50 Yawns of Boredom

I read and review Fifty Shades of Grey so you don't have to.

I am so bored you guys. The pages keep turning, but I could swear I just keep reading the same three paragraphs again and again. I'm not sure I'm even angry anymore, I'm just exhausted by the horribleness of the story.

Chapter 4 picks up right where the last one left off - Christian is dramatically holding her after dramatically rescuing her from a killer bicyclist, and for the first time in her whole life it occurs to her that she would like to be kissed.

So of course he doesn't.

Instead of kissing her, he warns her to stay away from him. It strikes me this may be difficult for her to do seeing as she's being stalked by him. This is the most melodramatic scene in the book so far. He reminds her to breathe (what?). She thanks him for saving her. They both act like getting hit with a bike is roughly the same as getting hit by a train. She walks away from him and since she hasn't reminded us about her awkwardness in a while, claims to be "vaguely amazed" that she doesn't trip. I write in my notes "you can't be vaguely amazed, AMAZED IS NOT A VAGUE FEELING. SHUT UP." She takes his warning as a rejection and curls up in a ball on the floor of the parking garage sobbing - SOBBING - about her dashed hopes and dreams. She ACTUALLY says that. She has only just admitted to herself she even liked the guy about an hour ago, but now EVERYTHING IN HER LIFE IS RUINED. Her age MUST have been a typo, she can't possibly be 21, she's fucking 12.

An unspecified amount of time later, she finishes her last final exam of her college career, and I weep for the future because I can't believe they are giving college degrees to idiots like this one. When she gets home, there is a package for her. It's a three volume first edition of Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Miraculously, she knows exactly who it's from. Kate is impressed. This paragraph happens:

"I've found one Tess first edition for sale in New York for fourteen thousand dollars. But yours look in better condition. They must have cost more." Kate is consulting her good friend Google.

Kate's deductive reasoning is amazing, she should be a fucking detective. And holy shit, Ana HAS heard of Google, it's just never occurred to her to use it. It also hasn't occurred to the author: when I googled "Tess of the d'Urbervilles first edition" the results I got were between $4,000 and $6,000 dollars. FOURTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS for a shitty copy is a gross exaggeration, but then again HOW ELSE WILL WE KNOW THAT CHRISTIAN GREY IS OUTRAGEOUSLY RICH? The books come with a note enclosed, a quote from the book warning her, again, to stay away from him. Because when I think someone should stay away from me, I send them $14,000 books in the fucking mail. This storyline is so nonsensical it's making me tired. I take a nap.

Later on, Kate and Ana meet up with Jose for some drinks to celebrate their impending graduation. Surprising no one, Ana reports that she has never been drunk in her entire life. She proceeds to drink an unspecified amount of champagne, five, FIVE! margaritas, then heads to the bar to get them a pitcher of beer. She then heads for the bathroom and decides to drunk dial Christian Grey while she's standing in line. When he answers it, she is FUCKING AMAZED that he knew it was her calling him. I roll my eyes and write a note: "YOU ARE 21 THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN CALLER ID FOR YOU. TWAT." During this ridiculous conversation, she pictures him holding a riding crop (if he doesn't have a riding crop in the sex dungeon we can already tell he has I will shit myself). He's pissed off that she is drunk and tells her he's coming to pick her up. She hangs up on him without tell him where she is.

Despite the fact that what she's had to drink already tonight should have left her unconscious, she is only just now starting to feel sick. She goes outside to get some fresh air and is followed by Jose. Jose, it turns out, is a fucking douchebag. He takes full advantage of her intoxication to grab her and try to force her to kiss him while she is very clearly telling him no and struggling to get away. It's the rapiest kissing scene ever, but you guys - YOU GUYS! GUESS HOW IT ENDS. From the shadows comes an authoritative voice, "I think the lady said no." OH MY FUUUUCK STALKER GUY TO THE RESCUE! LIFE IS A MOTHERFUCKING FAIRYTALE! I wish the force was a real thing so I could crush her trachea with my mind.

She throws up all over everything until she is dry heaving. Christian is pissed off that she is so irresponsible and tells her he's taking her home. She, sensibly, says she has to tell Kate she's going first. When they go back inside, Kate is on the dance floor. The nonsense begins again. Christian, who had been dragging her out the door five seconds ago, decides to 1. go to the bar and order himself a beer and 2. take Ana's hand and lead her onto the dance floor. She can't dance, of course, but somehow, despite being fall down drunk, with Christian she dances great! Is it him? Is it the drinking? IS IT MAGIC? No one knows, but what I do know is this author has never been drunk in her life, because anyone who has knows there is no way any of this would have happened. Given how much she'd had to drink and the fact that she has no tolerance whatsoever, Ana should be passed out in the bush with vomit crusted in her hair before her stalker in shining armor ever gets there, and she may or may not still have pants on. Instead she passes out at the end of the chapter in Christian's arms and now I am going to vomit as well.

