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Fifty Shades of Grey - Chapter Seven

Ana takes a look around Grey’s playroom. There’s a lot of description which I’ll try to summarize in brief: It’s a big room, dark burgundy walls, varnished wood floors. Some sort of ambient lighting. Various kinky shit — large wooden cross with restraining cuffs fastened to the wall, iron grid with various ropes, chains, and shackles hanging from it on the ceiling, a very large assortment of paddles, whips, riding crops, etc, a whole rack full of canes — how many canes do you need? I’m no expert, but I was sort of under the impression that a cane is a cane is a cane, at least when it comes to whacking people on the rear with it.

The entire room seems a bit… showy, and I’m sure Christian is the sort of guy to be all about presentation, but I’m not sure how practical any of this is. What with everything on display, it seems like the room is there more to be looked at than to actually be used. Makes you wonder how long it’s been since Christian had a submissive, and if the room’s actually seen any use or not.

There’s also a very large bed in the room, with a red leather mattress, which is just downright disgusting. You really wanna fuck on that thing? Christian better have some wicked powerful air conditioning.

Ana feels as though the room is “Christian’s version of soft and romantic” due to all the moody lighting and dark, warm colors. I’m not sure how to react to this. First of all, I don’t think “soft and romantic” has been a part of Christian’s sex life. Sounds like he’s mainly just had women who sub for him on weekends, or something like that; no actual romances. Second, I think the author is trying to make us feel better about the situation by having Ana think the playroom is “romantic” when, really, it’s a playroom. A positive reaction to this room would be Ana getting excited by all the various things in the room and what they might be used for. Instead, she’s ignoring that part and trying to romanticize it. I… yeah, this isn’t giving me a good feeling.

Ana walks around the room a little more, observing various things, running her hands over them. She’s shocked and not sure what to say. She’s starting to feel freaked out, and, in her own words, afraid, though not of Christian — more of the BDSM stuff itself, I guess.

Honey, if you don’t want to do this, tell him and get out.

Christian asks her to say something — no, he “commands” her to say something, actually. She asks him if he’s the dominant or submissive partner (does she really gotta ask?) and who he does this stuff with. The way she phrases it is much more awkward than I just made it sound. Christian answers that he’s the dominant one and that he does this with consenting female partners.

Ana has a thought:

I wander to the far corner of the room and pat the waist high padded bench and run my fingers over the leather. He likes to hurt women. The thought depresses me.

Ana, if this is your reaction, then leave. This obviously isn’t your kink, and, as much of a shithead as he is, I doubt Grey is enough of a shithead to force you into this if you said no to him. You just gotta stand up for yourself for once in the book and tell him you’re sorry, but you’re not interested in having this kind of sex.

I’m sure the author’s intention is to make Ana not totally down with Grey’s kinks, but she’s made Ana so not-even-a-little-bit down with his kinks (like, she doesn’t seem the slightest bit excited by any of this) that it’s really not okay that they’re going to have sex anyway a few pages from now.

Ana asks Christian what being a Dominant means. He explains that he wants her to willingly surrender herself to him. She asks why, and he replies, “To please me.” Sure, that’s valid, except you’re not exactly selling her on it if you’re not telling her “and also because you’d enjoy it too, hopefully, if that sounds like your idea of a good time.”

Ana’s response to being told Christian wants her to please him is “yes I would like to do that,” but… that’s a pretty normal human reaction, that doesn’t mean she’s submissive.

Christian explains how he’d like this to work: He has rules he’d like her to follow, and if she does follow his rules she’ll be rewarded. If she doesn’t, she’ll be punished. We’re taking the “be as vague as possible” route, I see. Ana, exceeding my expectations, asks what she’s going to get out of this. Christian, living up to my expectations, simply tells her “Me.”

I’ll just copy+paste the next bit, because… well, because:

He’s dangerous to my health, because I know I’m going to say yes. And part of me doesn’t want to. Part of me wants to run screaming from this room and all it represents. I am so out of my depth here.

Okay, if you want to run screaming you should either a) do that or b) say something to the effect of “Wow, this is kind of overwhelming, could we take things a lot slower? I don’t have any experience with this kind of thing.” It’s normal to be a little overwhelmed your first time trying something. It’s not normal to be so overwhelmed that you want to run for the hills; that means you probably shouldn’t be trying that thing.

This next quote almost made me laugh:

“I’m not going to hurt you, Anastasia.” His gray eyes implore, and I know he speaks the truth.

Except that he basically just admitted to getting off on hurting others. I know BDSM practices don’t necessarily have to be painful, but it looks like this guy’s brand of BDSM is. Why else would he have twenty different canes or whatever?

Of course, that’s pain in a very specific context, and pain that the sub would (hopefully) enjoy receiving. But Ana doesn’t know that. If I were as clueless as her and a guy who had just shown me his room full of canes and whips told me that he wanted to use them on me, then added that he wasn’t going to hurt me, I would be very suspicious. (And if I were actually a masochist, I think I would be equally suspicious of that statement, for different reasons.)

Christian leads Ana out of his playroom and into another room; a sparsely furnished bedroom with a glass wall looking out over the city. He tells her that if she were to agree to be his sub, this would be her room when she stayed with him (weekends).

Hold up a sec. They haven’t even discussed the sexual part of this arrangement — which is kind of the main part — and they’ve already moved on to sleeping arrangements?

In addition, it sounds like this is a long-term relationship we’re talking about. Reminder: this is Christian and Ana’s second date. They haven’t had sex yet. Christian doesn’t even know yet that Ana’s a virgin, and he hasn’t even told her much about what he likes in the bedroom other than that he likes to be in control. Christian’s made it clear that he doesn’t want a romantic relationship, which means that the first thing he should do is see if he and Ana are compatible as sexual partners. That’s just common sense.

Then, if it’s going to work long-term, they really need to make sure they can just plain tolerate each other for long periods of time. Even if their non-sexual interactions don’t go beyond that of roommates, it’s still important that they don’t drive each other crazy.

For a guy who supposedly has some experience with this, Christian seems to be going about this entirely wrong.

Ana asks about she and Christian not sleeping together. He explains that he doesn’t sleep with anyone. I get the feeling that this is going to be important, mostly because this book possesses all the subtlety of a bullet to the skull.

Christian leads Ana back downstairs for some food. As he arranges a tray with all the bougie snack foods — grapes, cheeses, a baguette — he explains that he and Ana need to agree on a contract. He’s kind of vague about what this contract actually entails, but I take it that it’s a set of guidelines for how their scenes will go — limits, etc. — as well as what Christian expects of his subs in general both in the playroom and outside of it. (I’m 99.99% sure that he’s angling for a 24/7 D/s relationship, meaning his control over her extends outside of the bedroom.)

Ana asks him what happens if she says no. He says it’s fine if she does, but that they can’t have any other type of relationship. She asks why. He answers:

“This is the only sort of relationship I’m interesting in.”

I think you mean interested in, though interesting in is perhaps more accurate.

Ana asks him how he became this way — her phrasing, not mine. He dodges the question by saying that it’s difficult to answer that. Now, in real life, if you ask someone with unconventional sexual interests why they’re into whatever it is they’re into, they probably only have a vague idea of what the answer might be, since naturally many different factors could be in play. However, I did read this entire book and part of the next one and as such I’m well aware that specific events in Christian’s life gave him a taste for BDSM. We’ll get to that in time.

Ana refuses to eat but has another glass of wine. What a fucking brilliant strategy; getting drunk because she’s uncomfortable with a situation. Especially after it was recently established that Ana doesn’t handle alcohol well, and after Christian reprimanded her for drinking on an empty stomach, why is he even offering her wine right now?

I hate this book.

Ana asks Christian how many subs he’s had previously (fifteen), if he’s been in long-term relationships with any of them (yes, some of them), if he’s ever hurt a sub (yes), badly (no), and if he’ll hurt her. The last question is a little harder for Christian to answer; he tells her that if she breaks the rules he lays out for her, he’ll punish her, and that the punishment will be painful. He does not tell her that this pain is for her enjoyment as much as his. I don’t know if that’s an oversight on his part or if he just doesn’t give a fuck what his subs are feeling as long as they don’t tell him no, but I’m starting to get uncomfortable with how he hasn’t once made it clear to her that a relationship like this is supposed to be enjoyable for both partners. The sub is supposed to like being submissive. May seem obvious, yes, but not to someone like Ana, who clearly knows little to nothing about BDSM.

Feeling faint, Ana takes another sip of wine. Book, no.

Ana asks if Christian’s ever been beaten. He tells her yes, but changes the subject before she can ask a follow-up question.

Christian takes Ana to his study and hands her a sheet of paper. The paper contains a list of rules, all of which are in the book because… I don’t know, it looks like we’re just padding the length here.

Brief summary of the rules: The sub (I’ll use Ana’s name for convenience) is supposed to obey any instruction she receives from Christian, and to agree to any sexual activity he’d like unless that activity is a hard limit for her. Ana is supposed to get at least seven hours of sleep a night on days she isn’t with Christian. There’s a list of foods (thankfully not detailed here) that she’s allowed to eat from — I assume healthy foods, because it’s also mentioned that she’s only allowed fruit as snacks. When Ana is with Christian, she’s only allowed to wear clothes he approves; he’ll provide a clothing budget for her and go clothes shopping with her. Ana will meet with a personal trainer four times a week for hour-long exercise sessions. Ana is expected to keep herself shaved/waxed (it’s not specified where; I’m going to assume legs and armpits, maybe crotch as well), and to visit a beauty salon of Christian’s choosing when Christian decides she needs to. Ana is not allowed to drink to excess, or to smoke, or to take recreational drugs, or to put herself in unnecessary danger. She’s not allowed to have any other sexual partners, is supposed to behave modestly and politely, and should remember that her behavior is a reflection on Christian. Failure to comply with any of the rules will result in punishment, the nature of which will be determined by Christian.

Okay, before we get to Ana’s reaction to this, how about my reaction? You guys like me more than her anyway, right?

Without getting into what it means for a man to tell a woman he’s going to control her body, her behavior, and her life to this extent (BDSM discourse is a can of worms I’d like to avoid as much as possible in this review), this is not a good way to establish ground rules. Christian handed her this list of rules and told her that if she wants to be his sub, this is what she has to do. Does she get to negotiate on any of this? What if there’s something not in this contract at all that she’d like added, or something she wants removed entirely? This book doesn’t seem to recognize that, regardless of the agreed-upon dynamics in a D/s relationship, both partners are supposed to be equals. Christian obviously is a bit older, considerably more experienced, and vastly more wealthy, but a healthy D/s relationship is playacting at power imbalances, not actually depriving the submissive of power. 

If the two of them sat down together and came up with this list of rules, that’d be one thing. But Christian handed a list of rules to Ana and told her “this is what I expect of my subs,” and didn’t even indicate he’s open to negotiation.

Ana tries to negotiate anyway. First she takes issue with the “accepting money for clothes” bit, because it would make her feel like a “ho.” Really? We’re gonna go there? Christian says that he’d like to spend money on her, and that she probably can’t afford the kind of clothes he’d like her to wear. He also clarifies that she can wear what she wants when she isn’t with him, at which point she agrees to the rule.

Then she tries to get her exercise sessions bumped down to three a week. Christian argues with her about it but eventually gives in. (If you’re wondering, the rule is there because Christian apparently needs his subs to be in decent shape — I guess some of the kinky stuff he likes to do requires stamina and/or flexibility.)

They don’t go over the rules too exhaustively, though, because after the argument over exercise (Christian doesn’t get angry with Ana during the negotiations — thank god. I was half expecting him to, though) Christian changes the subject to hard limits. He hands Ana another piece of paper detailing his own hard limits. It’s a pretty short list and I’m not sure why he felt the need to write them down, but regardless: no fire play, nothing that could cause bleeding (such as knives or needles), nothing involving bodily waste, no gynecological instruments, nothing that will leave permanent marks on the skin, no pedophilia (really thought that one could go without saying), and no bestiality (ditto). Also no breath control, because he’s a wuss.

Christian asks Ana if she’d like to add anything to the list. Naturally, she has no clue, and is speechless for a minute while she thinks it over. He prompts her again by asking if there was anything she didn’t like doing when she had sex in the past, at which point she finally admits to being a virgin. Christian, angry, asks Ana “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” End chapter.

Holy Cow! Alert: Not this time, but there’s one “Holy crap!”, one “Holy shit!”, and one “Holy fuck!” It’s the Holy Trinity!

And Now, A Word From Ana’s Subconscious Alert: Only one, shockingly.

[After Ana sees Christian’s playroom] My subconscious has emigrated or been struck dumb or simply keeled over and expired.

Padding Alert: This chapter is eight pages long. One and a half pages are devoted to Christian’s list of rules and his list of hard limits.

Thoughts So Far:

I’m not sure what there is to say that hasn’t been covered already. Christian needs to tell Ana exactly what he’d like to do with her, and, if she’s okay with it, they need to do a few scenes before she agrees to anything. Ana needs to be more assertive and to tell Christian what she wants and doesn’t want, and, if she’s really so freaked out by his kinks that she wants to run, she needs to just give up on him and get out of there. Basically, these two need to start communicating with each other.

On the positive side, the prose in this chapter isn’t nearly so bad as in previous chapters (hence why I didn’t bother doing a “Great Prose Alert” this time around — nothing jumped out at me as outstandingly bad, other than the typo I already pointed out), and both Ana’s “subconscious” and “inner goddess” are being remarkably quiet.

Fifty Shades of Grey - Chapter Six

They get into Christian’s car, which we’re helpfully informed is a black Audi SUV. (There’s actually a lot of product placement in this book. Perhaps I should start doing Alerts for it.) Ana is still a little dazed over the kiss. Actually, more than a little dazed:

As time ticks on, I assign it mythical, Arthurian legend, Lost City of Atlantis status. It never happened, it never existed. Perhaps I imagined it all. No. I touch my lips, swollen from his kiss. It definitely happened. I am a changed woman. I want this man, desperately, and he wanted me.

Wow, um… congratulations?

Christian seems less affected by what just occurred. Ana marvels at how perfectly composed he seems. I for one am glad that he’s perfectly composed, because he’s about to drive a car.

Christian puts on some music (the Flower Duet by Delibes, from the opera Lakmé, he informs Ana later). Ana seems like she’s getting kinda turned on by the music as well. Okay, sure. They start having a conversation about music. Christian claims to like “everything from Thomas Tallis to the Kings of Leon,” depending on his mood. Ana agrees with him.

As they’re in the middle of listening to a Kings of Leon song, Christian gets a call from one of his employees. He answers it over the Bluetooth system in his car, so Ana can hear both sides of the conversation. Basically, the caller just tells Christian “I have the information you require,” and Christian tells him to email it to him and hangs up. I think Ana’s reaction to this might be worth closer analysis, so here it is:

I’m so glad that I never seriously entertained the thought of working for him. I shudder at the very idea. He’s just too controlling and cold with his employees.

