I agree with whoever said that The Story of O is a much better book than 50 shades.
Same feeling I had about the book. I didn’t even try to read any further. To promote that book as a “hot read” was greatly exaggerated. Yawn, it had been done many times over.
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I read Fifty Shades, Fifty Shades Darker & Fifty Shades Freed. I say read, I skipped a lot of the pages. Can’t say I enjoyed them & never bothered with the film.
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I don’t read a lot of fiction anyway and I’m usually sceptical about “hot reads” which I tend to give a wide berth. As for this book my interest slackened after I’d read the blurb and what it was all about.
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Hi
I did get myself the gardeners version.
Fifty sheds of grey.
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I got the Twinings version Swimmy
Fifty cups of Earl Grey
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I might have read the vanilla version. 
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It’s astonishing that a book of such literary skill has gained the author a fortune estimated to have grown to $150m in 2025. She negotiated all rights to merchandise when the movies were being made. The fortune has grown substantially over the last 12 years. The fact that it’s still generating interest (such as this thread) may explain that.
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Sex sells…Otherwise there would be no such thing as pornographic material…
There’s no wonder the population of the world has grown so large.
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And, the ones that ain’t gettin any buy books
(now, where did i put my copy) 
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Hmm … I’ve been reading some of the reviews and going off the idea. Seems to be a bit of BDSM.
Is it really astonishing? It sounds like you were expecting interest to wane? If so, then it won’t happen so fast. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover or TV series like Sex and the City, to a variable extent, may be examples of sex being a continuous burner and support Foxy’s view. We have an author who gained popularity with her first novel that includes explicit descriptions. The challenge seems to be to write a successful book that does not include those.
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If you didn’t enjoy them (the books, not the scenes, right?) , it’s somewhat surprising that you read all three of them nonetheless, isn’t it?
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When I was at Grammar School there was a much thumbed copy of a book called Forever Amber passed around, can’t remember anything about the story now nor the author but I do recall that the book virtually fell open at the prurient pages.
It would probably seem very tame nowadays.
the value is certainly astonishing. The finances must have been very shrewdly managed.
I did say I skipped them, I wanted to read the end. She turned him into a human. 
Now that book I did enjoy, remove all the naughty words & it’s a good story.
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Why are illicit lovers always vulgar?
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No idea why those words have to be used, but skip over them & the book, in fact most books with them in are good reads.
I used to work in a library, at the time it came out 50 Shades was very popular with the customers, no doubt because of the publicity. Unfortunately, most of those who did read it (or those who would admit to reading it) said it was boring.
Maybe the films are more interesting?
BTW, I haven’t read it, if I wanted ‘cheap thrills’, that’s what the internet is for (until Starmer poked his nose in)
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