**********************SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!! SPOILERS!!!**************************
--If for some reason you are reading the Fifty Shades books and are taking them seriously you will NOT like this post. You have been warned
Well okay people, here we go…
My best friend Hayley and I decided that we would read the
Fifty Shades books, mostly out of curiosity, and we assumed that it would give
us some joke ammunition. Boy, were we right.
The first book:
Fifty Shades of Grey
The main character and the narrator of the story is
Anastasia Steele, she goes by Ana. She, by her own admission, is a very plain
looking, brown haired, blue eyed girl in her early 20’s and she’s just getting
ready to graduate from college. She lives with her best friend Kim. She is
described as being clumsy, a bit of an old soul, a virgin; and she blushes and
bites her lower lip…A LOT. Hmmm…is this reminding you of another character in a
series of books that came out not too long ago, I don’t know, maybe Isabella
Swan from the Twilight books. I have compiled a chart of similarities so you
can see right away why you should be irritated with these books.
Isabella Swan/Edward Cullen
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Anastasia Steele/Christian Grey
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Isabella works at a hardware store
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Anastasia works at a hardware store
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Bella is clumsy
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Ana is clumsy
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Bella lives with dad, has flighty, irresponsible, yet lovable mother.
(she moved in with him to be accommodating of her mom’s new marriage)
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Lived with step dad (who she calls dad) until she left for college,
has flighty, irresponsible, yet lovable mother. (she moved in with him to be
accommodating of her mom’s new marriage)
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Bella is a virgin
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Ana is a virgin
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Bella drives a crappy old truck
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Ana drives a beat up old VW beetle
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Story takes place in
Washington
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Story takes place in Washington
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Her first relationship is with an emotionally unstable/unavailable,
controlling, stalking, dangerous man who is a vampire.
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Her first relationship is with an emotionally unstable/unavailable,
controlling, stalking, dangerous man who is an abused dominatrix millionaire.
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Edward has an adopted family (Father of the family is a doctor)
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Boyfriend has an adopted family(Mother of the family is a doctor)
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Isabella prefers to go by Bella
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Anastasia prefers to go by Ana
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Edward talks like he’s “from another time”
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Christian talks very formal as well (it’s really annoying and creepy
actually)
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Jacob (Native American) who has feelings for Bella, is an old family
friend, his dad and her dad are good friends that go fishing together. He
fixes up the truck Bella drives. Edward is untrusting of their relationship
but eventually accepts it and stops giving her as much crap about having a
male friend.
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Jose (Mexican) who has feelings for Ana, is an old family friend, his
dad and her Step-dad are good friends that go fishing together. He fixes up
the VW Bug that Ana drives. Christian is untrusting of their relationship but
eventually accepts it and stops giving her as much crap about having a male
friend.
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Edward uses his “love” for Bella as an excuse for his controlling and
emotionally abusive behavior.
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Christian uses his “love” for Ana as an excuse for his controlling,
emotionally and physically abusive behavior.
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Edward plays classical piano
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Christian plays classical piano
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Obviously, I can go on and on….
It’s hard for me to take the author of this story seriously
when she’s basically ripped off a different crappy book and then threw in some dominatrix
pornographic sex scenes. Once the sex scenes start it’s hard to go more than a
couple of pages without a sex scene happening in the first book. It got to the
point where I started skimming through them, “pushed me against the
wall….spanked me on the…convulsing…riding crop…Red Room of Pain…” I get it
already! They have crazy sex!
Now, I have not ever been in a dom/sub relationship, it
doesn’t appeal to me. But also I have no negative judgment toward that life
style, I’m sure there are plenty of people who are happy in that type of
relationship and that’s great for them. I am not going to pretend that the only
type of relationship worth recognizing is one I feel comfortable with. However,
the girl in this story is NOT into that life style whatsoever. She put herself
in an uncomfortable situation where she admits to feeling abused all for a guy
she’s known for like 3 days. I’m supposed to admire this girl? The author keeps
trying to convince the reader that Ana is a strong, independent, well-educated
woman. Huh? That just doesn’t add up. She is shallow and seems to lack any sort
of perspective or common sense. She has awful self-esteem but at the same time
seems kind of overly into herself…ya, I know, it doesn’t make sense.
As for the “man” in this story…yikes; he is the biggest ass
hole you’ll ever have someone try to convince you to admire. He flaunts his
money, is fully aware of how handsome he is—but is self-loathing (what?). He
likes to dominate and “punish” women who look like his dead prostitute
mother who was addicted to crack (he very warmly refers to her as “the crack
whore”…awwwww…sweet). He needs complete and utter control over the people in
his life, and that is no exaggeration. He has an approved foods list for his
submissive and requires them to work out with a personal trainer 4 times a
week. He has people follow Ana so he always knows what she’s doing, he is
INFURIATED if she doesn’t obey him, he follows her across the country to crash
a visit she had planned with her mom…the list goes on and on (and this is only
the first book).