See, here’s the thing. Christian almost certainly treats his submissives the same way. What with all the various not-so-subtle hints that the main thing he wants out of relationships (and life in general) is control, and with all his talk of not being a “hearts-and-flowers kind of man” and the contract he keeps mentioning, I think it’s pretty clear what sort of sexual relationships he’s comfortable having. And, you know, if Ana wanted a relationship where she and Christian got together occasionally for some kinky business and didn’t really have any interaction (at least not romantic interaction) outside of that, that would be fine. But she seems to have zero interest in being treated that way. His businesslike manner is off-putting for her, not a turn-on.

If I had a little more faith in the author’s skill, I’d say that she’s just setting up the main conflict here — that these two people are attracted to each other, but one wants a traditional monogamous romantic relationship and the other just wants a casual D/s relationship. In fact, I am reasonably sure that that’s what she’s doing, but I’m worried about how this is going to be handled. If we have one character — in this case Christian — who’s used to getting what he wants, and another character — in this case Ana — who is a passive, sexually clueless doormat, it is a recipe for a whole lot of dubious-consent type scenes, like the elevator scene in the last chapter. And I don’t trust this author to handle that kind of stuff the way it should be handled, because the way it’s been handled so far is “no, it’s totally okay and sexy because Ana likes it.”

Back to the chapter. Christian gets another call from a female employee, and then yet another call from his brother Elliot. Elliot opens the conversation by asking Christian if he got laid. That Elliot, keepin’ it classy! Christian tells him that speakerphone is on and Ana’s in the car. He then asks if Elliot wants to be picked up, since they’re almost to Ana’s place. Elliot says sure and Christian hangs up.

There’s a brief conversation about how Ana prefers to be called Ana and not Anastasia (Christian has been calling her the latter). I’m only mentioning this conversation because once again Christian completely ignores what Ana wants. Book, this is not good. I really don’t think these two should be having sex if one of them is going to constantly disregard the desires of the other.

Christian tells Ana that what happened in the elevator won’t happen again, at least “not unless it’s premeditated.” I’m not even sure what he’s getting at here. Is he admitting that it was wrong of him to do that without her consent? Even if that’s the case, his admission that what he did wasn’t okay is undermined by the book treating the entire thing as OMG SO SEXY, and also by him not apologizing for his behavior. To further prove my point that the book is handling this wrong, Ana mutters that she liked what happened in the elevator. Christian audibly gasps. This is not the first time in the book that he’s audibly gasped, and it’s getting kind of silly.

They go inside and find Kate and Elliot sitting at the dining-room table. Kate looks like she’s in a very good mood, so I take it that she and Elliot had quite a bit of fun the night before.

Kate gives Christian some suspicious looks and is a little hostile when she says hello. Good girl, Kate… except that if you were so against Christian taking Ana home then you should have done it yourself, or at least intervened and made sure that Ana ended up back at your apartment instead of Christian’s hotel room, or MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE JUST CALLED A FUCKING AMBULANCE BECAUSE SHE PASSED OUT FROM DRINKING TOO MUCH.

Ana takes an immediate liking to Elliot for reasons that aren’t terribly clear. I mean, he seems like a friendly, easygoing dude, but he’s a very minimally described friendly easygoing dude, so I’m just guessing from the tiny bit of description that we get. (It’s also confirmed that he and Christian are not biological relatives.)

Before leaving, Elliot kisses Kate, and Ana watches jealously and wonders why Christian can’t kiss her like that.

I believe this deserves a little analysis.

We’ve barely seen anything of Elliot and Kate’s relationship, but I’m going to assume that the two of them were having more or less vanilla sex the night before, that everything was entirely consensual (or as consensual as it can be when both parties are somewhat intoxicated), and that they’re going to wind up having a fairly standard happy relationship with romance and flowers and cuddling and whatever else.

This is the kind of relationship that Ana wants. She doesn’t want a guy like Christian Grey, not really. She’s intimidated by him, and his intimidating side doesn’t seem to turn her on; she finds him physically attractive, but doesn’t seem to like his personality much. However, since she’s never been attracted to anyone before, she’s thinking that Christian is the guy for her simply because he gets her panties wet or whatever, which means that she’ll probably go along with whatever he wants even though the kind of relationship she really wants is a standard romantic vanilla relationship.

Yeah, I don’t like where this is headed.

And then… oh, for fuck’s sake. Elliot and Kate do one of those things where the guy sweeps the girl off her feet while kissing her and dips her “so her hair touches the ground” according to Ana / the author. That isn’t the “for fuck’s sake” part. The “for fuck’s sake” part is that Elliot says “Laters, baby” to Kate after kissing her, and then this happens:

Kate just melts. I’ve never seen her melt before – the words comely and compliant come to mind. Compliant Kate, boy, Elliot must be good.

Now, I want to read this in a positive fashion and just take away from this that Kate’s in a good mood because she had a good night with a nice guy who’s clearly into her, but that’s not how I’m reading this. I’m reading this as “Kate got fucked into submission/compliance,” which is… really bothersome, especially since Kate is the more “dominant” of our two main female characters. I get that some people are domineering in real life and submissive in the bedroom, but this seems as if the author’s implying that all women are naturally submissive types and they just need a man to take charge and bend ‘em over.

Good lord I hate this fucking book so much. Also, no one says “laters, baby” unless they’re a 1950s hep cat. This makes more sense with vampires.

Christian touches Ana’s face a bit (which doesn’t sound terribly great, but oh boy does Ana love it) and then tells her “Laters, baby” too before he and Elliot leave. As soon as they’re gone, Kate immediately asks Ana if she had sex with Christian.

And now I have to go on another rant.

Just a few paragraphs ago, Kate greeted Christian coldly, clearly suspicious that he might have been mistreating Ana. She’s previously expressed distrust of Christian and claimed that a guy like him wouldn’t be good for Ana (and, like I’ve said before, even though she’s right she has no real way of knowing this except for magical powers of intuition). Now she’s excitedly asking if Ana slept with him?

It’s bad because it makes Kate look like she has no real regard for her friend’s wellbeing. It’s bad because the priority here is that Ana is okay, because she fucking passed out the night before. Kate should be making sure her friend is alright, not asking if her friend got any.

But you know what? I can’t even bring myself to pin this on a fictional character like I usually do, because Kate’s entire limited characterization is rapidly falling apart. It’s becoming clear that the author really does not give a shit about the character motivations of anyone but Ana and Grey.

tl;dr This is just lousy writing.

Ana tells Kate that no, she didn’t have sex with Christian. She’s clearly unhappy about this, and expresses jealousy that Kate obviously got to have sex the night before. Now, I feel like this is an important moment for Ana, because her characterization previously has indicated that she’s never been interested in sex before, and only interested in relationships as an abstract concept. The book has made a pretty big deal of her suddenly feeling attraction to Christian and coping with feelings that are new to her, but now she’s actually feeling jealous of a friend for being able to attract men. Is this going to affect her and Kate’s friendship at all? Is she going to be constantly jealous of Kate and Elliot’s relationship because she can’t have that kind of thing with Christian? I don’t have any faith in the author’s skill, so I don’t know if the stuff about her being jealous of Kate is setting up to be anything or not.

Kate asks if Ana likes Christian enough to have sex with him, and she says yes. Kate seems surprised, in a good way, that Ana has finally found someone she’s into. Again, this conflicts with her previous characterization. Author, maybe you shouldn’t be an author.

They giggle good-naturedly for a bit, which is maybe the first time in the story that they’ve actually been friendly to one another so I thought it was worth a mention.

Kate asks Ana about her new clothes, and Ana gives her “all the unexciting details” about the previous night. By which I assume she means everything but the kiss in the elevator, because of course that kiss was totally sexy and not assault oh no.

And yep, I’m right, because Kate’s next question to Ana is if Christian’s kissed her yet. Ana says they’ve kissed once, which Kate scoffs at. Ana explains that Christian is “very reserved” and “odd.” Kate resolves to make Ana “simply irresistible” for her date with Christian that evening. Ana is not thrilled with the prospect of being made simply irresistible, but of course she doesn’t say that because she’s a doormat.

Then this happens:

Under Kate’s tireless and frankly intrusive instruction, my legs and underarms are shaved to perfection, my eyebrows plucked, and I am buffed all over. It has been a most unpleasant experience. But she assures me that this is what men expect these days.

I’m almost willing to dismiss Ana’s complaining as good-natured complaining. Almost, but not quite, because a) she doesn’t seem to want to get shaved, plucked, and buffed, not even for the end result, b) good-natured complaining is not a part of Ana’s personality, at least not thus far, and c) the line about this being “what men expect.” For christ’s sake, honey, if you don’t want to do this then don’t do it! If Christian has such a problem with it, then maybe you two just aren’t a good match. And as for it being what men expect… first off, don’t generalize like that, and second, why does this all have to be about what Grey wants? Assuming that this even is what he wants?

God this book is such rubbish.

After getting shaved and plucked etc., Ana goes to work at Clayton’s. She takes some time to think while restocking. Topics she thinks about include:

Kate’s not trusting Christian. It is weird that this is being brought up considering that Kate just practically forced Ana into getting groomed so that she can have sex with Christian later.

José. Apparently, he’s called Ana’s cell phone seven times and left three messages. He’s also called home twice; Kate’s answered on both occasions and been vague about Ana’s whereabouts, but Ana suspects that José knows Kate is covering for her. Ana is still too angry with José to talk to him, so she’s decided to let him stew for now. This is a little odd — I mean, she definitely has a right to be angry, but she hasn’t expressed anger at him until now.

The paperwork Christian mentioned. Ana isn’t sure if he was joking or not.

Christian picks Ana up after she finishes her shift. They greet each other very politely and formally. There’s little conversation on the way to the heliport, but they do hold hands (Taylor is driving).

The heliport is so minimally described that I don’t even know what exactly to be picturing. Apparently it’s a three-story building in a “built-up area of the city.” The helicopter is on top of the building. It’s got Grey’s company logo on the side, and Ana thinks that this must be a misuse of company property.

An old man tells Grey that the helicopter is ready to go, and Christian thanks him, calls him by name (Joe), and smiles warmly at him. Ana is awed that this fellow is “deserving” of the polite treatment from Christian Grey. Normally I would take the “deserving” bit as mild sarcasm, but with this book? I don’t even know.

The book continues on with no indication of who this Joe fellow is. I’m making a note to remember him for later, because the way he was introduced makes him seem significant. Actually, I’m on book 2 now and no sign of Joe, so I guess he wasn’t important after all? Okay.

Christian fastens Ana into her harness. Foreshadowing, I’m sure, but it’s kind of stupid. I’ve never been in a helicopter, but I assume that the harness is supposed to be kind of like a seat belt; that is, there’s some give to it, otherwise you might get hurt by it. However, apparently Ana is strapped in so tightly that she’s effectively immobilized.

After strapping Ana in, Christian says “You’re secure, no escaping” to her and then kisses her. It’s creepy, because there’s no sense that he’s goofing around and they don’t know each other well enough for that to come off as goofy couple stuff anyway. It’s also creepy because he assaulted her in an elevator in the previous chapter.

There’s a surprising amount of description of Christian flying the helicopter, and of him talking to various air traffic control towers. It’s pretty dull and I feel as if the author is just rubbing her minimal amount of research as to how helicopters work in our faces lest we try to criticize her.

Ana asks Christian if he always impresses his dates this way, and he tells her that, actually, this is the first time he’s taken a date on a helicopter ride with him. We get it, Ana is super special omg.

Christian’s obvious love of flying is commented upon by Ana. He explains that he likes it because of the control and concentration required. I feel like this is supposed to be more evidence of control-freakery, but it actually seems like a perfectly good reason to enjoy a hobby.

The whole way there, Ana is worrying about what Christian might want to do with her in terms of sex things. I mean, it’s a legitimate point of anxiety for someone as clueless as Ana, but why can’t she ask him what he has planned? It’s not as though she has no say in the matter.

They reach Seattle and Christian lands the helicopter on top of a large skyscraper. As he unbuckles Ana, he tells her:

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. You know that don’t you?” His tone is so earnest, desperate even, his gray eyes impassioned. He takes me by surprise.

Well, on the one hand thank you for pointing that out, and on the other hand you’re still trying to manipulate Ana into sex you think she isn’t going to like so this ain’t cutting it.

They get into an elevator, which takes them down to an all-white foyer with a dark wood table in the middle and paintings all over the walls. I think this negates the all-white aspect of the room a little, but what do I know? From there, Christian leads Ana into his living room. It’s double-height, with one wall entirely glass. The room contains a sofa big enough for ten, a fireplace, a kitchen area, a dining table (which sits sixteen), and a grand piano.

Ana is a little overwhelmed by how fancy this place is. In fact, she’s more than a little overwhelmed; she’s internally freaking out.

I want to make this absolutely clear: Ana is legitimately nervous about the entire situation. She doesn’t know what might happen between her and Christian. She feels overwhelmed by his wealth, power and influence. She feels like she is in way over her head. Now, I can completely understand why she might feel that way, and it would be possible for her to feel overwhelmed in a good way, but it doesn’t seem like she’s enjoying this part of the situation at all. She’s there because she’s horny and hopes she’s going to get to sleep with Christian, but literally everything else about the situation is scaring her.

Christian pours himself and Ana a glass of wine each. I’m hoping they stop at one glass, because getting drunk before having kinky sex is a bad idea (if you’re going to be incorporating potentially dangerous activities into your sexytimes, then it’s a good idea to have all your wits about you lest you hurt your partner and yourself). It also reads badly because Christian hasn’t even told her what he plans on doing in terms of sex things yet, so it comes off like he’s trying to get Ana a little drunk so she’ll go along with his desires more readily. I don’t know if that’s the case at all, but I trust neither Christian nor the author and am not terribly willing to give either of them the benefit of the doubt.

They also don’t have anything to eat, which means they’ll get drunk faster. Great.

Tess of the D’Urbervilles gets brought up again. Christian tells Ana that he can “hold [her] to some impossibly high ideal like Angel Clare or debase [her] completely like Alec D’Urberville”. Now, I’ve never read Tess of the D’Urbervilles, but I did just look up the plot on Wikipedia. Angel Clare is the man that Tess loves. Alec D’Urberville… well, Wikipedia didn’t use the word “rape,” they said “callously seduces,” but that sounds kind of like rape to me.

No points for guessing which of these two options Ana says she finds more attractive.

Christian gasps (again with the gasping!) and tells her that she doesn’t know what she’s saying. He’s probably right. However, he goes along with it and pulls out the paperwork he was talking about — a NDA, which he says his lawyer insists on — for her to sign. He explains that if they’re going to go for the debasement option, she needs to agree to the NDA.

Ana asks what the NDA means. Christian tells her it means she can’t tell anyone anything about their relationship. This freaks Ana out, but she’s also very curious, so she says she’ll sign. He hands her the pen and she signs it without reading it.

Okay, so on the one hand the NDA is probably just a bunch of legal jargon best summed up as “do not blab to anyone about our relationship because I am a big fancy important businessman and I don’t want the media knowing about what goes on in my bedroom.” A NDA also doesn’t prevent Ana from getting help if he does hurt her in some way — rapes her, seriously injures her, anything that would be illegal. But does Ana know that? I don’t know if she does, because she is clueless as fuck. There could also be something weird in the NDA that she wouldn’t normally agree to, something other than “don’t tell anyone about us.”

