Shrek, an iconic staple of the 2000s, full of innuendos.
But what if we cut past that and showed you Shrek uncensored?
What would that look like?
Well, this is the book for that.
'Get in my swamp: An Ogre Love Story' by GM Fairy.
Shrek fanfic, ogre erotic romance with rave reviews like 'Shrexuals unite!
If ogres are your thing, you need to read this.
Five stars!'
Or 'Romeo and Juliet have nothing on these love birds.
One star', 'The image of Beck in grey sweatpants swinging through the trees like a spider monkey
will live on in my head forever.
# Swamp Daddy.
One star'.
Warning: This video contains mature scenes that some viewers may find sensitive and some
very bad Scottish accents.
How does this connect to the Shrek Cinematic Universe?
As a self-proclaimed Shrexual, I just had to read it.
And I wish I didn't.
And I can't suffer through this alone so you're going to have to come with me.
Chapter one: Meet f***** characters.
We start off the book in a bachelorette party
in a swamp in the middle of bum-f***-nowhere-Florida.
And it becomes pretty evident that due to legal reasons, 'Far Far Away' is not a thing.
Everything you love about Fiona?
Forget about it.
Liona has none of the spunky, down-to-earth, witty charm that Fiona has.
Instead, she will annoy you in ways that you never thought were possible.
And you're about to find out in this video.
Let's talk about Liona.
Like any good fanfic, our MC comes from an economically challenged background.
She's a waitress.
She comes from a neglectful family of alcoholics and she has no friends.
Not going to lie, this is starting to sound like my diary entries from when I was 11.
But like any good character development, we need to flesh it out a little bit.
So, we find out that she also has jet black hair, tan skin, huge boobs, p**nstar lips,
and an ass that won't quit!
Balance.
She's not a princess and she hasn't really been locked away in any Tower, unless you
count the prison of being with a dysfunctional family.
So we find out that Liona is actually engaged to Lawrence Farque, AKA Lord Farquaad, who
is part of the Dual Lock Home Security System Empire, which is a play on words from DuLoc
in the Shrek Cinematic Universe, a city-state in Shrek, which, you know, bit of a downgrade.
But this is America, buddy.
Now, Lawrence Farque is no longer a short king because he's described as 5'11, blonde,
and 'nice-ish'.
He actually has a sister.
Her name is Victoria Farque, and all you need to know for now is that they're always located
right next to each other when they're together, this will become a very important detail later
on in the story.
Chapter two: Shrek finds gardening erotic.
Like her parallel soulmate, is not having the best of mornings.
Beck is basically the guard dog of the magical Community, which has to be kept secret because,
let's be real, this is set in America.
So they would just get shot.
He's having a nice potato, carrot, and eyeball soup.
He's busying himself with gardening and uh oh-.
Oh, this sets the tone for the rest of the bloody novel.
Chapter 3 to 6: Leona has a nightmare, Beck is creepy, and slavery.
So Liona is engaged to Lawrence and she basically has a naughty little nightmare about her mans.
She's having a bit of trouble in her relationship.
You don't even know if she's attracted to this man.
So she's like, you know what, let me go cool off a bit.
She goes out into the woods.
When doink!
This is when she falls into his trap and Beck is like, 'Ooh, whoopieee.'
It's like, 'Okay, Deliveroo right to my door.'
Until he sees her boobies.
He's like, 'Wait, whoa, yummy.'
We need to talk about Beck's character.
Thought you liked Shrek?
Meet Beck, the deranged, creepy alpha male, Giga-chad Shein versioned cousin, where everything
you liked about Shrek disappears.
Beck is 7'2.
He has muscles on every part of his body.
He loves to gaslight, boss girl, and keep in gate.
And honestly, this is Beck's only personality trait.
Him going, 'Do I want to eat her or do I want to eat?'
And he always has conflicting feelings of
wanting to dive into her swamp but doing consensually
because otherwise he would never forgive himself(!)
But in the very next line, he's like, 'My perfect personal play thing.
But she's got so much more than that.
She's mine.
She's mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.'
He's kidnapped her, locked her up in a cage in his house.
And he's like, 'What do I do?'
So he goes to a council meeting, which is basically like that scene in Harry Potter
where everyone is like in court.
They're like, 'OI we heard there was a bit of commotion
last night.
Uh, you need a permit.
You can just eat her like you do with all your other humans.
Or maybe you can just make her your slave.'
