get over how Christian Grey looked at her and how he wants to take her for a cup of coffee? This book doesn't deserve any of the attention it is getting and I'm embarrassed that there are women out there supporting it.