Fifty Shades of Grey

50 written works that are more erotic than Fifty Shades of Grey:
1. This sentence.
2. The obituary section of your local paper.
3. My last grocery list (Oooh...zucchini).
4. A seventh grade essay on Of Mice & Men.
5. The Obamacare bill.
6. The lyrics to Justin Bieber's opus, "Baby" (Baby baby baby ooh baby).
7. A note that reads "Will you go to Prom with me? Check yes or no."
8. The book of Leviticus.
9. An itemized check from a nice dinner out.
10. Box scores from a baseball game.
11. That crude piece of graffiti scrawled on the wall by your house.
12. Comments on YouTube videos.
13. Kirk/Spock slash.
14. The letters from readers published in People Magazine ("Thank you for such a nice piece on Jennifer Aniston!")
15-50. Everything. EVERYTHING.

Alright, I ran out of steam a bit there. But I still had more steam than the limp brained protagonist Anastasia Steele (ugh) and her robotic and laughably verbose suitor Christian Grey (UGH).

This book is so bad. Which, we knew it would be, right? WRONG. It is so much worse than you could imagine. Housewives of America! Step away from the washing machine and put down this book! If you are really craving some poorly written smut lacking any plotting or character development, may I introduce you to something called pornography? Look it up.

E.L. James, I am now dumber for having read your book. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

0 "steely grey eyes" out of 5.

Columbine

This is a great book, for which I can't really write a quick & cute review. For obvious reasons, I hope. Dave Cullen is quick to say that he's never called this the "definitive" book on what's arguably the most famous school shooting in American history, but I can't imagine any one will write another one that unpacks the tragedy so eloquently and in such a deeply-felt way. I had a really weird, pained expression on my face the entire time I was reading this, and I couldn't put it down. It's also a great read for anyone interested in how the media gets it wrong sometimes; with insights into the 24 hour news cycle, eyewitness testimony, the power of a martyr, and much more.

5 stars out of 5.

The Devil in the White City

Fairs! What could be more fun?! Tilt-a-Whirls, that Viking Ship thing, and excellent representations from my favorite tiers of the food pyramid: Fried Things and Sugar Delivery Systems. I will always love getting effed up on some cotton candy and then being spun around violently by a ride that looks like a rejected transformer and is operated by a drunk teenager. That's just the kid in me, I guess! But this book taught me that fairs have a dark side, and it's America's First Serial Killer. H.H. Holmes was a scary dude with a literal house of horrors. He  would just pick off people at the fair as they exited the world's first Ferris Wheel, burning them with buckets of molten cheese. And that's why we call deep dish pizza Chicago-style! The end.

Nah, it was much less dramatic but still very gruesome and creepy. Erik Larsen doesn't talk once about pizza. Even though I really love reading about psychopaths (exhibits A, B, C...etc), my favorite part of this book was actually the Ferris Wheel stuff. There is a story about a guy who had a panic attack while it was rising into the air and basically tried to bust out one of the windows, just a little bit of history repeating.

4 mid-air freak-outs out of 5.