50 Heaves Drier

H-Town and amberance read and review 50 Shades Darker so you don't have to.

me: How can a book as ridiculous as this one have jumped the shark?
 it should not have been able to get more stupid
AND YET

H-Town: IT IS SO DUMB
I am running out of ways to describe how much I hate it

Chapter 13 opens with Ana facing down Leila who is standing there in Ana's kitchen pointing a gun at her. To Ana's credit, she does repeatedly wonder if Ethan is ok. It is the only thing I'm willing to give her credit for in this entire chapter. Ana asks Leila if she's alone, touching off a repetition of the word "alone" from Leila as though the record is skipping, then asks for the gun causing a disturbing gollumesque scene of Leila petting it and insisting it's all she has left. Leila's movements are described as "unnatural" and James would have us believe she's never heard of the word inadequate: "'In-ad-e-quate.' She tests the word, sounding it out, seeing how it feels on her tongue." Leila is one very sad android.

Suddenly, Christian and Taylor burst through the door to save the day like knights in shining douche water. BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY DID. I can't even be mad anymore. It's like I have battle fatigue. When Christian comes in the room, Leila goes into automated submissive mode. She immediately puts down the gun, drops to her knees, puts her hand on her thighs, and points her eyes at the floor. I am actually still naive enough to think this is a good thing - the threat is eliminated, everyone can relax. Everyone, that is, except Ana: "Christian's expression is raw, full of some unnamed emotion. It could be pity, fear, affection...or is it love? No, please, not love!" Good god, the word you are looking for is COMPASSION. It should be in the thesaurus you have shoved up your snatch, right next to pity in fact. But no, everything in this universe and in every unseen parallel universe revolves around ANA, so instead we are treated to NINE PAGES worth of Ana thinking, both to herself and out loud, that Christian doesn't want her anymore because he is in love with a filthy waif on the floor of her apartment who ANYONE can see is in desperate need of someone to help her. EXCEPT FOR ANA.

me: really, all i have to say about the entire chapter is exactly what christian said to her
"This is not about you, Ana"
because OH MY FUCK WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER

H-Town: dumb stupid crap

me: some of my notes:
HOLY ASS SPACKLE you know what she means.
YOU SELF CENTERED TURD POPSICLE
I LOATHE YOU YOU STUPID ASSHOLE CUNTWAD BITCH TACO

H-Town: those are epic

me: I wanted to take the gun and shoot Ana myself

H-Town: yes, I was thinking, "Shoot! Hurry, shoot!"

me: get out of the apartment! no! get out of the apartment! no! get out of the apartment!
"I think he's trying to convey some sort of message"
ACTUAL FUCKING LINE (Christian tells Ana to leave the apartment FOUR TIMES before that sentence appeared. And in the end, Taylor had to pick her up and carry her outside.)

Downstairs, Ana finds out to her relief that Ethan had just got there and had never been in the apartment. She promptly bursts into tears (because Christian might love Leila, not because she narrowly escaped being shot). She tells Taylor, she TELLS Taylor - I'm repeating this because you'll need it later - that she and Ethan are going to go get a drink. Conveniently there is a bar directly across the street, and they sit, we are told, "by the window". They proceed to get drunk whilst Ana tells Ethan all about Leila and how sad she is that Christian is probably about to leave her. Once she is good and loaded (alcohol being the perfect balm for the "hideous blossoming pain" in her heart), Ethan walks her home, where she finds Christian has worked himself into a frenzy wondering where she was because she'd left her purse in the car.

H-Town:he couldn't find her
IN A BAR ACROSS THE STREET FROM HER APT
yet he can stalk her in every other way?

me:oh that was a great line
"I couldn't even track you!"
Tomorrow they will be installing a GPS locator inside her head to fix that problem

H-Town: well, he's tried installing himself into her vagina enough times
HEY-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

me: BOOM

After Ana breaks down, they go through another insane round of co-dependant bullshit showing us once again that they both are entirely too insecure for an adult relationship and also that they never, ever listen to what the other has to say. Please don't leave me! No, you don't leave! No YOU don't leave! Which goes on until finally, inexplicably, Christian gets down in the same submissive posture Leila had been in earlier.

me: So I'm very confused at the end of 13/beginning of 14 what submissive Christian was all about

H-Town: desperation?
not a clue

me: she's not in the lifestyle. that reaction would make no sense to her. and didn't

H-Town: well, no one said Christian was smart
besides Ana, anyway
a pencil would seem smart to Ana

