50 Cries Sadder

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

H-Town: oh my god, fuck this book in its stupid dumb fucking face

me: oh my god this book

H-Town: KILL IT WITH FIRE

me: every time I read this I notice my face is hurting after. I think I am making monster faces the entire time

H-Town: lol

Chapter 18 begins with Christian (driving Ana’s car since she can’t be trusted to drive it herself) and Ana on their way to yet another surprise. They pull up to a massive fucking house in a massive fucking yard that is right on the coast. The house is old, but opulent. She makes a point of telling us there are four crystal chandeliers – in one room. They go out to the balcony and the view of the Sound nearly knocks her over. Turns out Christian is thinking of buying this house (from the realtor who Ana is instantly jealous of because she smiled at Christian, natch). You know, for when they are married. Assuming they are getting married. She hasn’t answered him yet, and we have been reminded about it on every fucking page since four chapters ago because he keeps trying to demand an answer from her.

me: So we left off all the way back at them looking at that house

H-Town: yes I love that she describes how he puts down the window in his car as he drives up to the house stupid stupid descriptions
also, how does one smile ironically?

me: I'm not sure. I should learn so I can smile ironically at this book

H-Town: I know how to smile demonically, because that's what I do when I think of hunting down EL James

me: her description of the sky is equally bad

H-Town: yes, the field - she wants to lay down in it and look at the sky. And I want to run over her with a tractor

me: "vermilion hues bleed into the cerulean sky, with opals and aquamarines"
I wrote "you're going to lose those crayons up your cooz"

H-Town: HAHAHAHA
her blood is pooling DOWN THERE in a lovely deep bronzey red
gross
sorry
OH AND THERE ARE FOUR CRYSTAL CHANDELIERS
I took that as sort of a "Fuck you" to all readers who don't live in a house like that

me: yes, so the obvious thing to do is tear the whole thing down and start over (“I want to buy it, demolish it, and build a new house – for us,” says Christian before going on to explain that he wants a house more eco friendly and sustainable. Or you could just go BUY A SUSTAINABLE HOUSE.)

H-Town: I KNOW
"I want to rebuild it eco"
wtf Christian
that is not at all Eco
you stupid bag of body wash

me: Oh you mean I can renovate what’s there to be more eco? I had no idea
you have INFINITE MONEY

H-Town: "I'll have to ask Elliot."
YOU ARE DUMB
EL James is dumber than 100% post-consumer waste
also, come on Christian, if you're really into being green, you wouldn't have 700 giant houses and 400 gas-guzzling cars
 
me: correct. maybe just get the one Prius and be done with it

H-Town: the sexiest Prius ever
0-60 in 15 seconds
AW YEAH
anywhore
she goes, "Christian, you had me at the meadow."
you mean the meadow he just said he was going to build a horse paddock in?
because he just shit on your field
FUCK OPEN SPACE, I WANT TO BE GREEN AND BUILD ON IT
ECO HORSES!!! THEY RUN ON HAY!

me: LOLOL
which she then called horses 4-legged fiends of Satan?

H-Town: horses aren't evil
they're lovely
spiders are eight-legged fiends of Satan

me: EXACTLY
so then let's go the club and celebrate your stupid promotion that you somehow forgot about even though it just happened 6 hours ago (Christian specifies “one of” his clubs. Because, you guys, he is so rich oh my god. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that yet.)

H-Town: also, the Mile High Club
REALLY?
I jumped out the window when I read that

me: I know, I wrote NO IT IS NOT FUCKING CALLED THAT

H-Town: as if no one's going to get that joke
seriously, that's like calling a restaurant Hooters
it's not exactly subtle

me: The bartender used to work at a gay bar called Manhole

H-Town: haha, I remember him saying that
HEY GUYS, WANNA COME TO MY NEW RESTAURANT CALLED "SEXY TITS AND CUNT LAND"?
YOULL NEVER GUESS WHAT IT'S LIKE!!
tell him to change the name of Tai's to "Sexy Tits and Cunt Land"

me: I would totally drink at that establishment

H-Town: same here
anyway, now they do a stupid no-panties dinner
blah blah seduction with seafood (Christian makes her take her panties off before dinner and then refuses to touch her at all while they’re eating. We are then subjected to six – SIX – pages of detailed descriptions on how they sexily ate food at each other. It is not sexy. It is fucking ludicrously irritating.)
I'm such a square, I was all, "I hoped he washed his hands before touching his slacks."
Think of the dry cleaning!

me: my only note from that whole 6 pages was "oh my god make this stop"
"I suck the hollandaise sauce off the asparagus"

H-Town: yeah, I wrote "HA HA Why talk about issues when we can just bang?!"
because she almost said that exact thing

me: OH THAT"S RIGHT
"issues, schmissues" is what she said
awesome
you are obviously carefully considering this marriage

H-Town: let's just screw, that will solve any problems we have
and then later, "Let's not talk about my weight. I like being slim."
You are not slim, you are starving.
People in Darfur eat more than her.
*goes to hell*

me: Karen Carpenter was a face stuffing fat ass next to Ana

H-Town: Kate Moss is all, "Hey, maybe eat a cracker."

me: a talking broom was like "you should really put on some weight"

H-Town: The fake skeleton in my anatomy class was all, "Eat a goddamn sandwich, you waif."

me: A guitar string told her she should get some help for her disorder
then more elevator tension (Christian fingers her in the elevator with other people around who don’t notice, then Ana makes a joke about having never had sex in a car which obviously makes Christian angry with her. By “obviously” I mean because he gets angry for no goddamn reason every time she figures out how to string together a complete sentence, not because anger in that situation would make any fucking sense. Then they barely make it back into the apartment before desperately fucking on the table in the foyer.)

