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.

50 Hurrs Derper

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

H-Town: I'm pretty sure that if you read "50 shades darker" out loud in a forest, every living thing would run/fly/jump away in sheer terror.

Me: truer words have never been spoken

H-Town: every sentence gets worse and worse
Every time A-Town asks me to tell her what's going on, I just shake my head "I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START."
How many English teachers have been driven to drink or worse because of this book?

Me: In the future this year will be known as "The Year The English Teachers Jumped Off A Bridge"

Chapter 16 picks up where the last one left off - with our worthless fuckhole of a protagonist getting cornered by her blatantly creepy boss after hours. Instead of immediately crotch punching his rapist ass, she stands there listening to his insane and disparate ramblings which range from "You owe me because I fought for you to get this job since Elizabeth thinks you're worthless" to "you are obviously a spy sent here by Christian Grey to get me fired" to "quit acting coy, I can totally tell you want to jump on my happy stick right now". Predictably, because it has been endlessly foreshadowed since the second she showed up on her first day, Jack has noticed that she sends an inordinate number of ridiculous and sex laced emails to Christian all fucking day long. He has also noticed that Christian's return emails all seem to have mysteriously disappeared. For some reason he thinks this is something he can blackmail her with (to whom?) and he tells her he'll stop looking into what happened to Christian's magic emails if she'll just suck his dick on command et cetera from now on. Eventually it dawns on her to actually defend herself and she kicks him in the nuts, runs outside, and dramatically sinks to the ground in a near faint, at which point Christian arrives just in time to catch her before she hits the ground and I throw up in my mouth a little.

Me: So Chapter 16
Everyone Wants To Rape You
I am never going to Seattle; evidently it is a rapist colony
My first note in this chapter is "I KNEW she sucked"
when he was all "You should totes blow me for getting you this job since Elizabeth thinks you're dumber than a houseplant"

H-Town: HAHAHAHAHA
Also, hurr durr blackberry

Me: yep, that wasn't foreshadowed to death or anything
IDIOT

H-Town: I can't wait to see what Jack Mehoff Hyde has on his hard drive
pr0n

Me: I know right

H-Town: watch, it'll be something tame but she'll treat it like it's a deviant lifestyle
MEN HAVING SEX!

Me: EGADS!
I also wrote down "a smart blackmail rapist would have saved all her emails on a thumb drive"
and then I thought it's a good thing I’m not a criminal because I’d be scary good at it
I was confused why she didn't just immediately crotch punch him, but then she did eventually so I decided to let it go

H-Town: no shit
go all "Office Space" printer on him

Me: but then on page 370, when she runs outside and then DRAMATICALLY crumples to the ground because she almost fainted because she hasn't eaten in 6 months
I rote "please be kidding with this"
wrote

H-Town: lol, rote
u r EL James
I would have a hard time not driving the car over the boss as he left

Me: that was another thing that made no sense
"oh my boss tried to rape me just now...no please don't hurt him"
uh, no Christian gets to do whatever the fuck he wants to jack right now
so jack totes gets fired and she thinks she'll get fired for getting him fired?

H-Town: no one said Ana is smart
well, Christian did

Me: in between yelling at her for being stupid, that is (Christian goes ballistic when Ana tells him that the basis of Jack's blackmail attempt was her idiotic emails. He makes a phone call to have all of Ana's emails to him erased (why he didn't do this when he had his OWN emails erased off the server would be a mystery if we didn't already know that E.L. James can't write her way out of a paper bag and has to manufacture plot points). He will continue yelling at her for this the entire way home. She will continue to have absolutely no idea why he is upset with her.)

Me: I like how she explains that she knew how to kick jack in the balls because her dad was in the army
I was picturing weeks of boot camp where everyone is just kicking each other in the balls constantly
though he probably did need to teach her that since she's never had any instinct for self-preservation at all
So now that everyone is home safe from the near-rape experience, it's time to have a fight (The apparently minor issue of "my boss just tried to rape me" now forgotten, Ana tells Christian that Jose wants to come visit, touching of the second argument between them in as many hours.)

Me: "I should get to see Jose because I don't moan about you seeing Elena"
SAY WHAT NOW?

