Fiftly Shades of Grey by E.L. James (2011)

I had to find out what the fuss was about. I knew I didn't want to listen to this in the car, so read this one in print. OK, so it had quite a lot of eroticism in it, way beyond the vanilla type portrayed by the likes of Nora Roberts. The writing wasn't great, but there was also a story, characters with issues, families, friends. Lots of cliche's, but kept me reading.

Anastasia or Ana Steele is forced by her roommate's illness to go interview Christian Grey, a very young successful businessman in Seattle. (I liked the Seattle/Portland references.) She literally stumbles into the interview, but as she is not a journalist nor has she researched the man, she asks the prepared questions, but then follows them up with blunt observations of her own, which intrigues Grey. He is to talk at her college graduation anyway, but he goes out of his way to contact her. The attraction is mutual, though Ana is inexperienced and does not believe this guy is interested. So we are treated to this whirlwind romance in a matter of weeks, but there is definitely a dark side to Mr. Grey, thus the "fifty shades of grey." Ana lightens him up, but it is complicated.

Turns out this book evolved from fan fiction from Twilight, and in the U.K. Amazon, this trilogy has outsold the Harry Potter series. I even saw this translated into Latvian. It has mostly been panned by critics, but is highly popular as female erotica, and seems to have revived the dirty book genre, which was left behind when porn became so available through the Internet. Seems also to be providing material for discussion in the feminism and women's studies ranks.