Chapter 14 consists entirely of a conversation that is so bizarre and goes absolutely nowhere, I wound up taking almost no notes for the entire first half of it. But eventually we find out this: the reason Christian is so afraid Ana will leave, and the reason all his submissives have looked just like Ana, is because that is what his mother looked like, and as a sadist, he needs them to look that way so he can pretend he's whipping his terrible, terrible mother. And then apparently fucking her afterward. I don't even know anymore.

me:let's see, blah blah blah melodrama
this entire chapter needs to die in a fire.
every single word of it
oh right, after pages and pages of oh my poor broken damaged christian i must save him! then she's like "You're a fucking sicko!"
MAKE UP YOUR DAMN MIND

H-Town: "i screw little girls who look like my crackwhore mom"
nice, real nice

me: i can't even process that. as a participant in the lifestyle, that she would even fucking go there is too insulting for me to think about it

H-Town: and then she closes it out with a cherry on top "deviant sexual life style"
FUCKING FUCKITY FUCK FUCK HAMMER
Eat a bowl of whale dicks, EL

me: Mommy issues is not a some kind of common problem in this community
but H-Town, there is only one way he can be sure that she won't run away from him

H-Town: mawwiage

Seriously, he proposes. And the reason he proposes is so that he'll stop being afraid that Ana might run away now that she knows he has mommy issues and doesn't understand the term sadist.

H-Town: no one ever runs from marriage, Amber
NO ONE (this is funnier if you know that I have planned to get married three times in my life, and then turned around and decided NOT to do that three times.)

me: FIVE GODDAMN WEEKS, first of all
and yeah

H-Town: because they are teens

me: Christian lives in a magical fantasyland where no one has ever gotten divorced
Then more eating
I'm hungry, but you said something i don't like so now I'm not hungry

H-Town: and then THEY FIGHT AGAIN
SUCK A BAG OF SHIT

me: oh AND
James calls macaroni and cheese "nursery food"
I took personal exception to that
and it proves that she's never met a live American in her entire life
because ALL AMERICANS love mac and cheese FOREVER
we DEEP FRY that noise and call it a delicacy

The fight starts when Ana tells Christian that she was having a drink with Ethan that whole time she was "missing", and Christian immediately turns into a jealous rage monster. It continues with her asking in an accusatory tone what he'd been doing with Leila that whole time, and then gets an answer for which she is legitimately upset.

me: i liked the part where she was all "two can play at this game"
and tries to make him jealous about Ethan
I wrote in my notes "everyone is blindingly jealous all the time because love should make you feel angry and paranoid constantly"
in that fight though, i do have to say
seriously, you gave her a bath?

H-Town: BUT SHE WAS SO DIRTY AND IN NEED OF HELP!
whatever Christian, you just wanted to see her boobs and cootch again
just be honest

me: i hope you don't mind i GAVE HER YOUR CLOTHES
has he even met Ana?

H-Town: I ogled and touched her in the tub, then gave her your clothes
Now, suck my dick because it's dreamy and covered in Mac n Cheese and I'm Christian Grey

me: she freaks out when total strangers eye fuck him from 100 yards away, but no, go ahead and dress your ex lover that almost just killed me in my clothes, I'm cool with it

H-Town: oh, earlier she had a sentence about "whipping and caning and shit"
and I thought she'd said "Whipping and canning.'
And I thought, now there's a pastime
whipping, while canning some veggies for the winter
pleasure and pain

me: hang on I'll hit you again in a minute, i just have to finish canning these apricot preserves

H-Town: "Smells delicious! NOW HIT ME AGAIN, BITCH."
aaaand scene

me: S and Martha Stewart

After the fight, Ana storms off to go to bed and winds up in a Lifetime Movie Network special.

me: So much to process!
here let me just crumple up dramatically on the bathroom floor and sob like they do in the movies
I've cried on the bathroom floor too, but not over an abusive boyfriend playing happy tub time with a crazy broad and them asking me to marry him right after
usually it's just because i drank too much
sob sob "why did i drink 9 margaritas?"
for example
so, Chapter 15
sad sad christian has a scary dream because Ana was thirsty (Ana gets up to get a drink, and in the 5 minutes it takes her to do this, Christian somehow magically knows in his sleep that she has left the bed and therefore starts having a nightmare.)

H-Town: She was SO FAR AWAY

me: how did his body know she left while he was still sleeping?