Also, this thing isn’t described as being long. It isn’t like this is a stack of paper and reading through it would just be a big fat pain in the ass.

Christian tries to get Ana to read it, to his credit, but backs down when she says that she wouldn’t talk about their relationship to anyone anyway, not even Kate.

After signing, Ana asks Christian if he’s going to make love to her that night. He replies with:

“…Firstly, I don’t make love. I fuck... hard. Secondly, there’s a lot more paperwork to do, and thirdly, you don’t yet know what you’re in for. You could still run for the hills. Come, I want to show you my playroom.”

Firstly, I’m laughing this is so poorly written oh my god. Secondly, “making love” vs. “fucking hard” is a bullshit distinction, because we don’t even know what those terms mean to Christian, and they probably don’t mean anything to Ana. He needs to explain to her what he means by fucking hard as opposed to making love. I wish we could just get some damn communication here. Ana probably has little to no clue as to what she wants in the bedroom, but that means she needs to say to him “Look, it’s my first time, I don’t know too much about sex, but can you tell me what you like to do and I’ll tell you if that sounds fun to me?”

Ana somehow thinks that “playroom” means “game room” and asks him if he means he wants to play on his Xbox. He laughs at this, and I probably would too except that I hate this story.

They go back out into the corridor and up a staircase. Christian leads Ana to a locked door, and, as he’s unlocking it, tells her that she can leave anytime or stay the night and go home in the morning. Whatever she decides.

Again, this is a nice gesture, but it would help if I trusted you, Grey.

Ana tells him to just open the damn door. Good on you, honey.

He opens the door. Ana walks in and feels as if she’s traveled back in time “to the sixteenth century and the Spanish Inquisition.”

End chapter.

Holy Cow! Alert: None this time, but there’s one “Holy hell!”, four “Holy shit!”s, and one “Holy fuck!”.

And Now, A Word From Ana’s Subconscious Alert: Surprisingly only twice this chapter.

[Ana wonders what she’s doing in Christian’s apartment] You know very well what you’re doing here - my subconscious sneers at me. Yes, I want to be in Christian Grey’s bed.

[After Ana tells Christian that she’d prefer debasement to being held to an impossibly high ideal] My subconscious is staring at me in awe.

Does “Inner Goddess” Mean What I Think It Means? Alert:

[Ana wonders if she’s ready to lose her virginity] My inner goddess glares at me, tapping her small foot impatiently. She’s been ready for this for years, and she’s ready for anything with Christian Grey, but I still don’t understand what he sees in me... mousey Ana Steele - it makes no sense.

I actually want to talk about this one, both because it seems like further proof that “inner goddess” refers to Ana’s lady bits and because it’s totally weird that Ana has to project her sexual desires onto some entity she views as separate from herself. That isn’t normal, it isn’t healthy, and it makes her seem even more seriously repressed than she already is.

Great Prose Alert:

The car interior is filled with the sweetest, most magical music of two women singing.

Christian pulls out on to SW Park Avenue, and he drives with easy, lazy confidence.

It’s a gentle, slow, sweet, and sure assault on my aural senses.

I have to convince Kate that this is what I want to do. For some strange reason, she doesn’t trust him, maybe because he’s so stiff and formal.

The doors close, and it’s there, the weird electrical attraction crackling between us, enslaving me.

Oh My! Alert: Only once this time, thankfully.

Thoughts So Far:

I’m starting to think that this story’s main problem is that the author’s intention doesn’t match up with the way the story actually reads.

For example, we’re supposed to be excited for Ana in this chapter, right? We’re supposed to be looking forward to the sex she’s about to have, right? Well, here’s the problem: as I’ve said before, Ana herself has some major misgivings about the entire situation. She wants to have sex with Christian, but she doesn’t know what sex with Christian is going to entail, she clearly doesn’t feel 100% ready (which is totally understandable, as this is their second date and they haven’t exactly “hit it off”), and she doesn’t feel like she has any control over the situation. Basically, Ana has resolved to passively go along with whatever Christian wants and hope that it works out okay for her.

Christian’s behavior, though understandable to a degree (he’s got a reputation to protect, hence why he needed her to sign the NDA before showing her his playroom) is also off-putting. I give him some credit for at least telling Ana that he doesn’t do romance and has some “singular tastes” — perhaps someone less clueless than Ana would be able to put two and two together — but his trying to pull her into this relationship despite thinking there’s no chance she’ll be into any of this stuff is rather dubious behavior. Besides, has he not picked up on how naïve Ana is? And if he hasn’t, doesn’t that just indicate that they need to get to know one another better before plunging into something like this?

Not to mention, the two of them just have zero chemistry. I assume they have sex in the next chapter, or perhaps the chapter after, and I’m really not looking forward to it in the slightest. What is there to look forward to? These characters have a purely physical attraction to one another, but they’re not well-matched in terms of personality or anything else. Plus, they’re both unlikeable and badly written. Yay!

Fifty Shades of Grey: Chapter Five

Ana wakes up feeling better than one would expect considering all the drinking she did the night before. She doesn’t seem to have a hangover at all. Go figure. She doesn’t know where she is. Her surroundings look vaguely familiar, and she struggles to remember where she remembers them from. Then she realizes she’s in Christian Grey’s suite at the Heathman, and—

—okay, hold it right the fuck there. She passed out in a public area and nobody, not even Grey, thought to call 911? Even disregarding the medical attention Ana should have received, she should not have been taken to Christian Grey’s apartment. Christian sent her a gift, so he knows her address; he doesn’t even have the excuse of “I didn’t know where she lived,” which still wouldn’t be an excuse in any case as he could have asked Kate (or done some more privacy-invading — hey, he tracked her cell phone, how hard would it be for him to find her address?). Why didn’t he take her home?

I doubt Grey did anything out of line beyond the obvious, but waking up in a near stranger’s bed after losing consciousness should be, at the very least, alarming. 

...oh, hell, it gets worse. Ana’s socks and pants have been removed. She is in bed wearing her t-shirt and underwear. This isn’t sexy! This looks really fucking bad! Why isn’t Ana freaking out?

There’s a glass of orange juice and two Advils on the nightstand. Ana thinks that Grey is a control freak for thinking to put those there. It’s the only nice thing he’s done so far in this chapter and has nothing to do with being a control freak, so this comes off pretty judgmental on Ana’s part.

Christian knocks on the door, then enters anyway when she doesn’t respond. Okay, he might have figured she was asleep still, I’ll let this slide. Ana gets turned on because… he’s sweaty and is wearing pants “that hang, in that way, off his hips.” I don’t know where else he’d be hanging his pants from, Ana. Anyway, dude has clearly just been working out. He asks her how she’s feeling; she says she’s feeling better that she deserves, then asks him how she got there. Christian tells her:

“After you passed out, I didn’t want to risk the leather upholstery in my car taking you all the way to your apartment. So I brought you here,” he says phlegmatically.

Uh, first of all, what? Second of all, you’re rich enough that having to potentially get your car cleaned is nothing more than a mild inconvenience, and you probably should have prioritized the wellbeing of an actual person over your upholstery. But okay.

Ana asks if he took her pants off. He did. This scares her, finally, but he assures her he didn’t do anything while she was unconscious and she apologizes for freaking out. No, bad Ana. You don’t have to apologize for getting rightfully disturbed by this situation. You’ve got a right to ask questions. Grow a fucking backbone.

Ana gets annoyed at Christian (thank you, Ana!) for treating the whole thing like it’s funny:

“You didn’t have to track me down with whatever James Bond stuff you’re developing for the highest bidder,” I snap at him. He stares at me, surprised, and if I’m not mistaken, a little wounded. “Firstly, the technology to track cell phones is available over the Internet. Secondly, my company does not invest or manufacture any kind of surveillance devices, and thirdly, if I hadn’t come to get you, you’d probably be waking up in the photographer’s bed, and from what I can remember, you weren’t overly enthused about him pressing his suit,” he says acidly.

Firstly, I don’t care if it’s not hard to do, it’s still illegal and invasive. Second of all, what the hell does your company do? I’m on book 2 and still have no idea. Third of all, implying that José would have raped Ana if Christian hadn’t intervened is in extremely poor taste. Yikes. Also, you had no clue what was going down with José until after you arrived, so not an excuse.

Ana starts laughing over Grey’s use of the term “pressing his suit” and tells him he sounds like a courtly knight. He shakes his head and says he’s more of a dark knight. He’s Batman? 

Christian starts scolding Ana over all the things she did wrong last night — like not eating before going to the bar, and then drinking too much. It’s frankly insulting, because even though he has a point and Ana didn’t make the smartest choices, she’s a grown woman, not a naughty child. If he was her parent, or if they were close friends or partners, he’d at least have the excuse of caring about her deeply, but he barely knows her, so it just comes off as controlling and condescending. He also says that if she were his (author’s phrase, not mine), she wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week. We get it, author, he’s kinky. Ana defends herself to some extent, which is good, I guess, even though he still wins the argument and her points are pretty weak.

They flirt a bit (not worth relating), then Christian leaves the room. Ana finally acknowledges to herself that what she’s feeling is sexual attraction/desire; congrats, honey, you’re like ten years late to this one. She entertains some slightly-naughty thoughts about Christian for a little while. The comparison to a knight is brought up again. Also, the comparison to a literary hero. Author, no, stop.

Christian reenters the room as Ana is searching for her jeans. He tells her they’re in the laundry — he took them off because she threw up on them — and that he sent Taylor (remember him?) out to buy Ana a new pair of jeans and some shoes. Ana takes the bag with the shoes and jeans and heads off to take a shower.

While in the shower, Ana does some thinking:

He said he likes his women sentient. He’s probably not celibate then. But he’s not made a pass at me, unlike Paul or José. I don’t understand. Does he want me? He wouldn’t kiss me last week. Am I repellent to him? And yet, I’m here and he brought me here. I just don’t know what his game is? What he’s thinking? You’ve slept in his bed all night, and he’s not touched you Ana. You do the math. My subconscious has reared her ugly, snide head. I ignore her.

Saying he likes his women sentient doesn’t imply he isn’t celibate. I mean, what? (For context, he said that to assure Ana he didn’t do anything while she was out cold.) José made a highly inappropriate pass while drunk and Paul is just too thickheaded to get a clue. Most bothersome by far here, though, is the opinion that Ana’s “subconscious” is expressing: if Christian were into Ana, he’d have made a move on her unconscious body. Again: yikes!

And then Ana starts washing herself with Christian’s body wash and imagines it’s him doing it. So I guess she’s just discovered masturbation? Sorta? The weird/sad/slightly alarming part is that she appears to have no idea what she is doing. It’s not really a surprise at this point that she doesn’t masturbate, seeing as she’s apparently never had any sort of sexual feelings, but does she not even know what masturbation is?

In all seriousness, Ana’s innocence freaks me out a bit, because it’s not just that she’s a sheltered virgin at 22 and not just that she’s probably on the asexual spectrum or something, it’s that her sexual cluelessness would be way more appropriate coming from a character ten years younger. This also sets her up to be completely sexually dependent on Christian, since her sexuality only exists in relation to him. At this point, though, that’s just the cherry on top of an already unhealthy dynamic.

Christian knocks on the door and tells Ana that breakfast has arrived. Ana quickly gets out of the shower and dresses. Taylor has, for some reason, not only bought her a new pair of pants and some sneakers (the only thing he was asked to do), but a new shirt and new underwear. Uh… okay, that’s a little creepy. Ana rhapsodizes about the underwear for a little while because it’s some kind of fancy lingerie. I fully expect this underwear to figure into the first sex scene because otherwise what is the point?

After dressing, Ana finds Christian in the living area of the suite. She suddenly realizes she’s forgotten to contact Kate and let her know she’s okay. Christian tells her not to worry, he texted Elliot (Christian’s brother, remember, the one Kate was dancing with).

Ana realizes Kate must have had a one-night stand with Elliot and gets kind of upset. Because… well, I’ll just let you read what she says:

Oh no. I remember her fervent dancing of the night before. All her patented moves used with maximum effect to seduce Christian’s brother no less! What’s she going to think about me being here? I’ve never stayed out before. She’s still with Elliot. She’s only done this twice before, and both times I’ve had to endure the hideous pink PJs for a week from the fallout. She’s going to think I’ve had a one-night stand too.

So... slut-shaming, and also a total lack of concern for Kate’s feelings/safety. Nice!

They eat breakfast. Christian scolds Ana about her hair being damp. Um… she just took a shower. This wouldn’t bother me except that he seems genuinely upset over Ana’s damp hair. Ana thanks Christian for the clothes. He says it’s a pleasure and that the color suits her. She’s embarrassed by this, so he scolds her again on how to take a compliment. Good lord.

Ana offers to pay Christian back for the clothes, and he glares at her as though offended. She presses on regardless, pointing out that he’s already spent a lot of money on her by sending her those books (which she plans to send back anyway). He tells her he can afford it. She says that’s not the issue and asks why he would buy her clothes and refuse to be paid back for it. He tells her “Because I can.” Christ, what an asshole.

Ana then asks about the books again. Christian tells her that:

“Well, when you were nearly run over by the cyclist – and I was holding you and you were looking up at me – all kiss me, kiss me, Christian,” he pauses and shrugs slightly, “I felt I owed you an apology and a warning.” He runs his hand through his hair. “Anastasia, I’m not a hearts and flowers kind of man, I don’t do romance. My tastes are very singular. You should steer clear from me.” He closes his eyes as if in defeat. “There’s something about you, though, and I’m finding it impossible to stay away. But I think you’ve figured that out already.”

You do not warn someone away with a gift that expensive, apology or not. A guy with as much money as Christian should realize the effect that his wealth has on people. Having that much cash grants him a pretty enormous amount of power, and for this to be a healthy relationship Ana has to be able to trust him to not abuse his power. And yes, I know, power’s hot and all — but Ana doesn’t think it’s sexy that Christian would spend that much on her, she feels indebted to him. And if she doesn’t think it’s sexy, how are we expected to? Ana’s the character the reader is supposed to identify with.

As for the “I don’t do romance” bit, this isn’t surprising given that it’s a variant on the Edward/Bella dynamic. Edward was afraid to get involved with Bella because he’s a vampire, and Christian is afraid to get involved with Ana because he doesn’t think she’d be into the kind of stuff he’s into (and the reverse). Sure, okay, that’s valid, but he is doing a terrible job of staying away from her. I don’t even think he’s trying.

If she were actively pursuing him, it would be one thing. But there are inanimate objects less passive than Ana. She doesn’t drive the plot, the plot drives her. Christian should have no trouble avoiding her, except that she has inexplicable Sue magnetism.

Anyway. Ana tells Christian that if he doesn’t want to stay away, then he shouldn’t. (She says it a lot more timidly than I just made it sound.) Christian literally gasps at this and tells Ana that she doesn’t know what she’s saying. She asks him to enlighten her. I think this scene is supposed to be hot, but it’s really just silly.

