TV is abuzz these days, and the reading world has been taken by storm by a “new phenomenon.” Written by a woman who, according to Lisa Schwarzbaum of EW.com, “has made steamy female-centric erotica out of what began as twilight fan-fiction.”

Women are going nuts for this book, and its become the most talked about thing in numerous offices and households (in whispers mind you). Being the journalist that I am, I felt it necessary that I should check and see what all this noise is about. I’m not kidding, several women I know personally were raving about this to me. So I investigated, I wanted to see if this book really was worth all the fuss.

Chapter 10 seems to be where all the fuss starts about this “steamy erotic tale”, so rather than bore myself for 9 chapters, I skipped ahead. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that I did. Not because I’m a man looking for a sex scene, but if the rest of the book is written like this, I would have really lamented my lost time. Before I rip this shite to pieces, I’m going to give you a little sample and tell you why, as a reader, it should make you cringe.

Within 2 pages there are more cliches and beaten-to-death metaphors that should make even non-erotica readers cringe. “My legs are suddenly the consistency of Jell-O. I’m so glad I decided to wear my best jeans this morning.”

There’s so many things wrong with that sentence. First, the jell-o cliché. Seriously, it doesn’t get much more “are you f*cking kidding” than that. Not to mention she’s writing in a tense that matches half the illiterate dipsh*ts I ever had cyber-sex with. Which brings me to point B.

Sex is a very tricky thing to write on the page. Not just in a trashy sense, but in a way to make it entertaining. Even if you’re writing material that is literally meant for others self pleasure, there’s a trick to it. A clever secret obviously a well-hidden from “E.L. James”. To write about sex, you need to actually HAVE sex. If its going to be any good, you have to, at the very least, be decent at pleasuring the object of your desires (Side-note ladies, I write great sex scenes).

Fifty Shades of Grey becomes an almost laughable look at an author who has no clue what she’s writing about. James tries to be kinky, for sure, but it fails so miserably that anyone who’s ever been tied by the wrist can’t help but howl at (laughter, not wolfish lust). A scene that “sticks out” (pun intended) is when Christian (the male role of the novel who knows as much about sex as a 10 year old who just found a Hustler) enters Anastasia… with his thumb. And this continues for a page. Anastasia gets off on it.

First off, Ms. James, its obvious you’ve never even had a good finger-banging, because the thumb is meant to go a little higher. That’s not what took me out of the “scene”. I started laughing when the only image my brain could conjure up was Fonzie sticking his thumb up, looking at lil Anastasia with a wink, “’Eyyyy!!”

Obviously, this book is finding ground with a similar crowd of women that relate to the author. Women who are intrigued by the idea of sadomasochism, but have never come close to experimenting. E.L. James obviously has none, and is in completely unexplored territory. You can’t write what you don’t know, and James comes off as a total phony. A recent discussion ended with a fellow writer calling her a “frump writing for frumps who never been humped.”

I could pick apart her awful writing style, but I’m not even going to bother. I’m simply ranting. I’m ranting because I’m completely dumbfounded how “Fifty Shades of Crap” is described by Ms. Schwarzbaum, and awarded a B+. Schwarzbaum’s closing paragraph states, “As hardcore (and, per this lady, yowza! Pleasurable) lady porn, Fifty Shades of Grey has a long literary tradition behind it, from The Story of O and the erotica of Anne Rice to Toni Bentley’s The Surrender…”… Wow.

For one, I feel I must defend Anne Rice, who can write erotica on a level Fifty Shades of Grey can never touch, and two… Ms. Schwarzbaum, and the millions of other women who find the erotica in this book “Yowza!”… get laid, and read better erotica!