The “drama” of the first book is Ana trying to figure out if
Christian will ever be able to really love her and her trying to understand why
he is the way he is. That’s the “conflict” of the first book. It ends with her
learning he chooses his submissive based on how much they resemble his birth
mother. She stays with him because she figures she can just “love him through
this” and since she wants to try to heal him she offers for him to show her
just how bad it could get so she can figure out if this is something she could
commit to long term. So, ya know, he beats her with a belt. She says they
aren’t compatible and leaves him; and I sighed with relief…finally she did it,
she left him, and then I remembered I still had 2 more books to read. Damn it…
Book 2: Fifty
Shades Darker
So before getting into the second book I voiced my concerns
to Hayley (who joined me in my apprehension) and to some others who I knew had
read the books. Everyone promised me that the second book has more story in it
and that’s where it really starts to get good. I did not believe them and I was
right in doing so. The difficult part for me was that I really didn’t give a
crap about the “story” everyone kept referring to because I didn’t care about
the characters. E.L. James didn’t give me much to build a relationship with
when it came to the characters of the story. I wasn’t excited to find out what
happened to them, I didn’t feel sorry for them when they were sad or happy for
them when things were going well. They never made me laugh and they certainly
didn’t push me to analyze and think deeper about myself. I felt nothing (except
maybe disgust and embarrassment) toward these characters. So ya, the second
book wasn’t looking good. James was going to need to deliver some substance in
a hurry if she was going to save these books.
So where were we? Oh yes, they just broke up and Ana and
Christian are sad…boo hoo. Okay so they are broken up for a week. You heard me,
one week. They were together for like 3-4 weeks and then they broke up for a
week. Well, she needs to bum a ride to her friend Jose’s gallery opening and
lets her ex-boyfriend (Christian) take her to it because she promised she’d let
him when they were together…last week. When he picks her up he’s trying to
smooth talk his way back into her life “I’ve been such a mess without you…I
need you… I could never stay away from you…can’t we talk about this…” and then
he does what all assholes do, he blames her for her getting hurt “why didn’t
you use a safe word?!” Are you kidding me? Because she told you a hundred times
that she was uncomfortable with being punished and she felt abused when you
spanked the shit out of her last time but she obviously was trying to prove
that she could handle it so she could be with you and oh I don’t know….it’s
hard to remember a to use a “safe word” when you are getting beat with a belt
by a man you think you’re in love with. Maybe a better question is why don’t
you be the gentleman the author keeps insisting that you are and realize that
this is a bad situation for her and walk away? Or maybe, listen to her when she
says that she feels abused and feels like an object to you when you “punish
her”…and then just don’t beat her with a belt. Lots of options here you idiot!!
My rage shifted toward her when she totally buys into his
excuses! She apologizes and feels a need to explain herself to him. So many red
flags! And then you’re like, well dummy maybe the two of you deserve each other
because holy shit….
They are back together before the night is over…yes, they
are that couple. They are the couple that breaks up for a week and then gets
back together. Co-Dependent!!!
So I’m just going to rattle off some of the key elements to
this “story”:
So blah blah blah, lots and lots of sex, Christian has a
fear of being touched because his birth mom’s pimp used to beat him up and burn
him with cigarettes. They have lots of angry sex and they realize they love
each other. Christian buys the company Ana works for so he can keep tabs on
her. His obsessed with Ana eating food because he used to go hungry so often
(as sad as his back story is supposed to be somehow you don’t feel sorry for
him. It takes some wonderfully bad writing to pull that off). He wants Ana to
move in with him. Ana’s boss is super creepy and obviously has the hots for
her, he eventually tries to blackmail her into sleeping with him and then
Christian fires him. Ana ends up getting promoted to like a chief editor or
something for the publishing house she works for (ya know, the one her
boyfriend owns now). Christian gets lost in the mountains when his helicopter
goes down but he’s fine (hooray?). They get engaged…*sigh*…because why not,
right? Why not get engaged to a guy you’ve known for SIX WEEKS? Ya know a guy
you know nothing about and he knows next to nothing about you except that he
can manipulate you to do almost anything, that’s the man you should marry.
Good. Oh what an excellent decision, and so perfectly predictable. The author
really milked the engagement; I could tell she was hoping for an “awwwww”
moment. Sorry lady I’m not buying it.
Now the “climax” of the story is that one of Christian’s ex-submissive
ladies is on the loose and is apparently freaking nuts. She holds Ana up at gun
point; again somehow this doesn’t feel suspenseful at all…
By the end of the story everything is awesome and everyone
is happy. Except that E.L. James ATTEMPTS to leave you with some sort of cliff
hanger by alluding to the fact that SOMEONE sabotaged the helicopter.