H-Town: INTERCOURSE
then she goes to work, right?

me: oh right, in a low cut skin tight red dress (I’m not sure why James points this out since no one tries to rape her later. Force of habit I guess.)

H-Town: she says something about how the day flies by
and I wrote "Oh how the day flies by when you are not at all qualified for the job you have."

me: she's George Costanza with the Penske file

H-Town: hahaha
and now we've arrived at one of the stupidest things EVER

Ana goes out for drinks after work with Jose, who is in town to deliver the photos Christian bought so no one but him can ever look at Ana. Ana keeps trying to get in touch with Christian, but he refuses to respond to her. She assumes this because drinks with Jose has made him into the Hulk once again. She would probably be right under normal circumstances, but that day is not today. Instead she gets a phone call from Christian’s brother informing her that Christian and his helicopter are missing. Chapter 19 starts with every person Christian has ever met in his life gathered in his apartment, all terrified because he is obviously dead and the authorities have called off the search. Mind you he has only been missing for eight hours, an amount of time that would not even trigger a search unless the person missing is 7 years old. It is also all over the news. Ana spends most of this chapter in a trance, staring at the fireplace, lamenting about how she can’t go on without him, and recalling everything he’s ever said to her. Included in Ana’s thoughts here is the line “And we don’t know where he is.” Thank you, Einstein, I had no idea that’s what “missing” meant.

me: oh my fuck

H-Town: he goes missing
FOR EIGHT HOURS
EIGHT GODDAMN HOURS
no one would've gone looking for him yet

me: the last note I wrote for chapter 18 was "good. maybe he's dead."
especially no one would have gone looking for him and also ALREADY CALLED OFF THE SEARCH

H-Town: apparently you should never go missing in the northwest

me: Noted

H-Town: because they just give up very easily
they're all rapists, but you can hide pretty easily, I guess they stop looking

me: well I’m not going there anyway since everyone is a rapist
"I'll be nothing without him"
Jesus, you could try being an individual

H-Town: also, you can't just step out for a few minutes, because they'll put you on TV as missing and you'll be all, "Dammit, I was just going to get some takeout."

me: yes but this was because it's CHRISTIAN GREY, H-Town

H-Town: EVERYONE KNOWS HIM
the world mourns

me: if it was a lesser man like the President they'd wait and see first

Turns out Christian is alive and well, which we find out when he walks through the door and is startled to find that his entire family is upset that he was missing because he is a bad bad man who doesn’t deserve love. His explanation: The person he was flying with had never seen Mount Saint Helens so he decided to do a quickie fly by (which I’m pretty sure you can’t do without registering a flight plan, but whatever) when all of a sudden there is a fire in the tail and both his engines and the electronics all died (or he cut them intentionally because of the fire, it varies from page to page because E.L. James has the attention span of a frightened gerbil on cocaine). He manages to land Charlie Tango and put out the fire, but now he is in the middle of nowhere with no cell reception, so he and his companion walk for four hours (he claims it take four hours because she’s wearing heels. No woman alive would walk through the woods in heels for four hours, she would take them off and keep an eye out for pointy sticks) until they find a road, by which time both their cell phones have died. In the course of him telling this story, and then later in the next chapters, it is foreshadowed no less than six times that all those malfunctions happening at once might mean the helicopter was sabotaged.

H-Town: and two remarkably stupid quotes from this chapter
"oh the feel of this warm, vital, sensual man beneath my fingers."
and
"you are my talisman, Ana."
You are a fuckstick, Christian.

me: the whole series of events:
everything that can break on a helicopter breaks at the same time

H-Town: but there's intrigue!

me: somehow there is not time to radio for help before shutting off the electronics

H-Town: they let on like someone did it!

me: no cell phone reception
walking for 100 miles
then cell phone dies
...if someone I was dating gave me that story after going missing all day my first reaction would be "Yeah right. Who are you fucking?"

H-Town: speaking of silly
The baby just got home from the library and immediately removed her dress
she's now in her shoes and underwear

me: that's my girl

We had to end the conversation here because H-Town was rudely interrupted by people who want her to do work, but the only thing left in the chapter now that Christian is home and safe and Ana doesn’t have to throw herself off a bridge is that since it’s after midnight, Ana tells Christian he can open his birthday present. It’s a stupid piece of shit tourist keychain of the Seattle skyline with flashy lights. On the back of it the flashy lights are blinking the word “YES”. SIX FUCKING WEEKS SHE HAS KNOWN THIS ASSHOLE. You know what? Fine. Fucking marry him so this whole thing can end in a murder suicide and I can stop reading this.