Not only did I finish reading “Fifty Shades of Grey,” I ordered the next book and started reading, “Fifty Shades Darker.” I’m hooked. I have to find out what happens between Ana and Christian. At the end of book one, Anastasia has left Christian because she wants more. She wants Christian to love her, not just treat her like one more possession.

I don’t have to keep telling myself this is fiction. I KNOW it’s fiction because this drop-dead gorgeous guy has money and is generous with it. He buys electronics, clothing and a CAR for Anastasia and she leaves it all behind because she wants his love, not his money. Aw, heck, why couldn’t I have met someone like that?

That’s why this is feminine fantasy — the sex scenes are graphically described (again and again and again) but not in a grotesque fashion. The author has used euphemisms and gentler language for the seduction and sex. It’s every girl’s dream: to have a really great guy go gaga over her.

Oh, but he’s damaged goods. Somewhere in his past, an older woman initiated Christian into sex with bondage. Anastasia calls her Mrs. Robinson — a reference to “The Graduate” in which Dustin Hoffman’s character is seduced by an older woman. Ana is more realistic about Mrs. Robinson and sees her as a pedophile who messed with Christian’s budding sexuality.

In “Fifty Shades Darker,” Ana has come back to Christian and actually meets his family as well as Mrs. Robinson. Christian has decided he doesn’t need the contract anymore — he just wants Anastasia back. At a charity function hosted by his parents, Christian’s friends and family tell Ana what a changed man he is and they attribute that change to her.

Ah-ha! I knew it! This is a fairy tale. Yes, the right woman can bring out the best in a man, but he doesn’t really significantly change. In this second book, Ana pins him down and says, “You love me, right?” And Christian admits to her, “Yes, I do.” That’s all that Ana needs. She’s on a mission to “fix” Christian.

And along the way, they have sex and make love and do the horizontal tango every five pages or so. Be reminded — this is feminine fantasy. This great guy who earns all this money seemingly has all the time in the world for Ana. He doesn’t need a “beck and call” girl — he has servants to pack bags for him and arrange hotel rooms and prepare the helicoptor for flights and the boat for a cruise.

They’re perfect people on this perfectly wonderful planet. We never hear about Ana paying off her college loans or Christian working long hours on all the different projects he has going. They never have hangovers or headaches; they never get a muscle cramp or a whistling piece of snot up their noses. They don’t get rashes or sunburn or suffer from allergies.

A dress for the charity ball purchased off the designer’s rack for Ana fits her perfectly. She has three to chose from; she just takes it out of the closet and puts it on. Yep, life is a fairy tale for Christian and Ana. Oh, except for the stalker. But I don’t want to ruin the surprise for anyone. I haven’t found out what happens yet myself.

Let it be said that my reading tastes are anything but narrow. I will read nearly anything — any genre, any subject, fiction and nonfiction.

When “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” created a furor, I had to read it. I read the entire series and was disappointed when I learned that the author had died and wouldn’t be producing any more novels.

When the Harry Potter series was all the rage, I read or listened to all those books, and then bought the movies.  “Hunger Games” is still on my reading list, and I have a hunch I’ll like it, too.

Right now, I’m reading “Fifty Shades of Grey.” I was hearing a lot about the trilogy about a fantastically rich guy named Christian Grey and a naive-yet-daring young woman named Anastasia Steele. For anyone who hasn’t read about it, it’s basically a romance novel with heavy-duty kink explicitly described.

I think it should coming with a disclaimer: Not to be read by anyone who doesn’t have a healthy relationship. If I had read this book when I was young and impressionable, I could have ended up marrying the wrong guy, thinking I could live this novel.  Thankfully, I married the right guy — in fact, the BEST guy.

So let me rewrite “Fifty Shades of Grey” from where I’m at: I’m only halfway through the first book, so I don’t know how it all shakes out. Right now in the novel, Anastasia has fallen for Christian, but has misgivings. Yeah, if I’d run across this guy, my “inner goddess” would be screaming at me, “GET OUT — get out NOW!”

Christian has a few “issues”: he doesn’t like to be touched and he has a whole slate of rules for Ana — rules that are actually written down in contract form. He has told her he “doesn’t do the girlfriend thing.” OK, what does that mean? She’s just his sex toy? That’s what it amounts to. I’m still waiting to get to the part where she decides she can change him.