H-Town: STUPID BULLSHIT

Me: she CONSTANTLY complains about his friendship with Elena
every waking minute of her life

H-Town: I wish this book would quickly end in a murder suicide

Me: that would be more realistic than any end she could come up with where anyone lives
she's like "you are always mad at me"
I wrote "TOTES marry him, it will be puppies and rainbows!"

H-Town: I bet Ana would even make Ellen DeGeneres mad
Also, there are never any disagreements or arguments in marriage
ever.

Me: Ellen DeGeneres AND Delilah

H-Town: hahaha

Me: and then he's like "nuh-uh, I wasn't mad at you this morning"

H-Town: "There was a period of 30 seconds when I was totes happy with you."

Me: oh great, that one time, for five minutes, while you were fucking?
sure, that counts

H-Town: "Then I punched a hole through Charlie Tango's vagina."

Me: no, no you're right, this relationship is entirely stable

Following that argument, Christian goes off to work, while Ana wanders into the playroom and discovers - GASP - it has sex toys in it. Christian conveniently comes along to explain what all these mysterious gadgets do, which sounds as though he's reading descriptions out of a catalog.

Me: And then the tour of all those CRAZY WEIRD sex toys!

H-Town: YOU ARE A DEVIANT!

Me: also known as "an inventory of things in my bedroom right now"
butt plugs?
OMGWTFBBQ

H-Town: This was just EL James retyping the list of things she once saw for sale online at a sex toy shop
I'm surprised she didn't leave them in alphabetical order

Me: when she said "the butt drawer"
I got this stuck in my head for HOURS

H-Town: hahaha

Me: "how does he make that sound so erotic?" (This is an actual line in response to the following description of nipple clamps: "You can wear them very tight...or not. Depending on your mood.")
well, you are talking about sex toys, it really shouldn’t be that hard
also, she’s cool looking at: butt plugs, anal beads, nipple clamps, a ball gag, a Wartenberg pinwheel....
but when he's like "these are vibrators"
she's all NNOOOOOOOOO
 I CAN'T LOOK

H-Town: FAKE PENII!
(plural of penis)

Me: and then INTERCOURSE
but first on the way to the intercourse

H-Town: which does exist, by the way
Intercourse, PA
so you can actually be on your way to Intercourse in real life, yo

Me: we HAVE to go there and take our photos by the sign

H-Town: and then have our status say "WE'RE HAVING (lunch in) INTERCOURSE!!!"

Me: YES

H-Town: I've been there, it is a cute little Amish town right near Blue Ball, PA
seriously

Me: NO WAY

H-Town: Yes way

Me: *starts packing*

H-Town: directions for you

Me: and this is why I love you
anywhore, on the way to intercourse
James writes another thing that is so ignorant and wrong I completely lost my shit

H-Town: you have no more shit to lose with this book
your shit is so far gone it came back and got lost again.

Me: this book may very well kill me, it's true
she compares wanting to participate in kink
TO ALCOHOLISM (Christian: "I'm like a recovering alcoholic, okay? That's the only comparison I can draw." NO NO NO. A THOUSAND FUCKING TIMES NO.)
YOU JUDGEMENTAL TWAT KAZOO

H-Town: Twat Kazoo
that deserves an award

Me: it deserves to be a real thing
What instrument do you play?
Twat kazoo
and I really thought that was going to be the high point of my rage for this section, I really honestly did
but it never works that way
never
because every single sentence in chapter 17 is the worst sentence I’ve ever read

H-Town: oh my god, the hate

After they wake up the next day and have some morning sex that includes the following vagina drying description: "as his lips journey leisurely across my clavicle", Christian takes Ana out to see her new Saab, which she then drives to work. This journey includes an argument about whether or not she is capable of driving and listening to music at the same time. I'm not making that up.

H-Town: Let’s start with the car where he describes all of it like a commercial
also, IT PLAYS CDS, MP3S AND YOUR IPOD?!?1
WHAT KIND OF CRAZY FUTURE TECHNOLOGY IS THIS?!?!

Me: that was ridiculous
and mp3 "discs"

H-Town: Yes EL James, clearly into technology
she probably looks for the "any" key

Me: HAHAHA
"The key goes here"

H-Town: Cars need keys?
Can't Christian just make it go with his thoughts? or his wang?