And so Beck is like contemplating this.
But he feels guilty, why?
And it turns out the pulling power of Liona so far is her chest.
She's got a nice rack, yeah.
And I'm not talking about ribs.
This is when we meet the book's equivalent to Donkey.
Thought you liked Donkey, meet Donny, the deranged, creepy, Shein versioned cousin third
cousin, where everything that you liked about Donkey disappears.
Donny isn't even a donkey, he's a centaur, complete with a muscular torso.
And he's not even friends with Beck.
He'll make an appearance later on.
We switch point of view to Leona.
Now she's in his cage, she's trapped, she's pissed, but also she's a bit like, 'musccclesss?'.
The main dilemma of the book is how is she going to get out?
This is when she comes up with Operation P***y-Trap-Commence.
Huh?
What's that?
Liona uses her explicit charms of seduction to essentially lure Beck into opening the
cage so that she can come out and escape.
The operation commences somewhere in the middle of it.
She actually enjoys deploying the operations and and he's kind of there enjoying the show.
He's like, 'Ah, who needs Netflix when I have this live on-demand show?'
Leona is a bit conflicted 'cause she's like, 'Wait, this is Operation P***y-Trap, not Operation
Stockholm Syndrome.'
Okay, girl, get a grip.
And you could look into how Leona's method of survival fits into the broader framework
of societal expectations, power imbalances, and gender norms.
Can her act of performance be viewed as a form of resistance utilizing her womanhood
and her seduction as a means of control and escape?
Conversely, does it reinforce the inherent power imbalance between her captor and the
subordinate?
When Liona's supposed power lies in her ability to appeal to the desires of men, does that
not reinforce the objectification of women as tools for men's pleasure?
When Liona enjoys parts of his dominance and masculinity that she feels that Lawrence lacks,
how does that then change how we view the relationship?
Does she, in that scenario, truly have an agency of choice, or does gender norms influence
desire?
Did Beck's 'good buddy Stockholm syndrome help him out'?
And what if instead of a roar, it's Rawr?
Chapter nine: The ogre discovers empathy.
Operation P****-Trap seems to have been working.
It's so dazzling to be that he's basically like, "Yeah, I munch on humans, but never women or
children, though I only eat toxic men.
But now that I've seen your vag, I don't think I could eat a human again."
But Beck's really trying to get into real estate or something because he's like, "But
look, we've got a garden, we've got a spring.
Look at all the trees and the- the forest.
He's like, "Look, no carbon emissions, eco-friendly.
It's a humane prison.
Yeah, take that, Greta Thunberg."
Chapter ten, Shrek in gray sweatpants. Liona is missing
the good life of electricity and plumbing.
She's like, "Oh my God, even Lawrence has a bidet, he washes his ass, which is more
than I can say for a lot of people in the West.
Do I miss him?
Do I just miss his toilet?
Does that imply that Beck just walks around with a dirty butt?
Like, I'm not trying to impose human standards on ogres but- Liona and Beck have gotten a
bit closer.
She's like, "Let me just sleep in your bed tonight, alright?
Let me out of this cage.
We'll sleep together."
And she's like, "Do I want to leave, but he has muscles, though."
He's also deployed the weakness of every straight woman on this planet: gray sweatpants.
Although jobless, she gets worked up, and on page 70 is when Beck and Liona collaborate
together on a project of spreading sheets, and many HR violations henceforth take place.
This is when I personally need to quit.
And after the little collaboration, she's feeling guilty and weird.
Chapter 8 to 14, or what I can only describe as horny.
Now that Liona is engaged with some entanglements with her captor, she's super even more conflicted
now than she ever was before.
'This time I'm not falling asleep, horny or not'.
The night falls, and it's time for Liona to make her escape.
When Beck's asleep, she sneaks out of the house in the night, and she starts running.
She runs and runs, and then she turns around and, whoa, it's Beck like Tarzan, absolutely
slamming it through the forest.
He falls onto her to stop her from escaping, and she's like, "Let me go."
She kind of means it, she kind of also doesn't mean it, as if it wasn't already morally gray
before, it becomes an even darker shade of gray because they just start, let's just
say, start beating around the bush, alright?
This is why that comment was talking about Romeo and Juliet.
As she 'opens up like a flower in full bloom'.
At this point, I'm not even halfway through the book, and I'm thinking, "What is this
plot?" and I've come to a clear conclusion that it's not even a plot.