What a load of crap. You don’t go into a relationship thinking you can change the other person. You love them for the person they are NOW. Oh, but Christian says and does all the right things. He’s so handsome and he compliments Ana, gives her a car, a computer, a Blackberry. He tells her she’s the only one for him, and he can’t live without her.

What he hasn’t told her is, “I love you; I respect you.” No, he wants her to be his submissive to his dominant. That’s apparently the only way he can be aroused — if he’s totally in control.

So here’s my rewrite: Anastasia meets Christian, having already experienced a few frogs in her life. She knows what she’s looking for and she knows herself. When Christian starts to talk about “punishing” her, she recognizes that Christian is a sick puppy that no one is going to be able to change and kicks him to the curb.

Anastasia realizes that the friendship she has with Jose (a friend from college who has been there all along) has blossomed into love. They move to Seattle together, find fabulous jobs and get married. They have a rewarding life together, while Christian just keeps looking for the right girl to sign his contract. He ends up — ahem —  hiring them.

Now, this is not to say that the author hasn’t created an extremely entertaining book. It’s erotic, exotic, exciting, and deserves its description as “mommy porn.” But there is no way this should be glamorized for women who think that if a guy slaps her around, she “deserved” it.

So far, the author has been careful to establish the “rules” which include a safeword — a signal that the game has to end. And Christian’s rules ban the use of drugs, fire, anything that can leave a mark, and any breathing shenanigans — basically anything that’s potentially dangerous. That’s encouraging.

Christian tells Anastasia, “We’re two consenting adults; what we want to do is no one else’s business.” OK, I get that. A little spice in the bedroom can be a good thing, if both partners agree. But now I have to find out what happens next. Does Anastasia actually convince Christian that he can love her and make love to her without inflicting pain?

Eh, maybe that’s not the point of the book. Maybe it’s just to entertain.

I saw this book, “Between Shades of Gray,” on a list somewhere, and it was getting great reviews. I downloaded it, and started reading it right away on my Kindle. (I love that — I can pick out a book while I’m at work, and start reading it during my coffee break.)

“Between Shades of Gray” is about a Lithuanian girl who’s sent to Siberia with her mother and brother during World War II. I wasn’t sure if it was memoir or fiction until the very end. Author Ruta Sepetys concludes the novel with a happy ending. And that’s when I knew it was fiction. I’m sure there were plenty more stories to come from Siberia, and I’ll bet most of them didn’t have happy endings.

The author did plenty of research into how the Russians sent people from Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia that they deemed “subversive” to the wilderness of Siberia to scratch out a living, guarded by Russian soldiers who lived in comparative luxury, if such a thing can be found in such a punishing climate.

The Lithuanian girl is an artist and had won a scholarship to attend a summer camp for gifted students to study with other artists. She never gets to that camp. Instead, she draws for herself, finding bits of paper and pencil with which to sketch her surroundings and events.

At one point, her mother is asked to translate for the Russian soldiers, but she refuses to cooperate with them. The girl is ordered to sketch a portrait of a Russian officer as a gift to the officer’s wife. She complies, and is called upon to copy sketches of maps and other documents. I thought perhaps they would use this information to escape, but it never happens.

Instead, the girl, her mother and brother are sent farther from home, where the mother eventually dies from starvation. Her brother falls ill, too, and would have certainly died, but about that time, a doctor from an international organization comes to make an inspection of how the people are being treated. He treats all the people and apparently they are all rescued.

I think this story would have had more impact had it been a memoir, rather than a compilation of various experiences. The differences in this girl’s life are presented in stark contrast in flashbacks that flow seamlessly from her present circumstances. Such books remind us that no one wins in war.

Somehow, I think the ending trivializes the entire story — the girl reunites with the boy she’s fallen in love with, and they live happily ever after. And her drawings and letters are found buried in a jar several years after the fact. Eh, maybe this story was written with a younger audience in mind.  

I’d just finished a crime novel — which one I don’t recall — when I started looking around the house for something totally different. That’s when I found The Seamstress by Sara Tuvel Bernstein with Louise Loots Thornton and Marlene Bernstein Samuels. The  reason it lists three authors is that they all collaborated on the Holocaust memoir of Seren Tuvel.