When Christian doesn’t respond, Ana asks him if he’s celibate. What the hell, Ana? Where did you get that from? Just because he says he doesn’t do romance doesn’t mean he doesn’t have sex. Christian is rightly amused by the question and tells her he’s not celibate, then asks her about her plans for the next few days. Ana tells him she’s going to pack for her move to Seattle with Kate. He asks her what she’ll do for work there. She tells him she applied for some internships and is waiting to hear back. Christian asks if she applied to his company. She says no. He asks why not, and she makes what I’m pretty sure she thinks is a clever comment about working for his company vs. being in his company. Actually, I know for a fact that she thinks it’s clever, because she smirks when she says it. Christian asks Ana if she’s smirking at him, and she looks down and bites her lip because he is so hawt omg. He then tells her, and I quote:

“I’d like to bite that lip,” he whispers darkly.

Ana thinks that this is the sexiest thing she has ever heard in her life, but it’s also important to remember that she didn’t know what sexy was until like last week.

She asks him, “Why don’t you?” He tells her that he’s not going to touch her until he has her written consent. She’s puzzled, understandably, and asks him what he means. He says he needs to show her. They arrange to meet after Ana finishes work.

Then… oh, god, I need to quote this part:

“Why can’t you tell me now?” I sound petulant. “Because I’m enjoying my breakfast and your company. Once you’re enlightened, you probably won’t want to see me again.”

What the fuck. No. All kinds of no. This is not how you go about discussing your kinks with a potential sexual partner. He’s basically luring her in, inviting her to stay a little longer and get more attached to him, even though he believes that she would never be into the same things as him and that their relationship could never work.

Christian calls Taylor and says he’s going to need “Charlie Tango.” Ana wonders who that is because she is stupid enough to think that Charlie Tango is someone’s actual name. As is revealed shortly, Charlie Tango is Christian’s helicopter. He plans to take her to Seattle by helicopter that night for their date.

Christian makes a big fuss about Ana finishing her meal. The book has all the subtlety of an axe to the head, so I know this is going to be a plot point later. Probably Christian was poor and hungry as a kid or something like that.

Ana asks Christian where he slept last night. He tells her he slept in bed with her. She’s surprised, and he says it was a novelty for him too. She’s not sure what he means, so he clarifies that “sleeping with someone” was a first for him. Ana takes this to mean he’s a virgin. For christ’s sake.

Ana decides she’d like to brush her teeth:

I eye Christian’s toothbrush. It would be like having him in my mouth.

No, it wouldn’t.

Ana brushes her teeth with Christian’s toothbrush and describes the experience as “naughty” and “a thrill.” Well, whatever gets you off, I guess, but…? This scene is just so weird.

They leave the hotel room together and get in the elevator. As it’s heading down, Christian suddenly turns to Ana and… this happens:

“Oh, fuck the paperwork,” he growls. He lunges at me, pushing me against the wall of the elevator. Before I know it, he’s got both of my hands in one of his in a vice-like grip above my head, and he’s pinning me to the wall using his hips. Holy shit. His other hand grabs my ponytail and yanks down, bringing my face up, and his lips are on mine. It’s only just not painful.

Holy shit, yikes once again.

The paperwork Christian is referring to is almost certainly some sort of BDSM contract that he and Ana would use to define their limits etc. If he doesn’t want to draw up a contract, that’s cool. No one is making him. But you know what? He still needs to fucking get consent before getting rough with Ana in the elevator. Yeah, she expressed an interest in being kissed earlier in the chapter, but not just now, and she never said “I’m fine with you pinning me against the wall and pulling my head back.” This isn’t sexy. It doesn’t read as kinky. It reads as assault.

If Ana had expressed a desire for him to kiss her right there in the elevator, and if it had been previously established (or even implied!) that she’d like him to be rough with her, I would be okay with this. But that isn’t how it’s written.

Ana, of course, enjoys this anyway. Because fuck consent, that’s why.

Christian lets go of Ana as soon as it stops for more people to get on. When the others exit and they’re alone again, Christian asks about Ana brushing her teeth and she tells him she used his toothbrush. What the fuck am I reading?

They leave the Heathman. End chapter.

Holy Cow! Alert: None this chapter, but we’ve got two “Holy crap!”s, three “Holy shit!”s, and one “Holy hell!”

And Now, A Word From Ana’s Subconscious Alert:

[After Christian uses the phrase “If you were mine” when talking to Ana] I flush at the waywardness of my subconscious – she’s doing her happy dance in a bright red hula skirt at the thought of being his.

[As previously quoted, Ana wonders if Christian is attracted to her] You’ve slept in his bed all night, and he’s not touched you Ana. You do the math. My subconscious has reared her ugly, snide head. I ignore her.

[Ana wonders what Christian means by her not wanting to see him again once he “enlightens” her about himself] Don’t lie to yourself – my subconscious yells at me– it’ll have to be pretty bloody bad to have you running for the hills. [Yes, in the original this was entirely italicized, even the part not spoken by Ana’s “subconscious.” Did anyone proofread this garbage?]

[Christian tells Ana that she needs to finish her meal] I’m too excited to eat, Christian. Don’t you understand? My subconscious explains.

Does “Inner Goddess” Mean What I Think It Means? Alert: In addition to Ana’s non-subconscious subconscious, she also begins talking about her “inner goddess” in this chapter, during the scene in the elevator:

Oh, he’s affected all right – and my very small inner goddess sways in a gentle victorious samba.

The reference to “very small” in particular makes me feel as if we’re dealing with something other than a purely mental entity here.

Great Prose Alert:

Oh my… sweat and body wash and Christian, it’s a heady cocktail – so much better than a margarita, and now I can speak from experience.

My heartbeat has picked up, and my medulla oblongata has neglected to fire any synapses to make me breathe. [This is the second time in the book her medulla oblongata has been referred to. Odd.]

Oh my – what would I do to be his? He’s the only man who has ever set my blood racing around my body.

Wow. I am in awe and slightly daunted by this underwear.

“You. Are. So. Sweet,” he murmurs, each word a staccato.

I struggle to keep pace with him because my wits have been thoroughly, royally, scattered all over the floor and walls of elevator three in the Heathman Hotel.

Oh My! Alert: Six times in this chapter alone is the phrase used. Generally in italics.

Thoughts So Far:

At the risk of repeating myself, yikes!

I already covered a lot of the bad things about this chapter in the summary, but I’d like to say a few things — first about Ana’s character, then about Christian’s character.

Remember the part where Ana thinks about Kate and how Kate always gets upset after one-night stands, but somehow manages to make the whole thing all about herself? Well, I’ll tell you why that is. It’s because the entire story is all about Ana. The other characters exist to orbit her like satellites, nothing more. They don’t have wants and needs of their own, and Ana knows it.

Ana is orbiting someone herself, though, and that someone is of course Christian Grey. Notice that, although Ana is the main character, she never drives the plot herself? Of course not. She’s just being tugged along by the magnetic force that is Christian.

And now that we’re onto the subject of Christian, here’s what bothers me the most about the elevator scene. It’s not that he forced himself on an unwilling Ana; indeed, Ana was clearly enjoying herself during that scene. But note that I say “clearly” because, since it’s first-person, I as the reader am privy to Ana’s thoughts. From Christian’s perspective, nothing Ana did indicated that she wanted him to grab her, force her against the wall, and kiss her, and yet he did it anyways just because he felt like it.

Combined with all the various hints that Christian is a man who goes after (and is accustomed to getting) what he wants, always, this is setting up to be a really unhealthy dynamic in his and Ana’s relationship. We got no sense in this scene that she could have stopped him had she wanted to. They haven’t even discussed safewords. Even if she had been able to stop him, he almost certainly would not have taken it well. This isn’t normal dom behavior. This isn’t kinky behavior. This is just straight-up disregard for the importance of consent.

I’m now actively dreading the part where the actual sex scenes begin, and I know that part can’t be long off.

Fifty Shades of Grey: Chapter Four

I’m gonna show you how the chapter opens. Ready?

Kiss me damn it! I implore him, but I can’t move. I’m paralyzed with a strange, unfamiliar need, completely captivated by him.

This is typical of E.L. James’ writing. This is what our author types like when she is trying to be erotic.

Just so you know.

Ana continues to be paralyzed. Christian stares back at her for a little while, then shakes his head and tells her, quote:

“Anastasia, you should steer clear of me. I’m not the man for you,” he whispers.

Now, to be fair, Christian hasn’t done anything outstandingly terrible yet. His main crimes are being a little creepy, being kind of a dick, and being described using flowery adjectives. He doesn’t come off like a horrible guy; he comes off like a rich guy who’s a bit of a douchebag and who isn’t quite sure how to play the dating game. Kate’s wariness of him, while not misplaced (as we’ll see later), suggests precognitive abilities on her part as he’s been completely civil and well-behaved in her presence. 

Also, some of his supposed bad behavior, such as being a “control freak” (Ana called him this a lot in chapter 1), exists only as an informed attribute thus far. Like, I know he is a control freak, I’ve read the whole book, but Ana wouldn’t have a reason to know that yet; his supposed “controlling nature” makes sense when you apply it to business, and isn’t really out of the ordinary.

But why ask Ana on a date if she should steer clear of him? Did he only just now decide that being with her is a bad idea? Why did he decide this?

Christian props Ana back up onto her feet, and Ana proceeds to internally freak out about the fact that Christian did not kiss her. Apparently she’d made it “pretty damned obvious” that she wanted to be kissed. I’m not sure how staring at him without doing or saying anything was supposed to indicate that, especially after he just confessed in the previous chapter that he has trouble reading her, but all fucking right. Couldn’t she kiss him herself? (Oh, that’s right, I forgot: she was paralyzed.)

Ana’s takeaway from the entire encounter is that Christian doesn’t actually like her, which makes fuck-all sense even factoring in her low self-esteem. Her narration made it clear earlier that she could tell Christian wanted to kiss her, but just held off; apparently she’s already forgotten about that.

(Actually, the problem is that this author doesn’t know how to show without telling, so essentially Ana and the readers are privy to all the same information [it being first-person] and Ana just “forgets” or “doesn’t realize” the parts that were supposed to be unclear to her. Even though her own damn narration goes so far as to spell it out for the readers.)

Ana thanks Christian for the tea and the photoshoot, and he wishes her good luck on her exams in the most anguished way imaginable. Ana acts all insulted and flounces off. Then she goes and has a cry.

For a few paragraphs, Ana goes on about how she’s never been romantically rejected. She explains that she never put herself out there because she has too many faults. What are these faults, you ask? Well, Ana is “too pale,” “too skinny,” “too scruffy,” and “uncoordinated.”

"Too pale” never stopped anyone from getting a date. Same with “too skinny,” unless maybe you’re seriously underweight due to illness or an eating disorder, but I very much doubt this is Ana’s problem. "Too scruffy"? Uh... shower more often? Brush your hair? And “uncoordinated” is more of a factor in screwing up dates than in getting them to begin with.

To be fair to Ana, she's insecure, and insecurity often isn't rational. It's quite possible to see all these traits as bad things about yourself, despite society at large viewing them as positive/neutral. But the tone of this is so woe-is-me that I can't help rolling my eyes. 

Ana finally pulls herself together and heads home. As soon as she walks through the door, Kate notices that she’s been crying and asks — in a very aggressive fashion, mind you — what Christian did to Ana. Ana explains that he didn’t do anything, she just narrowly escaped being hit while crossing the street. Kate drops the aggression and switches to sympathy, asking if the coffee date was alright. Ana says it was fine but she won’t be seeing him again. Kate wonders why not, because even though Kate thinks Christian is bad for Ana she still seems to want Ana to be with Christian. Did the author take any time to think about the actual motivations of her characters?

There is a totally unnecessary reference to Greek mythology in this chapter. Ana imagines herself as Icarus flying too close to the sun, with the sun in this metaphor being Christian Grey. It is incredibly clunky and poorly done and I doubt it will be referred to again actually, now that I’ve finished the first book and am on to the second I know that the author actually really loves this metaphor and comes back to it often despite it never adding anything to the story.

Later that night, Ana ponders over what Christian meant by “I don’t do the girlfriend thing.” Somehow she skips all the possible conclusions that make sense, such as “I’m not interested in dating,” “I’m not interested in dating girls,” “I’d be interested in a sexual relationship, but not a romantic one,” “I don’t call my partners my ‘girlfriends’ because it’s not exactly that type of relationship,” and so on, and instead decides that Christian is saving himself for marriage. Yeah. He’s going to get married without ever dating. What, does she figure he’s going to get a mail-order bride?

Ana dreams of Christian again: “gray eyes, leafy patterns in milk, and I’m running through dark places with eerie strip lighting, and I don’t know if I’m running toward something or away from it… it’s just not clear.” In other news, E.L. James still doesn’t understand how symbolism works and that it has to mean something. (And that “leafy patterns in milk” thing is bothering me. I get that it’s a reference to the tea Ana had at the coffee shop earlier, but she used a teabag and she didn’t take milk in her tea.)

Time-skip to Friday. After taking finals, Ana and Kate head back to their apartment to get changed (they’re going out to a bar that night to celebrate), and find a package has arrived, addressed to Ana. There’s no return address or sender’s name, so Ana assumes one of her parents sent it because... I don’t know, do they usually not put their return info on packages? She opens it up and, of course, it’s from Christian Grey. He’s sent her a three-volume set of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and enclosed a card with a quote from Tess. The quote in question is:

Why didn’t you tell me there was danger? Why didn’t you warn me? Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks…

By the way, in the book this is in one of those horrible pseudo-calligraphic fonts, 24-point. Please picture that so you have an idea of the full effect.

Upon opening one of the volumes, Ana realizes it’s a first edition. This tips her off as to the sender, as who but Grey could afford such a thing? Also, who but Grey would try and “warn someone off” with a gift costing multiple thousands of dollars and a vague, intriguing warning? What a dick. I’ll wait till the end of the review to complain more about this.

Ana decides she’ll send the books back to Christian with a quote from some other part of the book (Kate suggests “the bit where Angel Clare says fuck off”) and packs them back in the box. After toasting the end of exams, Ana and Kate head off to the bar.

At the bar, they’re joined by José, who isn’t graduating that year but just wanted to party. Hang on — if he’s a junior and Ana’s a senior, how did Ana meet him on her first day of college like she said she did? Author, are you paying any attention to this stuff? José asks Ana what she’ll do after graduation. Ana explains that Kate’s parents bought Kate a condo in Seattle, so they’ll be moving up there. José’s comment on this is “Dios mio, how the other half live.” Bad author. No. Stop.

Everyone is getting very drunk, especially Ana. I have to give the author credit, because drunk!Ana is actually pretty amusing. Kate, who has “the constitution of an ox,” tells Ana to get her another drink, so Ana staggers towards the bar before deciding she should probably go to the restroom first. There’s a line, so she pulls out her cell phone for something to do while she waits. Ana sees Christian’s number in her call history and decides to give him a ring, maybe to ask about the books he sent.

Christian picks up the phone, and Ana asks him why he sent the books. He quickly figures out she’s been drinking and asks her where she is. She tells him she’s in a bar, and when he asks again specifies that it’s a bar in Portland. Thanks, that’s so helpful. Christian asks how she’s getting home. She tells him she’ll find a way. Now, this really should be the end of the conversation, because she’s an adult and should be able to handle the situation on her own, but of course it’s not the end of the conversation because naturally Christian has to swoop in and “be a hero” or something like that. He keeps asking her where she is, she keeps asking about the books, neither of them get answers, Ana hangs up. She feels pleased with herself for a second before realizing that he didn’t tell her about the books, but she’s drunk and can’t hold onto that thought for very long.