It's less plot and more any excuse for the plot to facilitate them banging...
pots and pans.
Chapter 14: Welcome to Manipulation 101.
Step one: have a monster c- At this point I'm tired, Liona.
I'm tired.
In his monstrous horniness, he has ripped up all of her clothes, and she's like, "I
need some clothes.
I can't keep wearing a potato sack."
Chapter 15: The Makeover Trope.
Enter Glinda, the Fairy Godmother's shop.
Turns out she's basically the Gok Wan of far, far away.
Does anybody get that reference?
Am I old?
Liona leaves for like 2 seconds to get dressed, and then Beck, being the problematic, possessive
alpha male Giga Chad that he is, he can't
stand it, he's worried.
He's like, "Where is she?"
Like, panicking.
'My panic encases me, and my heartbeat pounds in my chest.'
I think you've got hypertension, but anyway.
That's when we meet Wizard Winston Laroue, who is this meant to be?
Don't ask me.
I have no idea, but guess what?
Apparently, like everybody in this novel, he's muscular.
And apparently, he can tell that Beck really cares about this human, which is more than
the reader can, at this point.
All this museless is just becoming fat-phobic.
He tells Beck that he has a potion that can wipe her memory.
This puts Beck into a conundrum: psychological manipulation, set her free, back to her normal
life with tiny D, or keep her in prison?
And then Beck's kind of like, "Okay, thanks for this plot point."
But let me assert my Gigachadness, cause back off!
And then he kind of just like strangles.
Chapter 16, and this is the worst bit of literature
that I've ever read in my entire life.
I'm not even kidding.
Liona's getting adjusted to living a life without Starbucks.
She journals, she gardens, you know, she repeatedly
has intimate entanglements, and she loves
watching him chop axe.
She wakes up every morning, she brings out coffee to the garden, they sit, and they talk
for hours every morning.
It never gets old, and they never run out of things to talk about.
She's basically an advocate for the cottage core life.
She's swimming in the spring, she's naked, she's like la la la la la, she's doing what
she knows how to do best, thinking about Beck's bulging green swollen finger, and she hears
a rustling in the woods.
Oh, and she's like, "Oh, is that my ogre come to relieve me?"
Except, this is getting boring now.
So plot twist, it's not Beck, it's Donny, complete with, guess what, muscular torso.
This whole situation set up to kind of let us know that Donny is no good.
And these next three pages are the worst piece of literature I've ever read.
As a woman, through lived experiences, you come to learn to be pretty hypervigilant around
men.
Liona's rightful detector goes off because Donny then threatens Liona that he'll show
her what a good time with a magical being is like.
And in the struggle, she starts screaming and boom, Beck, once again, pounding through
the forest comes to save the day.
He shows Donny, "This is why I am alpha male, gigachad, guardian of the forest, dog."
He gives him a knuckle sandwich.
He gives him enough knuckle sandwiches in fact that he's basically on the brink of death.
He's on the ground and this is when Beck and Liona decide hey why don't we beat it in the
bush?
Beck utters the three magical words: 'I love you'.
For some reason, Beck now wants to use the magical potion.
Chapter 18: Operation P***y- Trap Reverse.
Liona is doing what Liona does, you know, thinking about what happened in the past two
chapters.
And then she comes to the only logical conclusion: 'I must love him too.'
And be like any man gets post-nut clarity.
18 chapters in and he's like, 'Ah, actually, no, you can't do that because I captured you.'
And she gets upset, she's like, 'No, you can't.
There must be another way.'
This is Operation P-Trap Commence but in reverse because this time she locks herself in the
cage.
And she begins to, this is literally what I wrote in my notes, 'do some DJing on her
buttons.'
I don't know, think of something' we'll go with that.
Beck's Giga-Chad alpha male, testosterone monstrous tendencies have him bend in the
iron bars open to get to where the music is.
They frolic, and so they do the deed.
And she's like, 'Does that mean I can stay?'
And he goes, 'No.'
And then Liona does what Liona does, she storms out of the house, tears stream down her face.
Chapter 20: Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the woods yet?
Are out of the woods?
Liona then talks about how her life is so different now, she's filled with passion,
purpose, vision, talks about how much she loves Beck.
Maybe I need Lasik but I can't see any of this.
We're 150 pages into the book at this point, and there is no tension, and Liona knows it
because she's like, 'Oh, maybe I just love him because of Stockholm syndrome.'