She wakes up in Chapter 5 in Grey's hotel room suite (he is very rich). Next to her is some Advil and a glass of orange juice, and she finds this controlling rather than considerate. I scream at the book "the controlling part is where he took you to HIS HOTEL ROOM INSTEAD OF HOME YOU JACKASS." He comes in the room fresh from a workout and his sweatpants are, you guessed it, hanging off his hips (3). Somehow he smells like body wash (2) AND sweat at the same time. She asks how she got there and he makes up some complete bullshit about how he couldn't take her home because he was afraid she'd throw up in the car, as if he doesn't have 173 other cars standing by to use while that one gets detailed (or all the leather gets replaced. Whatever mega rich people do to fix car vomit, I don't know). He yells at her for being irresponsible for a while because she needs this since she doesn't have a real daddy, "Well, if you were mine, you wouldn't be able to sit down for a week after the stunt you pulled yesterday." (emphasis mine) She calls him a disciplinarian, he retorts that she has no idea, my eyeballs explode and fire billows from the empty sockets. My note: "Foreshadowing shutupshutupshutup FUCK YOU SPANKING REFERENCES EVERYWHERE." Page 68 contains the SECOND reference to her medulla oblongata and I want to choke her, her editor, her friends that encouraged her to write her thoughts down, Stephanie Meyers whose fault it is that this exists, her husband for not shooting down all of her dreams, and everyone who told me I should read this book, even ironically.

It is at this point that I very nearly write a completely different post saying that I can't read this anymore. She goes on a protracted description of her feelings (she has discovered desire. She's never desired anything before. Eat me.) and makes the rookie mistake of confusing a stalker's obsession for caring about her, a mistake that in real life has gotten people killed many many times. She calls him a romantic hero, going so far as to compare him to Sir Lancelot. At the same time, she continues to try and convince herself that he is not interested in her. He slept in bed next to her all night and never touched her. What other explanation can there be? I can't take this. He stalks her, kidnaps her, and she is UPSET that he draws the line at rape. I can't feel anything but contempt for this character.

She takes a shower and uses his body wash (3) which, she tells the reader, SMELLS LIKE HIM. ORLY? WOW.

After she's showered and changed into the new clothes his assistant has run out and bought for her (she is "in awe" of the underwear. AWE. UNDERWEAR.), she finds him sitting at the breakfast table. He has ordered everything on the menu because he didn't know what she likes and because it's important that we know he's rich. My cousin Simmy pointed out that this scene is entirely ripped off from Pretty Woman. They have an uncomfortable conversation. He explains that he found her because "you can track anyone's cell phone on the internet". That sounded terrifying to me, so I did some research. While it's true you can trace the location of a mobile phone using Google Latitude, the phone you want to trace has to actually be set up by its owner to enable this sort of tracking. At this point I have officially done twice as much research for this book than its author did. He also mentions that he is not going to touch her until he has written consent to do so. This has now gone beyond foreshadowing to blatant spoilers inside her own book. There are so many annoying thing that happen in this conversation I don't know where to begin:

• "That's very profligate of you." WHY DON'T YOU JUST GO AHEAD AND FUCK YOUR THESAURUS ALREADY? JESUS.
• He looks sullen, like a small boy. ALL DOMS ARE DAMAGED. I KNOW. YOU ALREADY TOLD US THIS A HUNDRED TIMES.
• "'Not having....sex.' There I said the word." Ana, if you can't even say the word "sex" out loud, you are in no way prepared for the shit he's been threatening to drop on you since the second you tripped into his office. IN. NO. WAY.
• She can't understand why he'd be interested in her. Honestly, I can't either. Here's what we know about her so far: She is irresponsible. She takes no ownership for her own behavior and blames others for all her misfortune. She has no plans for her future other than moving to Seattle and continuing to live off of Kate. She has no real hobbies, skills, or talent of any kind. She is naive to the point of absurdity. She's so socially inept I assume she must have been the inspiration for the socially awkward penguin meme. And up until a bike almost ran her over last week she has had the sexual drive and interest of a half dead amoeba. She has to be stunningly attractive because there is absolutely no other explanation of why someone like Christian Grey would give one ounce of fuck about her.
• In the elevator he loses fucking control and kisses the living shit out of her. And then continues riding in the elevator like that didn't just happen. She wonders whether he is totally unaffected by her presence, having apparently forgotten that she's just said this two seconds ago: "His erection is against my belly." NO,  I'M PRETTY SURE YOU ARE HAVING AN EFFECT. Additionally there is another example of the author forgetting what she'd written earlier. "I have never been kissed like this." No, shit for brains, you have never been kissed AT ALL. You made a REALLY BIG DEAL out of that earlier in the book. TAKE SOME FUCKING NOTES.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for encouraging me to finish reading this asshattery and welcome any new readers, especially the ones from Crasstalk. Y'all made me feel really special with your compliments and/or demands for more and you've made this incredible torture worth it. Mostly. It's REALLY bad, though.