And I
really couldn’t have cared less. That may have something to do with the fact
that I instantly knew it was her ex-boss who harassed her. I was surprised I was able to pick up on that with between all the shitty writing and James using the thesaurus in Microsoft Word to try to sound smart.
After book 2…I needed a break for a few days. I needed a
palate cleanser. I read some Dorothy Parker and it reminded me that there is
hope in the world of literature. I took a deep breath, and with all the
strength and humor I could muster I started the third book.
Book 3: Fifty
Shades Freed (the title alone, amirght?!)
Oy, okay everyone we are almost there, it’s the last leg of
the race…hang in there.
So third book you open up with freaking chaos. Not in a fun
and interesting way, but more in a “did I skip 4-5 chapters without realizing
it?” kind of way. The author thought she’d try to be creative and jump forward in the story
and then jump back and then jump forward and then jump back and then you are in
the present for almost the rest of the book. This does not work on any level. I
was so confused and lacked the motivation to try to sort out the timeline for
the most part. Other than that weird thing James was trying to pull off, the last book is basically the last two books except that they’re married now.
--little side note, he remarks on how she got fat on the
honeymoon. The author tries to make this seem like a cute and playful moment
but I don’t know any girl that would think being called fat is EVER cute. Maybe
really skinny girls would find that endearing??
OH and she gets pregnant and Christian FREAKS out on her and
blames her and tells her she’s stupid and irresponsible and accuses her of
getting pregnant on purpose. What a gem.
So the “conflict” in this book is the pregnancy, obviously,
and Ana’s old boss trying to “get back” at Christian because they were in the
same foster home for like a month or two….what? I don’t get why the author used
THAT as the reason this dude would have it out for Christian and Ana. I get
that she was trying to go for some sort of mystery and then she’d give you the
big reveal, but it did not work. If she had given us MORE of Christian’s story
then what she gave or perhaps went Dexter on us and made Jack (Ana's boss) the older brother
that Christian didn't remember because he was extremely traumatized as a child, that might have worked.
She could have alluded to a sibling through all three books, Christian quasi
remembering someone there with him, someone taking care of him or helping protect
him. Then it would make sense that Jack (Ana’s boss) had a score to settle, he
had to scrap his way through life and Christian was taken into a wealthy family
and has the beginnings of a beautiful family of his own now while Jack has nothing, yet again, and because of Christian. This would have made
the show down between Jack and Ana at the end mean more to us as readers, she’s
not just pointing a gun at someone at that moment, she’s pointing a gun at her
husband’s biological brother. She’s destroying answers that her husband may
need and the only blood relative he is known to have. And it makes more sense to us for Jack to be pushed to the level of madness he was supposedly feeling. There was so much she
could have done with this, I feel like she (as usual) took the easy way out.
All three books are full of shoulda, woulda, coulda. Anyway...
At the end of the book everyone is happy and she has a son.
The author flashes forward a few times to show us that she’s pregnant again
with a daughter. And then flashes back to when she’s pregnant with her son and
giving birth and then flashes forward. And blah, blah, blah. I was so bored at
the end I didn’t give a shit about her kids.
Here’s my last few thing to say about these 3 books.
1. It would have been interesting I think if she
had made this into a true BDSM story. And if the sex was a smaller part of the
books, I mean, I like a steamy love scene (I’m human), but if we had a story
about these two people who maybe were exploring that lifestyle together (maybe
even for the first time…not virgins…but finding themselves falling into this lifestyle together for any number of complex reasons)
and it was emotional and lovely and it made you look at that lifestyle with
softer eyes….and there was a real story about a real relationship with real
problems…I could have totally gotten behind that. There could have been
something more human to this story and that’s what it was lacking.
2.Smut is smut and we need to call these books
what they are. Again, I take no personal issues with smut, but I take issue
with people pretending that this book is life changing or claiming that these
books “saved their marriages.” How sad if that is true for people. And please
for the love of god, stop wearing 50 Shades of Grey shirts and PLEASE stop
dressing your BABY in 50 Shades of Grey onesies. It would creep everyone out if
dudes started walking around with shirts that had lines from their favorite
porns and put your newborn baby in a onesie that read “9 months ago my daddy
watched Clitty Clitty Gangbang.” Have
some class ladies…try to have some class. It may be a book but its still porn, treat it as such.
3. I never thought I would miss the Twilight books
but ya know what? I’d rather read about some teenage vampires dry humping then
have to hear that Ana “exploding around him” one more time. NOTHING was left
to the imagination in these books and they were not written well enough to get
away with that. Stephanie Meyers knew when to shut up, for the most part, and
let my mind fill in the blanks.
4
4.And lastly, I think it really says a lot about
who you are when you want a relationship with a man who uses you and controls
you and manipulates you. To fantasize about that man, and about having that
kind of relationship…ugh…dream bigger ladies. Just please, dream much bigger.
Laters babies (*barf*)