And it's like, 'Can you make a decision?'
And she's crying and crying until 'Liona, Liona,' and she's like, 'Beck, it's Beck, right?'
Plot twist, wrong.
It's Lawrence, Lawrence, her blonde ex.
He comes up magically, finds her in the woods somehow, and he's excuses, 'Sorry, I was in
Hong Kong.
I thought you were just out on, you know, one of those self-help retreats, you know?'
And he's like, 'Alright, Liona, let's go home.'
And then Liona's like, 'Yeah'. I feel like she just, like, she just, like, 'Where's the
wind taking me?
I'll go that way.'
Then maybe that's a result of her very turbulent trauma and unemotional parents always leaving
her.
You know, you come to learn to adapt quickly to these situations.
Chapter 22: Her tummy turning, and she's feeling a bit homesick.
Two weeks have passed where in LA now.
She's adjusting to life there.
One part of her heart feels like, you know, it's in LA, but the other part feels like
it's in the swamp.
One day she gets a text from Victoria, remember her, saying 'Hey, let's hang.'
And Liona has an idea, she's like, 'You know what, let me surprise her with her favourite
Poké bowl, 'cause I know she liked that.'
So she goes out to Victoria's house, lets herself in the door, and she's like, 'Surprise!'
Victoria screams, and she's like, 'Liona, I wasn't expecting to see you here.'
And it's like, 'I thought it'd be nice to see you.'
She catches some man's shoes by the entrance, and she's like, 'What, isn't that Lawrence's?'
Liona then goes to investigate the bedroom, and guess who's in Victoria's bedroom?
Lawrence.
I wish I could say there's layers to this, there's just incest.
Chapter 23: Leona changes her mind again.
She engages in body shaming, she's like, 'Screw Lawrence, I don't want your money.'
Moves out into a small apartment above a Chinese store.
And she's like, 'You know what, never mind, maybe I do miss Beck.'
She's alone in her apartment where she hears her door rattling, she's like, 'Oh my God,
who is trying to get in?'
Who is it, and what's the next surprise shock device that the author uses?
Does she fall into a hole?
No.
Is it a centaur?
No.
Is it Lawrence?
No, it's Beck, Giga Chad Alpha Male, 7 feet tall, fangs, muscles on every inch of his
body.
Beck, and you're like, 'Wait, what?
How did Beck find her?'
'I can smell your arousal.'
That sounds like a medical problem to me, personally, if you can smell that all the
way from Florida to LA.
At one point, Liona was like, 'Maybe I need a therapist.'
Like, yeah, you probably do, but girl, you need to see a gynecologist.
And that's it.
Here is my thing with this book: where were the Shrek references?
Where was any of the actually interesting characters?
The whimsy, the banter, the humor?
Maybe it's like, obviously G.M.
Fairy can't do that for legal reasons.
I understand that most people are not taking it seriously; they're just here for the spicy
scenes.
But if I hear that it's a quote-unquote Shrek-inspired
ogre romance, I want some of the charm that
Shrek the movie had.
The thing about this book is, yeah, it's obviously just for... well, you know.
None of it is serious, it's not meant to be good.
Obviously, the main thing of it is the absurdity and the shock value of it all.
But that wasn't enough for me to actually enjoy it.
It wasn't so bad that it was good; it was just kind of bad.
There were some lines like 'Operation P-Trap' where I thought, 'That's hilarious.'
But it's just that Liona and Beck are so bland, it's just like voids for the next Monster
Mash.
Okay, to be honest, I'm not a very avid, smart-romance
reader, so maybe for those of you who've actually
read a bit more of these books, you can tell me if this is normal.
But a lot of the scenes were just borderline, not even borderline, they were just gross.
To me, it felt like, 'Okay, this is obviously just meant to be satire.'
So maybe it's poking fun at smart-romance books and how they can be.
But I don't know, that's like a theory, 'cause I haven't read enough.
So, let me know if you think that's the case.
It's an 185-page book, and G.M.
Fairy manages to put 11 spicy scenes in it.
A spicy scene every 18 pages.
You literally get every bang for your buck.
But I also think that's also its downfall because, after the first bit, the tension
just fizzles out because you know it's just going to come anyway..
oh.
You don't really get to see their romance blossom.
Now, that's part one.
I don't want to read part two, but given enough demand, I will do that for you.
But is Shrek love, Shrek life, really?
I'm just glad that it's all ogre now.