Later today I plan to rush to public library on the last day before my hold on Fifty Shades of Grey expires, then rush back to campus in under an hour for more class.

Why is it so important that I obtain a copy of Fifty Shades? So that I can dominate my new housemates… in a friendly competition.

The Challenge

A copy of Fifty Shades of Grey is placed in an accessible drawer in a communal room of the house. It is the only copy of the book permitted inside the house for the duration of the challenge; anyone who has already read the book is disqualified according to the honor system.

The first competitor to read the book cover-to-cover is the winner (with caveats).

Every competitor writes their name on an index card and uses this card as a bookmark, secured with a paper clip so it is easy to preserve the place of everyone else’s bookmark. Tampering with someone else’s bookmark is forbidden, and so is moving your own bookmark to any page other than the one you’re currently reading. In this sense, the bookmarks should always visually represent who’s in the lead.

Here’s where it gets tricky: Reading Fifty Shades of Grey is also against the rules. At least, getting caught is. The whiteboard in the study room will be used to score the number of times each competitor has been caught reading the book. Consequences for being caught are to be determined—it may be that after a certain number of times being caught, a competitor is disqualified, or that a reading time-out is imposed on someone after being caught. It is especially forbidden to read the book in any private space in the house; that is to say, if you are to break the rule that forbids reading the book, you must do so in a place where you risk being caught by housemates. At all times when no one is reading the book, it must be returned to the same communal drawer. Being caught holding or hiding the book without reading it, is also grounds for punishment.

In order to achieve a full victory, any competitor who finishes reading the book will be required to take a trivia quiz on GoodReads. The other competitors will determine if the winner’s trivia score is good enough to prove that they did indeed read the entire book.

Prize also to be determined.