This scene is surprisingly bearable, and, dare I say, even entertaining, so I’d like to give a shout-out to drunk!Ana for being better than the regular version. When drunk, her narration loses all the whininess, pretentious references to literature, and random talk of her “subconscious” that made it so awful. She stops being painfully shy, actually seems to gain a sense of humor (albeit a completely infantile one), and acts self-satisfied with her own drunkenness, which definitely beats her acting insecure about her own gorgeousness. Instead of thinking everything Christian does is sexy, she thinks that everything Christian does is fucking hilarious. When drunk she also has an attention span of about two seconds, which is kind of amusing on its own. 

Anyway, onward. Christian calls Ana back while she’s in the bathroom. He says “I’m coming to get you,” then hangs up. How does he know where she is? Ana freaks out momentarily, then remembers that she didn’t tell him her location and it’s a long drive from Seattle to Portland anyway.

Ana promptly forgets all about Christian and goes to get the beer for Kate. (Somehow she remembers this even though she’s forgotten about everything else that’s happened in this scene. I don’t know.) After drinking a little more, Ana begins to feel nauseous and tells her friends she’s going to step outside for some fresh air. Outside, she starts to realize exactly how drunk she is; she’s seeing double and feels like she’s about to be sick.

José joins Ana outside and asks her if she’s alright. She tells him she’s had too much to drink, and he says he has too. He offers her a hand (for what?) but when she refuses he wraps his arms around her anyway and tries to kiss her. Ana protests, tries to push him away, but he ignores her and starts kissing the side of her face. I know he’s really drunk, but still — is he so drunk he hasn’t noticed that she obviously wants him to stop, or is he just being a complete shithead?

Before José can actually kiss Ana on the lips, Christian shows up. José, startled, lets go of Ana, who promptly vomits all over the ground. Christian helps her over to a flowerbed and holds her hair back while she throws up a few more times. José watches this for a bit and then slinks off.

Ana’s narration stops being amusingly drunken. I don’t know if this is because a non-amusing thing just happened, or because the alcohol is wearing off, or because Christian is there, but I suspect it’s because of Christian. Ana is really embarrassed to have just thrown up in front of Christian, and apologizes to him for it and the phone call. He asks her if she’s been drunk before. She hasn’t.

Ana begins to feel dizzy and lightheaded. Christian holds her so she won’t fall and tells her he’ll take her home. I still don’t know how he found her, or how he got there so quickly. (I guess he wasn’t in Seattle? Maybe he was still at the hotel?) Ana says she needs to tell Kate that Christian is giving her a ride. Christian says his brother can tell Kate, because, as it turns out, Kate and Elliot are talking right now.

Christian explains why and how he and his brother are there. Christian is still staying at the Heathman. His brother was there with him when Ana called. Christian found Ana by tracking her cell phone.

Tracking her cell phone.

Ana thinks that this sounds like illegal stalker behavior, which it is, but she doesn’t mind because it’s Christian. Well, I fucking mind, and Ana should too, since she barely knows the guy. Tracking someone’s phone is illegal, it is stalker behavior, it is a huge invasion of privacy, and it’s not excusable in this situation. I’d let it slide if Ana’s life was in danger; hell, even if she let it slip that she felt threatened, there’d be some justification. But at the time Ana called, she wasn’t in any sort of danger, unless you count being in danger of losing her lunch. Christian didn’t know about the José thing because it hadn’t happened yet, and his showing up at the right moment to save her (the precise moment before José was about to kiss her on the lips) was nothing more than an extremely contrived coincidence. 

And, alright, I guess I get why Ana isn’t too bothered about this right now — she feels really sick, she just got assaulted by a friend, she’s drunk, maybe the stalking thing feels like the least of her worries. But once some time has passed and she’s sobered up, you can bet she’s not gonna be mad about it. Because Christian happened to be there at the right moment to save her ass, and because she thinks he’s hot, he gets a free pass on any bad behavior. I hate this.

We’d be here all night if I kept complaining. On with the chapter, I guess.

Ana tells Christian again that she has to talk to Kate, otherwise Kate will worry. I don’t know, none of your friends seemed too worried about you being drunk out of your mind when you’ve never gotten drunk before, so I don’t know why getting a ride home from Christian would be so much more worrying. Christian is annoyed that Ana wants to tell Kate she’s getting a ride home. Because…? There doesn’t seem to be a reason. Okay, so now Christian is legitimately being a control freak, but Ana doesn’t seem to think this is control-freaky behavior, even though she thinks practically everything else he does is control-freaky.

This book is such garbage.

Ana goes back into the bar with Christian. She finds their table, but Kate’s not there. Neither is José. In fact, no one is there except for Levi, the photographer for the student paper. He tells Ana that Kate is on the dance floor. Ana finds Christian and suddenly gets turned on because… he smells nice? I don’t know, read it yourself:

I touch Christian’s arm and lean up and shout in his ear, brushing his hair with my nose, smelling his clean, fresh smell. Oh my. All those forbidden, unfamiliar feelings that I have tried to deny surface and run amok through my drained body. I flush, and somewhere deep, deep down my muscles clench deliciously.

He smells clean, you say? How sexy! The bare minimum in personal grooming! Also, Ana, stop referring to your genitals as “somewhere deep, deep down.” It’s not the fucking Underland. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that that nice feeling originates from between your legs, you nitwit.

Christian gets called a control freak by the narration again. This time it’s because he… ordered Ana a glass of water. And was served it immediately. How long is it supposed to take to give someone a glass of water? If I had a hard copy of this book instead of a PDF, I would throw it against the wall. Actually, I’m kind of tempted to just put the PDF on a flash drive and throw that against the wall, but I don’t want to risk breaking the flash drive.

After Ana drinks the water, Christian leads her onto the dance floor. Ana freaks out because she can’t dance and — wait, why are they dancing? They’re supposed to be finding Kate, then getting out of there because Ana can barely stand on her own two feet. But no, they just start dancing. Ana speculates that she’s able to keep up because she’s drunk. I doubt that is how that works.

They spot Kate, who is flirting aggressively with Christian’s brother Elliot. Ana is shocked by this for some reason. It’s not that she’s concerned that Kate might not be thinking clearly because she’s had a lot to drink, so I guess it’s because she thinks Kate is being awfully slutty or something. I hate this book. Christian says something to Elliot (who was probably Jasper in the original, because he’s tall with curly blond hair). Kate spots Ana and just grins and waves. After all that, Ana doesn’t even tell Kate about going home with Christian, because Christian pulls her off the dance floor. Sure, he probably told Elliot what was going on, but still — this is legitimate control freak behavior, and it isn’t even commented on. I hate this book.

Ana thinks vaguely about finding Kate and giving her the “safe sex lecture,” but that thought doesn’t last long, as her head begins swimming, the world goes foggy, and she passes out in Christian’s arms.

The chapter ends there. Thank god.

Holy Cow! Alert: 

Holy cow – he’s leading me onto the dance floor.

Bonus: two “Holy shit!”s, two “Holy crap!”s, one “Holy fuck!” and — wait for it — one “Holy Moses!”

And Now, A Word From Ana’s Subconscious Alert:

[Ana is sad because Christian didn’t kiss her] What would Christian Grey want with you? My subconscious mocks me.

[Ana is still sad because Christian didn’t kiss her] Stop! Stop Now! – My subconscious is metaphorically screaming at me, arms folded, leaning on one leg and tapping her foot in frustration.

[Ana wonders if Christian is saving himself for marriage] Well not for you, my sleepy subconscious has a final swipe at me before unleashing itself on my dreams.

[Ana wonders if it’s legal for Christian to track her phone] Stalker, my subconscious whispers at me through the cloud of tequila that’s still floating in my brain, but somehow, because it’s him, I don’t mind.

[Ana is embarrassed that Christian saw her drunk] Oh Ana… are you ever going to live this down? My subconscious is figuratively tutting and glaring at me over her half moon specs.

There’s also a special appearance by Ana’s “psyche,” which screams NO! when Christian doesn’t kiss her.

Great Prose Alert:

Oh no… not the Katherine Kavanagh Inquisition. I shake my head at her in a back-off now Kavanagh way – but I might as well be dealing with a blind, deaf mute.

Yes, I manage to sound matter of fact.

Inside I’m doing graceful cartwheels around my head, knowing full well that’s the only place I can do graceful cartwheels.

I recognize the quote from Tess. I am stunned by the irony as I’ve just spent three hours writing about the novels of Thomas Hardy in my final examination. [Okay, normally I prefer to post these without comment, but... holy shit, the author has no idea what “irony” means.]

Okay… so his gray eyes are still haunting my dreams, and I know it will take an eternity to expunge the feel of his arms around me and his wonderful fragrance from my brain.

“I’m not the strange one, you are,” I accuse. There – that told him, my courage fuelled by alcohol.

His tone is so, so dictatorial, his usual control freak. I imagine him as an old time movie director wearing jodhpurs, holding an old fashioned megaphone and a riding crop. The image makes me laugh out loud.

In my groggy frame of mind, he looks yummy.

Foreshadowing Alert:

In the back of my mind, my mother’s often-recited warning comes to me: Never trust a man who can dance.

(Is that an actual saying? Is this a saying in the UK? Did the author make it up? I know I’ve never heard it.)

Thoughts So Far:

This chapter started out bad, went through a brief period of being okay, then took a nosedive into Completely Fucking Awful territory.

To start off with something relatively minor: Christian’s not kissing Ana in the beginning. I’m not going to pass comment on Christian’s change of heart, because we don’t know his reasoning yet, but I am going to complain about Ana, or, more specifically, what it says about the author that Ana believes that women cannot be the ones to initiate the first kiss. The thought that she could kiss Christian does not even cross her mind — it’s a given to her that he would have to make the first move, and this implies that the author expects it to be a given to the readers as well. And I don’t even think I have to explain why that’s shit.

But there are bigger problems in this chapter. Christian’s present to Ana, for example. What the fuck? What kind of asshole tries to warn someone off with a gift worth thousands of dollars? I mean, outside of a context where someone is getting paid to stay quiet, this makes no sense, and I can’t even tell whether it’s intended as manipulation or is just incredibly thickheaded. Giving someone a present that expensive is a way of making them have a debt to you, especially when it’s someone you don’t know well; it seems a little too likely that Grey is doing this because he wants Ana to owe him something. But, on the other hand, it could be the gesture of a clueless rich dude who doesn’t understand that a gift worth pocket change to him comes off as outlandishly extravagant when given to a middle-class acquaintance. I have no idea if I should be mad at Christian for being manipulative or if I should infer from this that Christian doesn’t know how to interact with people other than by throwing money at them, and that in itself pisses me off.

I think I’ve already made my point about how awful the cell phone tracking incident was, but I want to emphasize: just because something ended up working out for the better doesn’t mean it was okay to do in the first place. The author has a big problem with this (as we’ll see in later chapters); she’ll have Christian do something that’s basically horrible, but because it ended up causing something good to happen, or because Ana didn’t mind (or actively enjoyed it), the implication is that what Christian did was okay. And it’s not. And I hate that I even have to explain this because it should be obvious as hell.

I don’t want to overlook José’s behavior in this chapter, but, since the way his assault of Ana is handled by other characters in later chapters is really weird, I’ll wait to talk about it.

The only thing bearable about this chapter was drunk!Ana, a character we sadly never see again despite Ana being drunk at several other points in the story. Rest in peace.

Fifty Shades of Grey: Chapter Three

Ana calls Kate and tells her that she bumped into Christian at Clayton’s. Kate, who is very excited by the news for reasons I’m unsure of, says that that seems like a huge coincidence and speculates that Christian was there to see Ana. If one of the author’s characters is calling attention to the weirdness of Christian’s presence, either it’s lampshading or he really was there to see Ana. I hope it’s the former.

When Ana tells Kate she’s got his cell number so they can call him up and organize a photo shoot, Kate gasps and says that Christian definitely likes Ana. Well, yes, he does, but giving Ana his cell number for business reasons is not indicative of that. Ana stops paying attention because she’s gleefully thinking something along the lines of “omg he likes me,” and I’m honestly relieved that for once she’s not denying the obvious.

Kate wonders aloud who they’ll get to do the photo shoot, since the regular photographer is out of town for the weekend. Ana suggests José. We all saw it coming, but still: raise your hand if you’re less than thrilled at the prospect of another manly-man, I-like-Ana-more-than-you glaring contest!

Ana wants Kate to be the one to call Christian about the shoot, but Kate shoots (geddit) that idea down because Ana’s the one who knows the guy. Yeah, but Kate’s the one who wants the photos, so at the very least she should tell Ana what to arrange for the shoot, right?

As Ana’s leaving a message for José, Paul enters and asks Ana how she knows Christian. She explains about the interview. Paul asks her if she wants to “grab a drink or something this evening.” Ana explains that:

Whenever he’s home he asks me on a date, and I always say no. It’s a ritual. I’ve never considered it a good idea to date the boss’s brother, and besides, Paul is cute in a wholesome all-American boy-next-door kind of way, but he’s no literary hero, not by any stretch of the imagination.

What the hell is Ana’s preoccupation with being able to date a literary hero? Why does the author think she can convince us that Grey qualifies as one when he isn’t heroic and doesn’t appear in any literature?

Ana first tries to sidestep the date question, then tells Paul maybe some other time, as she’s got studying to do. I’m honestly not sure whose side to be on; I mean, I wanna side with Ana, but I also want to give Paul the benefit of the doubt and if Ana always says “maybe another time” then there’s an implied invitation for him to keep asking. But, hell, how long has this been going on? Can Paul not take a hint or does Ana just not have the guts to reject him outright? I can’t tell which, because this book is shit.

...eh, wait, never mind, right after this he says to her, “Ana, one of these days, you’ll say yes.” I’m on Ana’s side. That’s straight-up disrespectful. Fuck off, Paul.

We cut to Ana at home. José calls her back, telling her that he photographs places, not people. This seems like a legit concern to me, but no one else takes it seriously, because even though these people are supposed to be “friends” they don’t actually give a shit about each other, I guess. Kate grabs the phone and tells José that if he wants the student newspaper to cover the opening of his show, he’ll do the shoot. That’s great except by the time José’s show opens Kate will have graduated so she won’t be in control of the paper anymore. José caves and agrees to do the shoot the following day. Kate hands the phone back to Ana and tells her to call Christian and figure out the time and place.

When Christian picks up, he sounds cold until he realizes it’s Ana, at which point he changes to sounding seductive. Ana, realizing she’s blushing, hastily leaves the room so Kate won’t see. (Of course, Kate notices anyway and teases her over it later.) To cut to the chase and skip the UST, Christian says they can have the shoot at nine-thirty the next morning at the hotel he’s staying in. Ana relays this to Kate, who gives the hotel’s manager a call to set up the shoot.

Ana dreams of Christian again that night:

Dreaming of smoky gray eyes, coveralls, long legs, long fingers, and dark, dark unexplored places.