The Seamstress is Seren (Sara) Tuvel; she grew up in Romania, the youngest in a large loving Jewish family. Traditionally, the father rules the household, but Seren was a rebel and accepted a scholarship to a school in Bucharest. Her father thought she should stay home and learn to be a homemaker.

She was the first girl and the first  from her village to be accepted into the school. Unfortunately, the school was run by Catholics, so the sermons every day talked about how the Jews killed Jesus (never mind that Jesus was a Jew). One day when the priest was particularly loathsome, she pitched an ink bottle at him and left the school.

At age 13, Seren is on her own. That gives you an idea of how determined this young woman was. She won’t go home because she knows her father will be displeased with her. Instead she finds a job as an apprentice seamstress. She is never mistreated as a Jew because she’s a blonde, and no one thinks to ask.

She becomes an adept dressmaker, sewing dresses for the Romanian elite. And then everything falls apart when Hitler takes control in Germany and anti-Semitism reaches an all-time high. Seren is arrested and put in prison with her father, but the Hungarians can’t find a reason to keep her, so she’s released.

And then the ghettos are set up and all Jews must report to one. Seren shares her living space with other young women. Systematically, they are given fewer and fewer choices — where to live, where to work, where to shop. Finally, they are all gathered up and taken by train to Ravensbruck — a combination prison and concentration camp.

Some of the women at Ravensbruck are criminals, while the rest are Jews. And there, too, the Jewish women are treated differently — given less food, tainted water, and fewer amenities such as blankets and warm clothing. Their hair is hacked off to discourage lice, but then the clothes they’re issued are filled with lice anyway.

I can’t imagine what it would be like — to try and live within those constraints — to be so despised by all. Every morning, they’re forced to stand at attention to be counted, and the dead are brought out of the barracks and stacked like firewood by a shed. Seren and her three companions — Ellen, Esther and Lily — form a bond which helps them survive.

Some of the work groups unload the boats where fresh vegetables are being brought in. The women sneak vegetables when they can, and share it within the group. Seren hides vegetables in the shoulder pads of her coat in order to trade them for bread from the Polish women. This too helps in their survival.

During the last months of the war, the camp survivors are taken to another camp in rural Germany where they’re hidden from the local farmers because then it would be obvious how bad conditions are. Finally, after years of imprisonment, Seren and her companions are liberated from the camp. They’re taken to a hospital/convent where the nuns nurse them back from the brink of death.

I’ve read other accounts of Holocaust survivors, but what touched me the most is Seren’s ability to never give up, never – literally — say die. When she’s carried to the hospital by a soldier, she thinks it’s raining again, but then realizes in her weakened state that is the tears of the soldier carrying her. That really got to me.

What I learned from this account, too, is that anti-Semitism that continued in Germany well after the war. Seren falls in love with Meyer Bernstein and they are married. She is a seamstress and he is a tailor. No matter where they go, they encounter Germans who avoid them or snub them. Their rationing stamps aren’t accepted at the shops — the grocers tell them they’ve run out.

After years of waiting, Seren and her husband and their son are allowed to emigrate to Canada, and ultimately to the United States where she has family. Finding family is another huge part of the aftermath of the war. Seren finds an uncle and a nephew, and begins again at building her own family.

Seren, who eventually goes by Sara, tells how she and her husband who also was a survivor, would never wait in line for anything, never eat off metal dishes, and never eat turnips, among other things that reminded them of the camps. Sara worked with Louise Thornton to tell her story. Some incidents were left out, including the fact that Sara’s leg was broken during one beating, but she kept walking on it so she wouldn’t be killed.

Marlene adds her own chapter, telling how she couldn’t read her mother’s account for a long time, and thought that every family was like hers — comprised of stalwart survivors who sometimes laughed at themselves and prized family above all else.  Sara died of cancer shortly after her daughter’s wedding — in fact, she held on long enough to see her married. She was a very determined woman.

Published in 1997 by Putnam, The Seamstress was one of the ALA’s Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults. I disagree; it should be on everyone’s reading list.

“American Assassin” is the 12th in a series of thrillers by Vince Flynn, who lives in the Twin Cities, and while it isn’t his best so far, it still entertains. Flynn says that “American Assassin” is the novel he’s been waiting to write, since it gives his major character, Mitch Rapp, a back story.

