My take: Holy shit. It's the worst book ever written. I'm not the best judge of literary quality—the last book I read was a complimentary copy of “Broetry” that was sent to the office (quality read, by the way)—but good God, look at this:
I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror. Damn my hair—it just won’t behave, and damn Katherine Kavanagh for being ill and subjecting me to this ordeal. I should be studying for my final exams, which are next week, yet here I am trying to brush my hair into submission. I must not sleep with it wet. I must not sleep with it wet. Reciting this mantra several times, I attempt, once more, to bring it under control with the brush. I roll my eyes in exasperation and gaze at the pale, brown-haired girl with blue eyes too big for her face staring back at me, and give up. My only option is to restrain my wayward hair in a ponytail and hope that I look semi-presentable.
Kate is my roommate, and she has chosen today of all days to succumb to the flu. Therefore, she cannot attend the interview she’d arranged to do, with some mega-industrialist tycoon I’ve never heard of, for the student newspaper. So I have been volunteered. I have final exams to cram for and one essay to finish, and I’m supposed to be working this afternoon, but no—today I have to drive 165 miles to downtown Seattle in order to meet the enigmatic CEO of Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. As an exceptional entrepreneur and major benefactor of our university, his time is extraordinarily precious—much more precious than mine—but he has granted Kate an interview. A real coup, she tells me. Damn her extracurricular activities.
Damn those extracurricular activities to hell! Anyway, thanks to the book's bondage scenes—which sent into a tizzy both bored housewives and girls on your Facebook wall who think it's cool to write statuses like “I love me some Christian Grey!” (the female equivalent of you writing “I love me some Pornhub!”)—the book is now the best-selling ebook of all time. And it has a hotly anticipated movie coming out pretty soon.
That movie might end up actually being worth your attention. News broke yesterday that it will be rated NC-17, thanks to full-frontal nudity and its general Cinemax at night qualities. Said screenwriter Kelly Marcel: “Well, there is going to be a lot of sex in the film. It will be rated NC-17 [18 here]. It’s going to be raunchy.”
Then there's the issue of the girls who are being considered for the role. Via the Examiner:
“Fifty Shades of Grey” is still working on casting for the movie. On October 4, Emma Watson spoke out about the fact that she is not afraid to get naked if it is needed for a movie role.
Emma Watson said that she likes that people want to see her in new roles since her time on “Harry Potter.” She mentioned that when she was 16 she made the choice that she would go nude if she needed to do it for a role that was more adult in nature.
Of course this is a rumor, but still, odds are good that this will end up being far and away the highest grossing NC-17 film ever. Elizabeth Berkley's epic “Showgirls” currently holds that spot with $20 million.
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