“Writing is better if you use a bunch of superfluous adjectives but keep everything so vague that no one knows what you’re talking about anyway.” -this author, probably

The next morning Kate, Ana, José, and José’s friend Travis (described as José’s “gopher” — uh, I think you mean “gofer”) head over to the hotel, taking two cars because they can’t fit themselves plus all the equipment in one. Kate’s phone call the night before landed her a room to use free of charge for the shoot provided the hotel gets a credit in the article. This room is upgraded to a suite when she mentions that the photographs will be of Christian Grey. (It’s just a regular-sized suite, though, because Christian is already in the largest suite in the building.)

Kate gets the place set up — that is, she bosses everyone else around until they get the place set up — and half an hour later Christian Grey shows up. He is dressed in a white shirt and gray flannel pants, and Ana’s mouth goes dry looking at him. Ana, you might want to have that checked out.

They take about five minutes’ worth of pictures. To the author’s credit, there is no José-vs.-Christian staredown as I was expecting. At the end of the shoot, Christian shakes hands with Ana and José, then asks Ana to walk with him. She obliges, and Christian asks her if she’d like to go out with him for coffee. Ana has an internal freak-out and says she has to drive everybody home (which is true). Christian calls to his driver, a buzz-cut man in his thirties named Taylor (I don’t know if that’s his first or last name), and tells him to drive Ana’s friends and the equipment home. He then asks Ana again if she can join him for coffee. I get that this is supposed to be cute or something, but really it’s just control-freaky and I would be much more comfortable with it if he’d just offered to have Taylor drive the people and stuff home instead.

Ana says Taylor doesn’t have to drive them home, she’ll just switch cars with Kate (all the people and equipment, other than Kate, were in Ana’s car). Christian gives her a big grin, and Ana heads back into the room to tell Kate. Kate launches right into her “Ana, he likes you” spiel before Ana can even get a word out, then delivers the story’s best line so far: “But I don’t trust him.”

Ana interrupts Kate and explains about swapping cars so she can go on a coffee date. This renders Kate speechless temporarily, but then she goes right back to being the best character in this shitheap of a story:

“Ana, there’s something about him.” Her tone is full of warning. “He’s gorgeous, I agree, but I think he’s dangerous. Especially to someone like you.”

By “someone like you,” she means someone as sexually inexperienced/oblivious as Ana. And she’s damn right, too. Of course, Ana doesn’t listen and insists it’s just coffee and that she won’t be long. Kate grudgingly hands over the keys and tells Ana that if she’s late, she’ll send out search-and-rescue.

They head out for coffee. Christian asks Ana how long she’s known Kate (since freshman year) as they wait for the elevator, and when the elevator arrives a young couple are inside making out. (Foreshadowing!) The couple quickly separates as Ana and Christian enter. Christian holds hands with Ana while in the elevator, which to Ana is extremely exciting.

Ana and Christian walk the four blocks to the Portland Coffee House, still holding hands. When they get inside, Christian offers to order the drinks while Ana finds them a table. Ana orders English Breakfast tea (oh you British author you) because she doesn’t like coffee. Christian returns with the stuff (Ana’s tea, his coffee, plus a blueberry muffin for himself). Ana puts the teabag in the pot and fishes it out again seconds later. What? I don’t know how long you’re supposed to brew English Breakfast tea (I’m an Earl Grey fan myself) but I’m betting it’s longer than five seconds. Otherwise, you’re just drinking hot water, and that’s disgusting. Christian gives her a quizzical look, and she explains:

“I like my tea black and weak,” I mutter as an explanation.

First of all, this is begging for a follow-up comment of “just like my men.” Second of all, that’s not weak tea, that’s strong water. You’re supposed to brew black tea for three minutes. Gosh.

Christian asks, out of the blue, if José is Ana’s boyfriend. If that were true, wouldn’t that make this date + all the handholding and flirting and UST a little weird? Ana explains that no, he’s just a very close friend of hers. Christian is satisfied with this answer and starts in on his muffin before asking if Paul is Ana’s boyfriend. (Sheesh, Christian, a little jealous, aren’t we?) Ana explains again that he’s just a friend and asks Christian why he’s curious. He replies that she seems nervous around men. She confesses that she finds him intimidating.

I’d generally expect Christian to reassure her at this point, to tell her she doesn’t need to be nervous, but instead he tells her verbatim that she should find him intimidating. As always with this story, this is more than just a nod to his wealth and power. Given that these two are not in a sexual relationship and are in fact just getting to know each other, Christian’s constant nods to his sexually controlling nature definitely constitute red flags — he hasn’t determined whether or not Ana is even into dominant men, but he acts like this anyway. 

In what is almost certainly a nod to Edward’s inability to read Bella’s mind in Twilight, Christian tells Ana that he finds her “mysterious,” and “very self-contained.” Ana is surprised by this and asks him if he always makes such personal observations. He asks if he’s offended her, she says he hasn’t (which is true) but that he’s very high-handed. His response:

“I’m used to getting my own way, Anastasia,” he murmurs. “In all things.”

It’s as if the author is worried we’ll forget the basic premise of the book if she doesn’t keep reminding us that Christian is a Dominant.

They chat a bit more, and to Ana’s credit she doesn’t act like a complete doormat. Nearly a page and a half passes with no blushing on Ana’s part, which must be some sort of record, and she actually manages to talk to Christian without mumbling or looking down at the floor. For whatever reason — probably just an excuse for more exposition — they begin talking about their families. (Or, rather, take turns interrogating each other about their families.) Ana reveals that her dad died when she was a baby (she doesn’t say how), and that she lived with her stepdad for a time when she was in her mid-teens after her mom married Husband #3. Christian tells Ana that his father is a lawyer and his mother a pediatrician. One of his siblings, his brother Elliot, is a construction worker, and the other, his little sister (no name given), is in Paris studying to be a chef. Since he’s adopted, I don’t know if his siblings are biological relatives. Ana gets the sense while Christian’s talking that he doesn’t like talking about his family. The subject changes to travel. Ana’s never left the States, and says she’d like to go to England to see where all her favorite dead British authors lived.

Suddenly, Ana remembers she’s got to go home and study for her exams. She tells Christian, who offers to walk back to the hotel with her. They’re quiet most of the way there (Christian at one point asks Ana if she always wears jeans, to which she replies “Mostly”), until Ana suddenly blurts out, “Do you have a girlfriend?” He smiles at her and says he doesn’t do the girlfriend thing. She tries to figure out what that means, but Ana apparently can’t think and walk at the same time, as she immediately trips crossing the street. Grey pulls her up and against him, she looks up expecting to be kissed, chapter ends.

Holy Cow! Alert: None this chapter, but there’s “Holy crap!” (3x), “Holy hell” (once), and “Holy shit” (once).

And Now, A Word From Ana’s Subconscious Alert:

[Ana thinks Paul is cute, but not a literary hero] Is Grey? My subconscious asks me, her eyebrow figuratively raised. I slap her down.

[Ana wonders why Christian is asking her out for coffee] Maybe he thinks you haven’t woken up yet, my subconscious whines at me in a sneering mood again.

[Ana resists the urge to grin when Christian holds her hand] Try to be cool, Ana, my subconscious implores me.

[Ana thinks that maybe Kate is more Christian’s type] And she’s beautiful, my subconscious reminds me.

Britishing Alert: E.L. James is British. The characters she is writing about are not. This means that occasionally the characters end up saying or thinking things that I feel fairly certain no American young adult would say or think. Such as this:

[After Ana snaps at Kate] She blinks at me with surprise – I very rarely throw my toys out of the pram – and I briefly relent.

“Throw my toys out of the pram”? I’ve never even heard that phrase. “Pram” is not a word people in the US say all that often.

I wonder, how hard would it have been to simply rewrite the story to be in the UK? Now that it’s no longer trying to be Twilight fanfiction, it has no real reason to be taking place in Washington State.

Thoughts So Far:

Compared to the previous two chapters, I don’t actually think this one was that bad. It is important to note, however, that I still thought it was bad.

Ana seems to be behaving a little more like a normal person around Christian, in that she spends less time being a blushing puddle of OMG SEXUAL FEELINGS THAT SHE’S NEVER BEFORE EXPERIENCED and more time actually talking to him like a normal human. Or, should I say, somewhat like a normal human. She also seems a little less blatantly submissive in this chapter; when Christian asks probing questions, she asks them right back. I’m honestly a little impressed with her. Again, however, note that I am setting the bar so low that it is actually six feet under and you have to use a shovel to go below it.

Also, I like Kate. Thank god someone in this story has enough sense to recognize that a guy like Christian is not really the best thing for Ana. Sure, on the other hand the author is just setting up the “omg forbidden love!111!11!1” aspect of this relationship, but at least I’ve got someone to agree with now.

While we’re on the subject of Kate, I’ve been thinking about her character, and I think she was made to be tough and beautiful because the author wanted to counterbalance Ana’s submissive tendencies by having her best friend lean in the opposite direction. (Thus, in theory, avoiding being criticized for making women out to be a bunch of delicate, submissive little flowers.) In fact, Kate is portrayed to be nearly as commanding as Christian, leading to lines like this (context: Kate has just told Ana to do something for her):

Yes, Mistress. She is so domineering. I roll my eyes, but do as I’m told.

Now this is a D/s relationship I can get behind!

Seriously, though, Kate and Ana have more chemistry than Christian and Ana do, and that’s kind of sad because neither pair has a whole lot of chemistry.

To his credit, Christian is being less creepy than I expected him to be. He definitely has his moments of creep, but it’s not so bad in this chapter, which gives me hope. False hope, probably, but still hope!

Next time: find out if Ana and Christian kiss! (I’m betting they won’t, because there is no elevator there for them to kiss in, and it’s only chapter four. But still!)

Fifty Shades of Grey: Chapter Two

Ana literally dashes out of Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc. HQ. Why? I'm not really sure. She then goes on to be completely befuddled as to why Christian has affected her so. Is it his looks? His civility? Wealth? Power? (Yes. What civility? Yes. Yes.)

The question of Ana's sexuality is going to come up again later in this review, so I want to make it perfectly clear what is going on: Ana is not simply confused because she has never felt this way about somebody, she's confused to a degree that implies she has no idea what a sexuality is. The entire concept seems foreign to her. It's a very weird characterization decision, but we'll talk more about all this later. Moving on.

On the drive home, Ana reflects on Christian some more. She concludes that he's handsome but a dick, then revises this conclusion and decides that since he's incredibly wealthy, his being a dick is justified. Can someone other than Ana be protagonist instead? Like, literally anyone else?

We cut to Ana arriving home. Home for her is a duplex apartment that Kate's parents bought for Kate to live in, because apparently everyone save Ana is made of money. Ana pays rent but it's dirt cheap since she and Kate are best friends. She's lived here for the past four years. (Implying she and Kate met before college, though IIRC later chapters contradict this. But, y'know, why bother having your story make sense?)

Kate and Ana discuss the interview. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but this author is dreadful at dialogue. Kate and Ana don't sound like college-age best friends holding a conversation with each other. They barely even sound like human beings. Without any prompting, and oblivious to what Kate is actually talking to her about, Ana launches into multiple descriptions of Christian Grey. Here’s one of them:

“Mostly he was courteous, formal, slightly stuffy – like he’s old before his time. He doesn’t talk like a man of twenty-something. How old is he anyway?”

Old before his time? How sexy! He’s twenty-seven, by the way, as Kate helpfully informs Ana and the reader. They continue to talk to each other in a way that does not in the slightest resemble normal human communication, ending when Ana announces that she’s going to her job at Clayton’s. Kate makes a cursory attempt to convince her otherwise then immediately gives up.

Clayton’s is a hardware store — the largest independent hardware store in the Portland area. What a claim to fame. Ana’s worked there since she started college. (Incidentally, Ana goes to Washington State University.) Ana inelegantly uses the topic of hardware stores to tell us that she’s “crap at any DIY” and “much more of a curl-up-with-a-book-in-a-comfy-chair-by-the-fire kind of girl.” I don’t care! Ana arrives at her job and gets to work stocking shelves.

And then cut to… Ana back home. Why was that entire hardware scene necessary? Kate is busy typing up the interview. When she sees Ana, she wonders aloud why Ana didn’t accept Christian’s offer to show her around, since Christian obviously wanted to spend more time with her. This is evidently not the sort of wondering that requires answers, as none are forthcoming and Kate immediately goes back to her work, leaving Ana to fidget and bite her lip over the thought of Christian wanting to spend more time with her. Kate pays no attention. These two are best friends?

A bit later, Kate brings up how good-looking Christian is, and Ana feigns disinterest in the subject. Kate doesn't buy her disinterest and says that even Ana can't be immune to Christian's good looks. I guess it's pretty established that Ana doesn't get attracted to people. They argue about whether or not Grey has taken an interest in Ana (Kate thinks he has, Ana's sure he hasn't).

Kate also reveals that she threw in the “gay” question because she’d never seen Christian with a date in the society pages. Does Kate know that gay people can date too?

Ana works on an essay (on Tess of the D’Urbervilles) until midnight, then goes to bed and has vague dreams about Christian Grey. Really vague. Like, here’s the entire sentence describing them:

That night I dream of dark places, bleak white cold floors, and gray eyes.

See what I mean?

The rest of the week goes smoothly for Ana and Kate. They do their normal college kid shit. You know the action is really heating up when the author doesn't even bother describing it.

Ana gives her mother in Georgia a call and learns that her mother is taking up candle-making. It seems her mother has no actual job and just tries random things to keep herself occupied. Is Ana’s mother permanently five years old? For that matter, is Ana herself permanently five years old? It could potentially explain a lot. Ana’s mother is on her fourth husband, and the latest one — creatively named Bob — is apparently “keeping an eye on her” in Ana’s absence. Boy, those womenfolk sure do need lookin' after, men, amirite? Ana’s mother suspects that Ana’s met someone because Ana hesitates at one point while talking. Okay.

Ana also calls her stepdad Ray (I guess her real dad is dead or otherwise out of the picture, because this guy — husband #2 of Ana’s mother — is who she considers to be her father). Ray is, like Bella’s dad, a quiet dude who seems perfectly content spending all his time doing man things like watching soccer and fishing. Also carpentry, which I guess is his job. Ana’s conversation with Ray is not even described, which makes me wonder why it even needed mentioning.

On Friday night, Ana’s friend José shows up unannounced with a bottle of champagne. José, who I’m pretty sure is this story’s Jacob Black except Mexican instead of Native American, has been friends with Ana since the first day of college. It also turns out that their dads were in the same army unit, so now their fathers are friends too. I don’t care! José is an engineering major even though his passion is photography. Through Ana’s narration, we learn that José is the first in his family to go to college. I wonder if the author majored in Racist.