We learn about Rapp’s training — how he blew away the competition in a Survivor-type boot camp. We meet Irene Kennedy, Rapp’s handler, for the first time, and find out how she’s grown with the job. The biggest disclosure is what makes Mitch Rapp so good as a killer. His girlfriend was among the victims of the Pan Am flight that crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland.

Rapp is uniquely qualified to become an assassin, and changes the rules of training, as well as the rules of engagement. The original training is an intense boot camp that constantly tests the men on their skills, while testing them on their ability to follow the rules: no personal information is to be exchanged among the recruits and no one is to question orders.

A maverick of the first order, Rapp isn’t content to be run ragged by a bunch of sadistic sergeants. He follows the rules about not disclosing personal information, but he correctly interprets it as a non-team-building strategy. When you know nothing about your teammates, you don’t trust them as readily. He also recognizes one of the restless recruits as a plant who tries to get the men booted from the program. Rapp also knows that this strategy is wasting valuable time.

In Beirut, a valuable CIA agent has been taken hostage and is being used as a pawn among Arabs and Russians, whose mistrust of one another is the one thing the Americans can use as a wedge and ultimately as a weapon.

“American Assassin” begins rather slowly — for a spy thriller. If this book were made into a movie, the beginning would be enough to get you on the edge of your seat, but then it turns into a lengthy flashback. It would show Rapp’s face — I’ve always pictured an American version of Antonio Banderas — with lots of music and voice overs. Not quite as thrilling.

Still, Mitch Rapp would be a good replacement for Jason Bourne, the assassin created by author Robert Ludlum. (Ludlum has died, but other authors have been perpetrating more adventures for him, riffing off  the movie version of Bourne, rather than Ludlum’s original book character. Several liberties have been taken in that story line.) I don’t know if the movie crowd is ready for Mitch Rapp — he certainly couldn’t be played by a pretty boy like Matt Damon.

“American Assassin” is published by Simon & Schuster, and is available in several formats.

Kevin Zepper, an associate professor at Minnesota State University Moorhead, has published a new collection of poems, I Bring You Dead Things. It inspired me to write a review using his style.

Small volume of poems.

Filled with wistful words, lust, longing.

Brief, sometimes bawdy images in Kevin Zepper’s head.

They alight easily and are gone.

Does he have anything solid to say?

Poetry is such a subjective thing that one can hardly write about it without inserting oneself into it. I liked Zepper’s poems, but I didn’t find anything extraordinary about them.

I’ve said before that sometimes we glorify writing based on the author. If Nicholas Sparks’ books had been written by a woman, they likely would have been published by Harlequin. Sparks’ books are romantic drivel. If we take Zepper’s name off the front of the book and put a high school girl’s name there, would we be as enthralled?

I Bring You Dead Things was published by Blue Light Press, Fairfield, Iowa.

I’m taking a quick break from reading Fall of Giants and reading something else for book club. Someone chose The Lost Dogs about the rescue and rehabilitation of Michael Vick’s dogfighting dogs.

I could have survived the rest of my life without having read the first third of the book. It’s all about dogfighting in general and Michael Vick’s enterprise in particular. It was heart-breaking to read how people use dogs for fighting. I won’t go any further than that because I’m so repulsed by the entire idea.

The next two-thirds of the book detail how the dogs are treated as victims rather than weapons, which is apparently a new concept. But while the rescuers had to jump through hoops and surmount impossible red tape, the dogs languished for another two months in kennels and shelters. It’s amazing any of them were saved.

Of the 49 dogs originally rescued, two had to be euthanized immediately due to injuries or sickness. Another couple died after the fact, and the rest were divided up among shelters and rescue groups for consistent assessment and therapy. Yeah, therapy.

Remember these dogs had never been in a home environment, so they had to be taught how to climb stairs, how to play with toys, and where to go to the bathroom. They had to learn manners and commands such as sit, stay, come, down. Amazingly, the dogs did not fight one another or other dogs when they were socialized. They were very responsive to humans once they had gotten over their initial fears.

Another mission of the rescuers was to change the idea that pit bulls are bred to be vicious and aggressive. Way back in their history, pit bulls were considered nanny dogs — they took care of other animals and protected children. It’s only recently that the dogs have gotten a bad rap for the failings of bad owners.

