Have I mentioned how much I hated Fifty Shades of Grey? How I find that it bastardized the erotica genre with its poorly written passages and introducing the worse narrator I’ve ever met? It made Twelve read like Hemingway. Yet somehow the mass majority of people were tricked into thinking they were reading something authentic. Even worse, it spawned a plethora of copy cats and parodies, all of which I avoided like the plague (cliche much? Yeah, well, I’m not gonna give you anything but cliches when I’m talking about a book that is a cliche). That was  until I found Fifty Shades of Red Riding Hood.

While the story is poorly written, it’s supposed to be like that. So rather than correcting the sentences and passages I’m choosing to quote here, I’m probably not even going to make any comment on them. Just enjoy the show, kay?

Jeez – I really needed some discipline in my life… […] He was strong, bipedal and covered in thick fir [sic], which was made up of many different shades of grey.

Bazinga!

My heart almost suffocated me because it leapt up and got struck in a nostril, but fortunately, I had two nostrils so managed to maintain a clear airway and didn’t die.

One important thing to remember when you purposely write badly is to always come up with the worse images imaginable. Metaphors and similes are equally important as you’ll see later on.

‘Wait!’ said the deep, gruff voice, which was like nutty chocolate fudge or something.

See what I mean? Later, R.R. Hood recalls this poorly choice of words by stating, “I couldn’t say ‘no’ to that voice – that nutty-chocolate-fudge-or-something voice.

This is later followed by, “It was like sitting on top of a ferocious washing machine or something,” and “I knew that I wasn’t in mortal danger yet my stomach spun, like being on a rapidly rising roller coaster or something.” The short story is filled with zingers like this, by the way.

• “I felt my juices flowing once again, adding to those earlier juices to form a lady juice cocktail.”
• “I blushed as he slowly exposed more of my soft, pink bootie, which was a silky like a peach encase in rose petals.”

At first, I thought I had wet myself, but then I remembered about natural female lubricants and realised that I must be what they call ‘horny’. Oh my! What excitement!

The author jabs at the virginal fact, which is the undertone of the first Fifty Shades book (at least in the first five or six chapters, which is how far I got before I deleted it from my Kindle and damned people for helping this rubbish make it to the best seller list).

Other quotes that fall under this are:

• “I was just a wide-eyed virgin mathematician! Jeez!”
• “No man had ever looked at me naked before and now a man was to look at that little private bead that I myself had never seen.”
• “I slipped out of my white shirt, revealing my soft, pert, pink, virginal breasts.”
• “…my tight virginal hoo-ha.”
• “I had never seen a penis of such impressive proportions, or indeed, any penis at all, (so you had to wonder where I got my baseline from.)”
• “‘I want you to lick my delicate jewels and then put your impressive length inside my tight, virginal vagina,’ I breathed.”

‘It’s just I…’ he stuttered, ‘I… have rather specific… er… tastes.’

One of the many things I hated about Fifty Shades of Grey is the bad dialogue. Who talks like that? Of course, no parody can go without poking fun at this major flaw.

• “‘I was expecting some… some… well, I don’t really have the experiences to express what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.'”
• “‘Because I’m fifty shades of lonely, Red Riding Hood!'”
• “‘Noooooooooooooooo!’ I cried, running as fast as my long, slender and naked legs could carry me, across the impeccable clearing. ‘No! Nooooo! Noooooooooooooooooooooo!'”
• “Maybe he was about to pleasure me with his impressive length… ‘Are you going to pleasure me with your impressive length?’ I asked.”
• “He appeared to be writing something. What could he possibly be writing at a time like this? ‘What could you possibly be writing at a time like this?’ I asked.”

My inner goddess did the cancan, hopscotch and an interpretive dance.

The inner goddess shit was a constant thorn in the reader’s side. Why not over use it in a parody?

• “My inner goddess downed a tequila.”
• “My inner goddess fired a gun into her temple.”
• “My inner goddess lit a sparkler or something.”

What sort of perverse beast uses sex to lure a woman into a game of table tennis?

The old bait and switch. That’s what Fifty Shades of Grey really is. You’re promised one thing and receive shit. So why not make the entire parody an elaborate bait and switch for the main character?

I don’t read many parodies – though, a lot of what I read could pass as such – but this one takes the cake.

Related articles

• Fifty Shades of Chicken: A Classy New Addition To Your Bookshelf (refinery29.com)
• Book Review: 50 Shades of Dull (promontory.wordpress.com)