José says he has news, and Ana asks him if the news is that he’s managed to avoid being kicked out for another week. Given that I don’t even know what he could possibly be kicked out for, as he sounds like a pretty good student and person from the author’s brief description, this joke was rather less hilarious than it was possibly intended to be. José’s news is actually that a gallery in Portland is going to be exhibiting some of his photos next month. Ana hugs him and Kate says she’ll put it in the paper. José then asks Ana to come to the opening with him, but the way he says it makes it sound like he’s asking her on a date. Ana gets embarrassed, because she likes José a lot but not as anything other than a friend, and she knows he’s got a crush on her. According to Ana:

He’s cute and funny, but he’s just not for me. He’s more like the brother I never had. Katherine often teases me that I’m missing the need-a-boyfriend gene, but the truth is – I just haven’t met anyone who… well, whom I’m attracted to, even though part of me longs for those trembling knees, heart-in-my-mouth, butterflies-in-my-belly, sleepless nights.

I mean, this could be cool asexual/aromantic representation except that we all know what Ana spends the rest of the book doing. 

Ana continues her reflections:

Sometimes I wonder if there’s something wrong with me. Perhaps I’ve spent too long in the company of my literary romantic heroes, and consequently my ideals and expectations are far too high.

See, I hate this because I know the author wants Grey to be a Byronic hero and that's going to be the reason Ana's attracted to him and not anyone else. Well, guess what? In order to write a Byronic hero you have to be able to actually write.

Ana is quick to point out to herself that she’s felt attracted to Christian, then immediately dismisses the idea and decides that she wasn’t attracted to him after all. She never answers José and the scene ends without resolving a damn thing.

The next day, Saturday, Ana is working at Clayton’s. For some reason, the store is incredibly busy. (Ana says it’s because it’s the start of the summer season. I’ll go along with that, as I know nothing about hardware stores and when they’re busy.) Around lunchtime, there’s a lull and Ana sits down to eat her lunch while checking on some orders. Then she glances up and sees Christian Grey standing at the counter. In the words of Ana’s narration: Heart failure. (And yes, it’s italicized.)

Christian greets her fairly politely, though the whole time he’s staring at her intently in a way that I pictured as being kind of creepy, so I don’t know how polite that is. He explains to Ana — who has of course been rendered practically speechless — that he was in the area and needed to “stock up on a few things.” Let me guess: rope? Ana's narration goes on and on about how he is the “epitome of male beauty” or something before the plot finally resumes and she manages to ask him what she can help him with. His reaction is to smile, “like he’s privy to some secret,” which I imagine means that he wants to tell her he has a nine-inch steel rod he’d like her to inspect for him or something else of that nature. Instead, he tells her he’d like some cable ties. Cable ties are intended for use with cables, usually electronics, but yes, Grey does want them for the reason you're thinking.

(Side note: Christian is not in the area to see Ana. He’s funding research at the university she attends and wanted to check in on how it was going, or something like that. He may well be at the hardware store to see her, though, which would be highly creepy.)

Ana leads him to the cables while wondering what he’s going to use them for. Christian picks up some cables, smiles at her, and asks for masking tape. She asks him if he’s redecorating. He says he isn’t, and smirks. Ana wonders if she’s funny-looking and that’s why he’s laughing at her, a conclusion which really makes no sense. While he’s picking out the masking tape (he takes the widest kind they have in stock), he makes some small talk by asking her how long she’s worked there. At one point, while he’s selecting rope (called it), he asks her if she was a Girl Scout. This is only slightly less of a non-sequiter in context. She tells him organized group activities aren’t her thing, so he asks her what her thing is. Ana tells him she likes books, mainly classic British literature. This more or less ends the conversation, as is only fair, because being into centuries-old Brit lit is a really boring primary interest for a twenty-something to have.

Ana asks Christian if he needs anything else, and he asks what she’d recommend. She doesn’t know what he’s doing, but going on the assumption that he’s doing some type of DIY she recommends coveralls. So as not to ruin his clothing, she explains. He smirks and says he could always take his clothes off. Why am I expected to like this guy? Ana blushes, and then Christian decides to buy coveralls anyway. Uh, why? I assume that this stuff is actually for kinky purposes rather than DIY, so why does he need coveralls? Unless he plans to roleplay as a DIY enthusiast, I don’t see how this makes sense.

Christian asks about the article, and Ana explains that she’s not writing it, her roommate is. Ana also mentions that Kate wants some original photos of Christian Grey, you know, for the article. He says he’s in the area and that maybe they could arrange a shoot, and hands her his business card.

Just then, Paul Clayton, little brother of the hardware store’s owner and yet another of Ana’s male friends, shows up and gives Ana a hug. He’s home from Princeton (of course he is) for his brother’s birthday. Paul keeps an arm draped around Ana’s shoulder after releasing her from the hug, because like every other dude in this book he is required to have a crush on Ana. (I think he must have been Mike Newton in the original.) Christian isn’t too happy, and the two of them exchange hostile looks while Ana babbles through introductions. Once Paul realizes who Christian is, he’s awestruck and tries to be friendly, but Christian brushes him off. Christian pays for his things and leaves, telling Ana on the way out that he’s glad Kate couldn’t do the interview. Ana somehow interprets this as “I am definitely attracted to him but he can’t possibly like me,” and resolves to simply admire him from afar.

Omitted from this summary: several pages’ worth of pure sexual tension.

Holy Cow! Alert:

I halt at his expression, his eyes darkening. Holy cow.

This chapter also contains two instances of “holy crap.”

Great Prose Alert: The entire chapter could qualify. Here’s a few examples worth your notice:

His voice is warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel… or something.

My heart is pounding a frantic tattoo, and for some reason I’m blushing furiously under his steady scrutiny.

With my heart almost strangling me – because it’s in my throat trying to escape from my mouth – I head down one of the aisles to the electrical section.

“Are you in Portland on business?” I ask, and my voice is too high, like I’ve got my finger trapped in a door or something. Damn! Try to be cool Ana!

Quickly, with trembling fingers, I measure out five yards against the fixed ruler, aware that his hot gray gaze is on me.

Clueless Virgin Ana Alert: Ana and Christian accidentally brush fingers again, and once again she feels as if she’s been shocked:

I gasp involuntarily as I feel it, all the way down to somewhere dark and unexplored, deep in my belly.

Again, this woman is in her twenties.

Christian Grey Has Gray Eyes Alert: As we’re informed nine times in this chapter alone.

Did The Author Minor In Geology? Alert: Not once, but twice in this chapter a metaphor involving tectonic plates is used. Not the same metaphor. Two different metaphors. Involving tectonic plates.

And Now, A Word From Ana’s Subconscious Alert: One of the things I heard about this book before beginning it is that Ana has a lot of mental conversations with her “subconscious,” and, later, with her “inner goddess.” Her inner goddess (is that what she calls her naughty bits?) hasn’t made an appearance yet, but her subconscious is just starting to get chatty.

[After Ana reflects on never having felt attracted to anyone] Until very recently, the unwelcome, still small voice of my subconscious whispers.

[Ana wonders why Christian is at Clayton’s] And from a very tiny, underused part of my brain – probably located at the base of my medulla oblongata where my subconscious dwells – comes the thought: he’s here to see you.

[When Ana learns why Christian is in the area] See? Not here to find you at all, my subconscious sneers at me, loud, proud, and pouty.

[Ana tries to calm herself down while talking to Christian] Try and be cool, Ana, my tortured subconscious begs on bended knee. [Foreshadowing?]

[In answer to the question “What is your thing?”] “Books,” I whisper, but inside, my subconscious is screaming: You! You are my thing!

I would think that an actual subconscious, being, you know, subconscious, would have a little less to say to Ana on a conscious level. But hey, what do I know?

Thoughts So Far: 

Though this chapter is the same number of pages as the preceding one, it seems like a lot more happened in it. This is probably due to the first chapter being about 90% sexual tension, by my rough estimate. However, a lot of what happened in this one was just inelegant exposition-dumping, or meet-the-cast crap. The prose also seems worse in this chapter, especially during the Christian-Grey-comes-to-the-hardware-store scene. I worry that the author typed portions of it one-handed.

We learn a little bit more about Ana in this chapter, but we don’t learn a damn thing more about Christian except that he sometimes goes to hardware stores. Neither character is compelling so far. 

Two more of Ana’s friends are introduced this chapter, both male, both based on Twilight characters, both with crushes on her. I’m starting to wonder what exactly makes Ana so attractive. She must possess simply amazing good looks to make up for her lack of any personality other than “I only get turned on by creepy businessmen."

Let’s talk about the hardware scene, shall we? I guess it’s a semi-plausible way for them to bump into each other again, though I don’t get why Christian goes out in public to buy this stuff instead of ordering it online (since I’m sure he values privacy greatly), and I don’t know why a girl as clumsy as Ana would be working in a hardware store. It still seems like a bit much of a coincidence. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Christian knew she was working there, which, like I said before, is super creepy. However…

…all that aside, the scene is still crap. We get tons of description of how hawt HAWT HAAAWWWWWT Christian is, but that doesn’t do a damn thing for me as a reader. I get that he’s attractive; that’s practically the story’s premise. At this point, the author should be showing, not telling, how sexy this dude is. I don’t care whose damn POV it’s from, and if Ana is so incapable of coherent thought around this guy, maybe it shouldn’t be first-person.

The closest this scene gets to showing instead of telling is when Ana and Christian brush fingers. It’s obvious that this really turns Ana on, even though her narration doesn’t tell us “Holy cow, I’m so turned on right now!” Instead, when she speaks again her voice sounds “husky and breathy,” which surprises Christian. When he answers her, he sounds like he’s getting turned on too. This moment is also remarkably concise, only a few lines long. You know what annoys me, though? The only damn reason the author showed us instead of telling us was because Ana is so virginal she doesn’t recognize her own arousal or anyone else’s.

Edit: On a first read I was more inclined to give Christian the benefit of the doubt regarding some of his behavior in this chapter, most notably how he acts towards Mike Paul. However, he’s clearly demonstrating jealousy and possessiveness as soon as Paul shows up and is a bit affectionate with Ana, and do I even need to start on how bad that is? It’d be bad enough if Ana and Christian were a couple, but as it is they barely know each other and Christian has not only no right, but no reason for such behavior. What’s more, I’m pretty sure this is an authorial attempt to hammer the point home that yes, Christian is interested in Ana, when that point has already been made abundantly obvious to everyone but Ana herself.

Two chapters in, I’m beginning to hate this book. And they haven’t even started fucking yet.

Before we get onto the chapter proper, a few brief notes:

This is a cleaned-up, edited, partially rewritten version of my original FSoG review. During this second editing pass, I do know what happens in the entire novel. When I first read the book, I did not; I wrote the reviews as I read the chapters. This may wind up leading to some inconsistencies where I sometimes wonder what is going to happen next and at other times talk about what does happen next.

Though nothing super terrible happens in chapter 1, which is why I didn't slap a big fat content warning right at the top, this book deals heavily with abuse, rape, manipulation, alcohol abuse (a character is frequently coerced into drinking by another character who knows she cannot handle her alcohol), etc., and all this is more often than not presented as okay (if not fun and sexy) to the reader. That is, the author will write a rape scene and apparently not realize that what she has written is a rape scene. I will be putting content warnings at the top of all chapters to which they apply, but you should know this about the book going in. Even if all you read is my review of this opening chapter, you should know that this is the direction in which the book is headed.

Goes without saying, but this book is headed in the NSFW direction as well. There is a lot of sex later on, and most chapters allude to sexuality even if there are no sex scenes.

Let's dive right in.

Fifty Shades of Grey: Chapter One

Our protagonist / first-person narrator, Anastasia Steele — seriously, that is her name — begins the book in a bad mood. We get a physical description of her right away, because she is brushing her hair. In the mirror. The book literally opens with a mirror description scene. Yes, I know.

Ana's physical description makes her sound just like Bella Swan, save for one detail; Bella's eyes are brown, Ana's eyes are blue. Author really went all-out trying to make this not be a Twilight fic anymore, I see.

In any case, Ana's in a bad mood because her roommate Kate (who is blonde and gorgeous and must have been Rosalie in the original) is ill, and therefore can't go interview the CEO of Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc. Kate's a journalist for their college paper and it took her months to get this interview, so instead of sending someone actually competent (like, I don't know, anyone else who works on the college paper?) to do the interview, she decides to send her socially anxious roommate who's never done an interview in her life and clearly didn't prepare for this one, either.

Well, this book is off to a great start.

Kate gives Ana a mini-disc recorder and a list of questions to ask the CEO — I think the author is trying to make Kate sound like she knows what she's doing, but too little, too late, and it's sad that I can use a phrase like "too little, too late" when we're on page 2 of the novel. Kate also lends Ana her Mercedes CLK, as Ana's car, an old VW Beetle, isn't quite up for the trip from Vancouver to Seattle. If that sounded like a lot of product placement, don't worry, it totally gets worse. 

Grey Enterprises headquarters is a very large, modern, austere office building. It is so large, modern, and austere that it causes Ana to fidget nervously for half a page. She explains to the reader that she doesn't know a thing about the man she's about to be interviewing (you didn't think to at least look him up on Wikipedia before leaving?), and that she would much rather be reading "a classic British novel." Oh, I love Classic British Novel by Dead British Author! You're just so relatable, Ana! It's details like these that really make a story.

Ana waits in the lobby until one of the many attractive young blonde women working there tells her that Mr. Grey is ready to see her. She goes into his office and promptly trips over her own feet, catching herself on her hands and knees. Four pages in and the protagonist is on her hands and knees in the love interest's office — you can tell this book don't do subtle.

Mr. Grey helps her up, and she's shocked to find that he's young (definitely under thirty) and very handsome. If you've read Twilight, picture Edward but ten years older and less sparkly. If you haven't read Twilight, and it's important to you to know what the guy looks like, Grey has dark auburn hair, gray eyes (ha ha), and is tall. We don't get much more description than that; fill in the blanks with the generic idea of what constitutes white cis male attractiveness that we've all internalized and you should be golden.

He introduces himself, and they shake hands:

As our fingers touch, I feel an odd exhilarating shiver run through me. I withdraw my hand hastily, embarrassed. Must be static.

You know how static feels so exhilarating.

After recovering from having tripped / the exhilarating static, Bella Ana tells Edward Christian her name and that she's here in place of Kate, whose full name is — again, I shit ye not — Katherine Kavanagh. 

Christian's office is described as being super huge, super modern, super minimalist elegance. He has a bunch of little paintings on one wall, which are by a local artist, because he is Classy with a capital C. 

The interview goes rather poorly initially. Ana's horribly nervous, and Christian... well, I'm hesitant to call him a tool just yet, but he's clearly aware of her nervousness and seems to find it kind of amusing, which should be warning sign number 1. Ana thinks he's pretty arrogant when he starts talking about his success, but, I dunno, him being humble would likely come off weird too. Dude's super fucking rich, and it's self-made wealth; it's hard to talk about that without coming off a little arrogant, at least not without sounding disingenuous instead.

Ana, perhaps as a nervous habit, keeps saying the first thing that pops into her head — this includes stuff like telling him he sounds like a control freak, to which he says that he "exercise[s] control in all things," which is one of the most obvious and least sexy BDSM innuendos I've heard. Goes right over Ana's head, though. At one point Christian says that he owns his company and doesn't have to answer to a board, which is clearly bullshit as his company is called Grey Enterprises Holdings Incorporated but apparently the author does not actually know what a corporation is and didn't bother to look it up.

