Fifty Shades of Grey Finished...

The infamous erotic novel, Fifty Shades of Grey is still generating quite a buzz throughout the country. American Idol host, Ryan Seacrest has even caught the bug saying he is “obsessed”! Also adding that, “I think it can be a study book for a lot of people,” he told Access Hollywood.

The popular read has also invoked a stream of spoofs and parodies. Andrew Shaffer wrote  “Fifty Shames of Earl Grey” a satirical novel that stars a handsome and wealthy count, Earl Grey who buys businesses to capture the heart of another young college student.

"The hero is so fabulously rich that he buys up every company the heroine works for, including Amazon.com and Walmart, and he also has a private dinosaur island ... so they actually have sex on a dinosaur's back which is not something I have ever seen in a romantic novel before," Shaffer told Reuters.

And you don’t have to look far to find parodies on Youtube, Howard Neuthaler produced, “Christian Penetrates the Suburbs” saying he wanted to spoof the majority  of the people who actually read the book- the suburban mom.

But some people are just lucky enough to reap the benefits of the hot selling title without even trying… a 2011 young adult novel about a Lithuanian girl’s life in a Siberian labor camp got a boost in sales just by having a similar name, “ Between the Shades of Gray”. In just three weeks, the novel moved into the No. 5 bestselling children’s paperback on the New York Times list.

While all the hype continues to grow, I couldn’t help but feel a hint of disappointment when I finished the last page of book number three.

As in most trilogies, my favorite was the first book- the characters are all brand new and I was immediately drawn to Christian and wanted to know more about him and his dark secrets. By the second book, the plot thickens and I realize the book has more depth than just a story about love and kinky sex. By the third and final book I notice I'm reading in a slower pace, perhaps it's because I know it’s the last one or maybe because it is a tad bit slower than the first two. Either way the sex scenes are still as steamy and their relationship on a new and intriguing level. The ending was.. well it was, good. New and welcomed suspense draws you in as you wonder whether you will be satisfied with the finale. To be honest I could have done without the last couple of pages but E.L James revives herself with an interesting swap of narrators in the last few pages giving the reader a new and intimate look into the beloved and worshiped mind of Christian Grey.

But now that I’ve finished Fifty Shades what the hell am I going to read? What is going to capture and keep my attention like Fifty Shades of Christian Grey?

Without any time to research  I downloaded “Beautiful Disaster” by Jamie McGuire. The book has been out since last May but the synopsis gave me a glimmer of hope that this new novel might offer a Christian-like bad boy that I might enjoy reading about.


“The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn't drink or swear, and she has the appropriate percentage of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance between her and the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend America, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.”

I won't sway you one way or another but after reading some of the reviews I know I was intrigued enough to give it a try. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11505797-beautiful-disaster

I’ll let you know how it goes… Happy Friday