Me: he can make anything work with his wang
he flies Charlie Tango with it

H-Town: signed,
Christian Grey,
CEO Grey Enterprise Holdings
Personal Tripod

Me: Then she goes to work and again, I thought "this is the single stupidest thing in this entire book"
let me get this straight: Elizabeth didn't want to hire you because you are less competent than a drunk turtle, so when your boss gets fired a week and a half after you start working there, they decide to give you his job? (This ACTUALLY HAPPENS. After 9 DAYS on a job that seems to mostly involve picking up lunch and making coffee, Elizabeth, who never wanted to hire her in the first place, gives Ana Jack's position, based solely on Jack having been "a champion of her abilities" which we already know was only because he wanted to fuck her. Even better, Elizabeth gives her the promotion and then AFTERWORDS hands her a copy of the actual job description. I just...no.)

H-Town: OH MY GOD
yes

Me: I only wrote "NO. THAT IS RETARDED."

H-Town: She gets to take his job?
what in the stupid bastard batshit badminton assfuckery fuck?!?!?

Me: she is NEGATIVE 79% qualified for his job
MY CAT is more qualified for that job than Ana is

H-Town: The baby made something in her diaper that's more qualified than Ana
they must be the worst publishing company in the world
i.e., the one that published the 50 shades series
HEY-OOOOOOOOOOOOOO
and we've come full circle
I just created a rip in the space time continuum

Me: awesome, does that mean we can stop reading it?

H-Town: I wish

Me: fuck, oh well

H-Town: oh my god, then back to Christian and this line "His mood swings are like a metronome set at presto."

Me: I WROTE THAT DOWN TOO

H-Town: that made me fly to a small country, overthrow a dictator, and then go nuclear

Me: I for one welcome you as our new overlord

H-Town: Excellent

Me: right after that she was saying something about not having eaten, again
I wrote" almost through two entire books and she's eaten a cracker and half a grape"

After an argument I can't even explain because I have no idea what it was about, and another near argument because Ana has decided to play matchmaker and fix up Ethan with Christian's little sister, we come to a part in the book that has caused me to give up on my life entirely.

Me: So my outrage over the promotion lasted about four pages before the story gets EVEN DUMBER
because you can't go quiz you boyfriend's doctor about his mental issues.
you CAN'T do it. YOU CAN NOT DO THAT

H-Town: I know

Me: the entire second half of this chapter doesn't exist in real life

H-Town: that was a WTF so big that this dog's head blew up:

Me: and Dr. Flynn says "just so you know, these sessions are confidential"
yes, they are so confidential SHE SHOULD NOT BE INVITED
but it's ok because she signed that completely unenforceable NDA

H-Town: HATE
This chapter, I just don't even...
I mean COME the fuck ON

Me: when they get into the actual details of things they have no business discussing
and he keeps saying "haphephobia, parasomnia, SFBT therapy"
So, I'm supposed to believe that he's a therapist but he has no fucking idea how to talk to actual people?
He must be really effective
but, ultimately it doesn't even matter
because the entire conversation CAN'T BE HAPPENING

H-Town: This book deserves to be shot into the sun

Me: the sun is too good for this book.
It should be dissolved in a vat of toxic compost
oh, and can I just take this opportunity to say
the next fucking time she writes "whoa, quick change of direction" when Christian changes the subject I am going to rent a tank and drive it through her house

H-Town: that and all these "holy fuck" and "holy shit" parts
sometimes in italics, sometimes not

Me: every one of these things has happened 800 times.
YOU ARE NOT SURPRISED ANYMORE
SHUT UP

H-Town: also, driveatank.com

Me: that is exactly what I needed, thank you kindly
so yeah, except for the fight about who is going to drive, that's the chapter.
A promotion that would never happen, followed by a doctor's visit that would also never happen

H-Town: Chapter 17 does not exist

Me: exactly. it is a bad dream I had, not something that was actually written down on actual paper
I’m glad, can you imagine if that was something we actually read?
I would have to impale myself on a stake

H-Town: this has all been a horrible, horrible dream

It's about to get worse. After I told my informant how outrageous I found the entirety of these two chapters she told me I haven't seen anything yet, and it's the next two chapters that are going to cause me to beg you all to decapitate me in the most gruesome manner possible.