H-Town: his penis went on a journey to Great Vagina Cave, but it wasn't there so he freaked out

me: "she's gone! quick! START THE HORROR SHOW BEFORE SHE COMES BACK!"
also apparently she has to lay in bed all night long no matter what so christian can find his happy place until the end of time i guess?
she's going to have to start wearing Depends to bed

All is forgotten from the fight earlier because you see guys? He NEEDS her. So they fuck first and then talk about their feelings. They stay up so long talking about them that she winds up being late to work in the morning.

me: before she left for work
he says she should marry him because "we can get to know each other then"

H-Town: oh my god yes
Because that's how marriage works
I met A-Town two days before we got married
We like excitement and awkward discussion

me: that's totally the best order for that to happen
you should have had the baby first, then met her, then got married immediately, then got to know each other
you failed

H-Town: She's late to work and Jack is an angryface and he wants her to type up a letter he wrote.
W T F
He actually wrote a letter by hand despite having a computer then he wants her to type it up

me: this dude is allegedly in publishing?

H-Town: COMPUTERZ R HARD

me: also, make 100 copies of that and snail mail them to all our authors.
don't send them an email or anything, they'd never see that because writers don't use computers either
I like how we're supposed to think Jack is an asshole because he expects her to show up on time and do her job

H-Town: and she still fucks away with time emailing Christian

me: whatevs, i was only 15 minutes late, why can't i email my boyfriend all day and constantly take personal calls? (In the course of the day, after she was already late to work on her 8th day at this job, she takes calls from Jose, Ethan and Mia. In the conversation with Ethan, she calls her boss "nasty and ugly", then realizes he's looking right at her. Classy.)

H-Town: We all know work is for working, and for gchatting about stupid books.

me: he wants me to get coffee and bring him lunch? what am I, his assistant?
signed,
Ana Steele, assistant to Jack Rapist Hyde
also, she won't use her blackberry no matter how many fucking times Christian tells her, therefore TIME TO FIGHT
this line was awesome "I make my way to the copy machine - which, of course, is suffering from a paper jam - and when I've fixed it, I find it's out of paper."
must have been jammed with that fancy imaginary paper i guess

H-Town: "Oh hey, there's my hairbrush!"

me: "christian must have left my underwear in there"
it's suffering from a jam jam.
never do whipping and canning in the copy room

Ana spends the entirety of the day complaining that her angry boss is asking her to do things, every single one of which is part of her job description. We are supposed to feel that her boss is unreasonable, and that this is because he is angry at her not for being late and then refusing to work, but for having a boyfriend. Because she actually has to do some work for once, several of Christian's emails go unanswered. He panics that something terrible must have happened to her because no one in this book understands how working works. And then, of course, James ends the chapter with something terrible about to happen to her. After hours when the office is deserted, her creepy boss corners her in the kitchen, closes the door behind him and: "His lips twitch into a grotesque smile, and his eyes gleam deep, dark cobalt. 'At last, I have you on your own,' he says, and he slowly licks his lower lip."

H-Town: did you read chapter 16? with Jack McCreepy RapeHyde

me: no not yet
I am looking forward to that because at the end of 15 I wrote "Rapist boss is rapey"

H-Town: yeah, wait til you read that chapter you will want to set something else on fire

me: one other thing, from when she's zoning out at lunch wondering if she should marry an abusive stalker who wants to fuck his dead mom

H-Town: i skimmed that section SO HARD

me: he needs to learn little things, like empathy and boundaries
LITTLE THINGS
he needs to learn little things, like how to be a HUMAN BEING
he's completely out of control and can't relate to other people at all, but hey, no big whoop
even now I'm still stunned that people think this is a romance

H-Town: I saw someone reading it on a Kindle the other day and I wanted to knock it out of their hands like I was blocking them from a bullet or something all slo-mo
NOOOOOOOOO *slap*
then the crowd nearby applauds

me: you should get a medal for that
maybe this is why i suck at relationships.
because i keep forgetting the rules
abuse is romantic and being rich excuses you from being a douchebag

H-Town: "Oh Amber, I love you."
"I'm stalking you."
"LET'S BANG."
that's how it always is

me: in all fairness, that last part is basically true
"Hi Amber, I have a pulse!"
"Well then do me!"

H-Town: You're not like that
You're much more nuanced.
"Hi Amber, I have a pulse. Wanna do it?"
"Sure!"
see?

me: you caught me. I just wanted to use "do me" in a sentence