Fifty Shames of Earl Grey by Fanny Merkin (a.k.a. Andrew Shaffer)

Let me first say that yes, I have read the Fifty Shades trilogy. Fifty Shames is a parody of the trilogy, and I do have to say that I had to keep reminding myself of that. I read more serious books then I do parodies. This book did have me laughing at a few spots but not as much as I would have hoped when I picked it up. There were quite a few times where I wanted to gag just from the raunchiness of some of the things that were mentioned in the book. One particular that made me say "ew" was, the mention of "butt chugging," and "soaking tampons" and sticking them up the arse. Yes, I do realize that people do do this. But others have put worse in books, so it really wasn't that bad once I thought it through. There were quite a few more things that I mentally would like to erase out of my memory, sadly, but I will say again that people have put worse in other books.

Another aspect of the book is that, it was very fast paced. One second they were doing one thing, barely even half a paragraph later they were doing something completely different. Most of the time I had to go back and make sure what I just read was actually in the book. and not my imagination. Yet again I will say that I had to remind myself that it is a parody. But just like Fifty Shades was fast paced, Andrew Shaffer picked it up even more to show that significance (and make a parody) of it.

Something that Shaffer did was play up the fact that Fifty Shades is a fanfiction of the Twilight series. *SPOILER-ALERT* So Shaffer did play up the vampire part, where as in Fifty Shades there was no vampires to speak of. Especially at the end too of Fifty Shames. *SPOILER-ENDED* The ending were similar, but yet again this is a parody so it would have to be similar in a lot of ways to make it a proper parody. I do like the fact that Shaffer changed the original meaning of BDSM to Bards, Dragons, Sorcery, and Magick (something that you can read on the back of the book so not really a spoiler). Shaffer also showed how little time the two main character spend together, and how much happens. How Grey IS a stalker, a control freak and basically how he subconsciously feels like a god in the way that he acts. *SPOILER-ALERT* I also liked how Shaffer changed Grey into a D&D kind of person, in how the whole spanking that led Ana to breaking up with Christian, turned into Grey liking to dress up in mythical people and then spank. Also instead of Grey playing the piano he plays the tambourine, something that I chuckled at because the sexiness of the piano playing had been upgraded to the sexiness of a tambourine. *SPOILER-ENDED* I won't give everything away but if you have some questions or want me to delve deeper into something, comment and I will try my best.

With there only being a little over 200 pages, I would say that Fifty Shames was a quick and easy read. Though I do not think I would pay close to $15 for this book. I would only give it a very low 3 of 5. I know that sounds harsh, but I will state for the last time that I do not really read parody books, I read more serious books. I work a little differently with book reviews. Sorry if this wasn't up to par with what you wanted, but everyone is different.

Rating: (in the paragraph above for a bit of explaining)

Page Count: 217 pages (including the Acknowledgments, Index, and About the Author)

Price: $13.99 (paperback)

Thanks for reading!
~Jade