I haven’t finished the book, but it’s made me glad that there are rescue groups out there. I kept thinking about the great people I worked with at Adopt-a-Pet who cared enough about Charlie to come for a home inspection and insist on an application process and neutering. I hope there’s a special place in heaven for the rescuers.

And I hope there’s a particularly hot spot in Hell for anyone who would use dogs for fighting.

After looking at it for a year, I finally decided it was time: I started reading “Fall of Giants” by Ken Follett. It’s huge — literally and figuratively. I can’t imaging writing something this big. This first volume is nearly 1,000 pages!  And the book is actually the first in a trilogy.

I’m taking my time with it. By taking it slowly, I hope to not forget too much about the book or its characters. So far, I’ve met characters from Wales, England, Germany, Russia and the US. Follett has a knack for complicated plots with lots of characters. He’s the author of “Pillars of the Earth” about the building of the great cathedrals. It’s been made into a mini-series on TV which I haven’t watched yet. I don’t want to get confused.

The second book in the Century Trilogy will be out in September, according to Amazon, and I can pre-order it now, if I choose. I suspect it will be another big book. And instead of getting the hard copy, I think I might get the Kindle version. It’ll be a little more portable.

Do you remember what it was like to be a teenager? Erik P. Block does, and he describes it so well — so pitch-perfect — it makes one wonder just how far he is from it. Block holds a master’s degree in creative writing from Minnesota State University Moorhead, and lives in Fargo — not too far from the fictional town where fictional Jake lives.

Jake is a 16-year-old whose life is full of crap. Almost any teenager will tell you that, but for Jake, it’s real. His little brother Kyle has cerebral palsy and depends on Jake and his mother to help him with the basics of living. Jake’s mother is living on the edge of insanity, and Jake’s alcoholic father is living somewhere else — he’s not sure.

Working at a gas station, Jake meets Jackie, a pretty blonde who shows some interest in the boy behind the counter. After flirting with her, Jake says, “I feel weird and floaty, kind of like when you put your shoes back on after roller skating.”  Yeah, that’s how first love feels.

So now Jake has one more thing to juggle — the potential for a girlfriend. He would like to tell her about his troubles, but he’s afraid he’d scare her away. And then the unthinkable happens: Kyle dies. Jake’s mother is sent over the edge. She has forgotten or blocked out the pain of Kyle’s death. She can’t understand why people are calling with condolences, or why she is sent home from work.

All Jake can think about now is finding his father to help him with all the things that need to be done. Jake no longer knows where his father stays or where he drinks, so he enlists the help of Jackie, who meets him at one of the bars in town. The overpainted woman behind the bar recognizes Jake because she knows his father. And then Jackie has a couple of surprises. Her life is nearly as crappy as Jake’s, and she knows where his father is.

“Just Jake” is written for young adults, according to the accompanying information, but this short novel would be a fabulous choice for any book club. There’s plenty to talk about: the dysfunction of some families, how alcoholism can run in families, and how closely genius and insanity resemble one another.

Block’s debut novel has all the right ingredients: a teenager’s angst of fitting in, experimentation with alcohol, and new-found love and hope for the future. He tells the story of a teenager with wit and heart, using keen observation of family dynamics.

Not all the questions are answered: Will his parents divorce? Will his mom stay on her meds? Will Jake use his musical ability in a meaningful way? Readers won’t feel cheated. We don’t always get answers in life. The most important question: Is author Erik P. Block is working on a second book? It would be a shame if “Just Jake” were an “only child.”

“Just Jake” can be ordered from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Xlibris.com in hardback, paperback or e-book.

Sometimes when I read something that is so good, I look at the words on the page and think, “Dang, I wish I’d written that.” Such is the case of Erik P. Block’s debut novel, “Just Jake.”

I just started reading this small novel about a teenager with a rotten family (although every teenager will probably tell you he has a rotten family), and in the first few pages, he meets a girl. She and the meeting are described so well, I wanted to sing.

“I feel weird and floaty,” Block writes as Jake, “kind of like when you put your shoes back on after roller-skating.”

I know that feeling, and Block has described it so well, I can’t wait to find out what happens in the novel. Stay tuned!