The conversation continues with Christian constantly going on about how powerful and wealthy he is (seriously, dude's a broken record — it's boring), until Ana finally gets to the awkward personal questions section of the interview. Christian's adopted, and Ana asks him about that — it's clearly not something he wants to talk about, but I can't really blame him — and then asks him if he's gay (another question Kate wrote). For some reason (totally not homophobia, I'm sure) this question sets Christian off. Ana apologizes hastily upon noticing the displeasure in his voice and says that the questions are Kate's, not hers.

This changes the direction of the interview; Christian suddenly takes an interest in why Ana is there rather than Kate. Another of his blonde employees pokes her head in to remind him of his next meeting, and he cancels on the spot. Uh... okay. Grey continues interrogating Ana, and I guess I wouldn't really mind this scene except that she's clearly uncomfortable and it's only partly in the "oh no he's hot" way. The questions are fairly innocent stuff — what are her plans for after graduation? does she know that Grey's company has an excellent internship program? — but Christian himself gets weirdly intense while asking these questions, in a way that makes his sexual interest in Ana super obvious. As for Ana, well, something about the way he's staring at her is making her feel funny:

His gaze is intense, all humor gone, and strange muscles deep in my belly clench suddenly.

Strange muscles. In her belly. She's in her early twenties. But we'll get back to Ana's curious lack of knowledge regarding everything to do with sexuality later.

Christian offers to show Ana around, but she declines, saying that she ought to be heading back as it's a long drive. Grey gets weirdly anxious over her driving safety (it has started to rain, but like... they live in Washington State, where it rains a lot, and Ana's an adult with at least a couple years driving experience under her belt, so this shouldn't be a concern). They shake hands, he walks her out, and they say goodbye at the elevator. There's some more sexual tension shoved in there somewhere too but it's really not worth relating.

Holy Cow! Alert: The author has a fondness for this phrase, as will become clear later on. It’s marginally less annoying than Bella’s “Holy crow!”, but still irritating, especially since I’m sure it was “Holy crow!” in the original. Our first example of the phrase comes four pages in, when Ana meets Christian.

Holy cow – he’s so young.

Oh, I Doubt It Alert: Ana’s thoughts on sick roomie Kate’s appearance:

Even ill she looks gamine and gorgeous, strawberry blonde hair in place and green eyes bright, although now red-rimmed and runny.

I’ve never known anyone to look “gamine and gorgeous” while suffering from the flu. Also, “strawberry blonde hair in place”? Who the fuck does their hair when they’ve got influenza? 

Also, this:

The elevator whisks me with terminal velocity to the twentieth floor.

No it doesn’t.

Thoughts So Far:

It's literally Twilight AU fanfic with the names changed. I'm not even convinced that this book saw an editor in between. One chapter in and I can already tell that this is one of the least competent pieces of published writing I've ever laid eyes on.

Neither lead has anything going for them besides the bare minimum required to drive the plot; Ana's only character attributes are being timid, bookish, and clumsy, and Christian has no personality outside of being rich and domineering. 

On the one hand, sure, it’s only chapter 1. On the other hand, I say that if you’re a published author and you’ve written a story that does not suck in your readers from the very beginning, you have failed. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule — you could argue that a lot of great literature starts out slow then builds gradually — but, again, this isn’t great literature, it’s a smutty novel. By the end of chapter 1, I should be looking forward to your characters taking their clothes off. Too bad I’m not.

If I were a wise person, I'd have left off reading right here. But I'm not a wise person.

City of Bones: Chapter Eight - Weapon of Choice

The Portal spits Clary out midair. She almost hits a tree. I’m not going to pass judgment quite yet as we don’t know how the door Clary went through works — maybe it sends you to a set location, maybe not — but if it is a set location, that’s a terrible location. Jace goes flying out after her, having followed her in order to keep her safe in case of danger. He lands on top of her, actually, so it takes a minute for Clary to get up, get her bearings, and realize that she’s near Luke’s house.

Obligatory location description: Williamsburg waterfront, right near the Williamsburg Bridge. Luke’s house is in back of a bookstore (Garroway Books: Fine Used, New, and Out-of-Print). Now you know.

Jace tells Clary that the Portal takes the user to whatever place they’re thinking of. Clary objects that she wasn’t thinking about Luke’s house, or, indeed, about anywhere in particular, but Jace just drops the subject. Well, I’m not gonna. Not that easy.

Okay, maybe Clary subconsciously thought of Luke’s house. Maybe she was trying to think of where her mom might have wanted to take the Portal to, in which case Luke’s house is probably a location that makes sense. But why did it spit her out midair? If you don’t have a very specific location in mind, is that what the Portal does? Because I’d be willing to accept that, but I just wanna know how the fuck this works. I shouldn’t have to spend the whole story guessing as to why things happened the way they did, and so far in this book there has been an awful lot of that.

Clary says they should probably leave, as Luke told her back in chapter whatever that he didn’t want her there. Jace says they should investigate and asks if Clary has keys to the house; Clary says no, but that sometimes Luke leaves the back door unlocked. They decide that Luke probably isn’t home, since his truck’s not there and the lights are all off, and then they… climb the fence in preparation to sneak into Luke’s house? Wait, stop.

Clary’s known this guy all her life, right? He’s an honorary uncle to her? And she’s going to sneak into his home on the suggestion of a guy she’s only known for a couple days?

Could she be any more of a doormat? Moving on.

As soon as Jace makes it over the fence, he falls right on top of something; Clary first assumes it’s a stray cat from the yowl the thing makes, but she quickly sees it’s much too big to be a cat. In fact, it’s actually Simon. Why Clary didn’t recognize her best friend sooner, or at least recognize that he was a person and not a large animal — this took her several paragraphs — I have no idea.

Simon, naturally, has been worried sick about Clary in her absence, and was hanging around Luke’s house trying to see if he could learn what happened to her when he spotted Luke stuffing a duffel bag full of weapons, some of which were glowing. We get a scene break — I should mention there was also a scene break right after Jace landed on Simon — during which Clary explains the events of the past few days to Simon. Simon declares the whole thing to be awesome, and compares it to Dungeons and Dragons. (Is it really? I mean, my D&D knowledge is minimal, but wouldn’t Simon be more likely to exclaim “Wow, this is like every shitty urban fantasy story I’ve ever read!”?) They have some uninteresting banter stemming from the fact that Jace has never heard of D&D. During this, Simon asks if there are any hot vampire babes — seriously. The whole scene is awkward and unfunny and I don’t know what the fuck to make of it. Moving on.

The three kids decide to break into Luke’s house. The door is locked after all, but Jace uses his stele to draw a Mark on the door that lets them in. Again, remember that in this universe humans apparently cannot do magic. Seriously, what do the Marks qualify as?

The space inside is dark, filled with stacks of books. Simon points out a pair of manacles on the wall, and almost makes a “that’s kinky” comment before Clary stops him. Jace takes a closer looks and notices dried blood on the manacles, and evidence that someone tried to yank the chains right out of the wall. Damn, Luke must know how to have fun.

They head into Luke’s living room, which is almost as filled with books as the bookstore itself. Clary recalls curling up in this room reading The Chronicles of Prydain when she was younger; I wanna note this because this book so far has given Clary very little in the way of personality, hobbies, or interests, and reading fantasy novels counts, right? Even though it’s almost a given for an urban fantasy protagonist to enjoy fantasy novels?

Simon notices the percolator is on and there’s hot coffee in the kitchenette. He figures from this that Luke must be still around, so instead of… I don’t know, keeping quiet? hiding? he yells to the others that he thinks Luke is still around. Nothing happens, of course.

Clary has a look around. Everything seems to be as it should be, but no sign of Luke. She goes into the guest bedroom, where she stayed often while her mother was out of town on business — hang on a minute, what business? Her mom is an artist, right? Is she traveling around doing gallery openings? Is this actually Shadowhunter business she was going on? Are we ever gonna get an explanation?

Under the bed in the guest bedroom is a backpack belonging to Clary, containing some of her clothes and toiletries (she keeps it there for when she stays at Luke’s). The backpack has some buttons on it that Simon gave her — they say stuff like “GAMERS DO IT BETTER” and “OTAKU WENCH” and I’m not sure whether that says more about Clary or Simon, since we’ve had basically no hint of Clary being either a gamer or a weeaboo while I can totally see Simon being both those things. Clary changes quickly, tosses Isabelle’s clothes in the backpack, and, taking it with her, exits the room.

(I’m excusing the above scene because it was short and because, while Clary does have horrible priorities in general, taking a couple minutes to get cleaned up when it looks like the coast is clear seems fairly reasonable.)

Jace, meanwhile, has found the duffel bag full of weapons that Simon described seeing earlier. This is where I’m starting to wonder — why so many weapons? Are demons just really, really hard to kill, or does the manner in which they can be killed vary so greatly that you need a ton of different weapons to do the trick? This doesn’t seem consistent with their depiction thus far — Clary killed one by accident, remember. Why wouldn’t something like a traditional gun work? What is the advantage to all this fancy magic stuff, especially since, from the looks of it, it’s all very difficult to master, requiring years of training and special Marks to help the user wield the weapons safely?

It’s like the old joke about Harry Potter; why couldn’t they just shoot Voldemort? Is there some reason a mundane weapon wouldn’t work?

And, again, why do you need an entire duffel bag full of weapons?

None of these questions are answered or even raised by the narrative; instead, Clary spots a picture from her apartment among Luke’s things, and realizes he must have been there following the demon attack. Jace reasons this is why the Portal led to Luke’s house — it just defaulted to the last location it was used to reach, since Clary wasn’t thinking of anything when she jumped through it. At this point I’m not going to quibble. Whatever.

I am going to quibble with the next part, though:

“Nice of Dorothea to tell us he was there,” said Clary. “He probably paid her off to be quiet. Either that or she trusts him more than she trusts us.”

Uh, did everyone forget that Clary’s apartment building is a safe house? Wouldn’t Dorothea telling people all about who’s been coming and going undermine the entire point? Also, Clary and co. vacated Dorothea’s apartment in the middle of tea, literally in the span of a few seconds. It seems plausible that maybe the good madame didn’t get to say all she wanted to say before their abrupt departure.

Simon shows up to inform Clary and Jace that someone’s coming. Rather, three someones; Luke, but he’s with two unfamiliar men. Jace asks if there’s a way out, like a back door, but Clary says there isn’t. Ten pages ago we were talking about the back door that Luke sometimes leaves unlocked. I’d say that it looks like this book was shoddily proofread, but we already knew that.

The kids hide behind a rosewood screen, which Jace draws a Mark on to make one-way transparent so they can see Luke and the other two men. The guys with Luke are big and threatening-looking, and they waste no time in having a look around, picking up Luke’s stuff (one of them quickly focuses in on a statuette of the Indian goddess Kali) and commanding the space as though they’re looking for something, or just wanna intimidate Luke, whichever. Luke looks to be in bad shape; he’s cut up, bruised and bloody. 

A long conversation ensues; it’s mostly not worth relating, because it’s hard to know what they’re talking about. We do learn that Clary’s mom is alive, but unconscious. Luke gets called “Graymark” a few times, which is a wolfy-sounding name and makes me think he’s probably our token werewolf. The two men are not here to find Clary, but Valentine is looking for her. Luke acts as though he’s indifferent to Jocelyn and Clary’s fate throughout the conversation, but, given that this is probably the smartest thing to do, that doesn’t tell me much. He maintains throughout that he doesn’t wanna get involved in any of this, but he doesn’t intend to get in anybody’s way, either. The men try to bribe him with the return of Clary’s mom in exchange for the Mortal Cup (remember, the thing that turns ordinary people into Shadowhunters), but Luke says he doesn’t know where the Cup is and isn’t interested in searching for it. After about a page more of this, the men leave. Luke, gathering up the duffel bag, follows shortly after.

Clary, it seems, took the entire conversation at face value — maybe to be expected given that she has a huge emotional stake in all of this — and feels devastated to learn that Luke doesn’t care about her and her mother. Simon does suggest that Luke and those men were not on friendly terms, but of course no one listens to Simon the one time he has valuable input. Jace informs the other two that the men with Luke were the same men who killed Jace’s father. Well.

Thoughts So Far:

This is still cardboard cutout fantasy. There isn’t a trope in play here that’s not incredibly predictable. I have a feeling I’m going to have to accept this eventually as a fact of the Mortal Instruments books and stop pointing it out every chapter, but for now, yeah, I’m gonna keep pointing it out. This is unoriginal tripe. 

I’m particularly bothered by the lack of personality among the main cast at this point. We’ve had plenty of time to get to know them, yet they all seem totally uninteresting to the point where I don’t even want to anymore. I feel sometimes as though I should cut the book some slack, since it’s not like this aspires to literary greatness, but there’s really no excuse for it. Being able to write compelling and varied characters is a baseline requirement for writing fiction, full stop. I don’t care if you’re writing a novel or writing dialogue for NPCs in a video game, if you are writing characters you need to be able to do this. And Cassandra Clare, it seems, cannot.

Let’s take a look at Clary. What do we know about her? She’s fifteen. She likes to draw. She likes to read fantasy novels. She’s kinda insecure about how she looks and it sometimes causes her to judge other girls harshly. She might be into video games and/or manga and/or anime; we’ve gotten almost no evidence to suggest she is but it’s been talked about a tiny bit. Beyond that, we know basically nothing about Clary as a person. And sure, minus her age, everything above is a character trait, but none of it is interesting.

“Okay,” you say, “but Clare is playing to the target audience.” That’s right, she is. There are gonna be a lot of teen girls reading this who have things in common with Clary. Liking to read fantasy novels is more or less a given, and most modern teens with a penchant for fiction have at least a bit of a taste for video games, manga, and anime. Drawing is a pretty common hobby among that crowd as well. As for the insecurity, society does a marvelous job of teaching teenage girls to feel horrible about their appearance; the entire beauty industry feeds off of this. Clary’s traits attempt to make her relatable to this book’s target audience of teen girls, but they do not make her a character in her own right, and in that way she ultimately fails at being relatable. Any real fifteen-year-old girl sharing Clary’s character traits is also worlds more complex than she, and not just by virtue of being a real person; Clary is missing great chunks of her personality by not only real-people standards, but fiction standards. What is her motivation as a character? What sets her apart from the people around her? Why does she act the way she does? What events have, in her fifteen years of life, served to shape her as a person?

Good characters impress themselves upon their readers in the way that real people impress themselves upon others they know. Clary fails to make an impression. She has the bare minimum of traits needed to make her seem like she has something in common with real people, without having any of the distinguishing features of a real person, without being interesting in the way that real people, and well-written fictional characters, are interesting.

The rest of the cast is similarly bland. Jace is a bad boy with a heart of gold (debatable so far, yes, but that’s clearly his trope), Simon is the token nerd that the audience is supposed to both laugh at and, perhaps, see themselves reflected unflatteringly in, and the two of them plus Clary form our token love triangle. The supporting cast is composed entirely of stock fantasy characters, with nary an interesting personality among them. No one ever does anything beyond what the plot requires them to do, which makes everyone seem terribly passive; this is especially bad with Clary, who doesn’t even get to do exposition like Jace or many of the side characters.