Mommy and Birdie: January 2013

**********************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	Anastasia Steele/Christian Grey
Isabella works at a hardware store	Anastasia works at a hardware store
Bella is clumsy	Ana is clumsy
Bella lives with dad, has flighty, irresponsible, yet lovable mother. (she moved in with him to be accommodating of her mom’s new marriage)	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)
Bella is a virgin	Ana is a virgin
Bella drives a crappy old truck	Ana drives a beat up old VW beetle
Story takes place in Washington	Story takes place in Washington
Her first relationship is with an emotionally unstable/unavailable, controlling, stalking, dangerous man who is a vampire.	Her first relationship is with an emotionally unstable/unavailable, controlling, stalking, dangerous man who is an abused dominatrix millionaire.
Edward has an adopted family (Father of the family is a doctor)	Boyfriend has an adopted family(Mother of the family is a doctor)
Isabella prefers to go by Bella	Anastasia prefers to go by Ana
Edward talks like he’s “from another time”	Christian talks very formal as well (it’s really annoying and creepy actually)
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.	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.
Edward uses his “love” for Bella as an excuse for his controlling and emotionally abusive behavior.	Christian uses his “love” for Ana as an excuse for his controlling, emotionally and physically abusive behavior.
Edward plays classical piano	Christian plays classical piano

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.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.