Book Review: Fifty Shades Darker…and not much better

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse I picked up the sequel and have regretted it since.  This is all a rant.  There’s the short version and the long one.

Short Review:

Dear E. L. James,

Regarding the BDSM in your books:

Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty Trilogy did it better.

And so did the movie Secretary staring James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Both these books and movie did it better than you.

Long Review Rant:

   We left off with Ana telling Christian that they were not compatible / she broke up with him then went home and cried.  It’s been five (yes 5) days without Mr. Grey and she hasn’t eaten since they broke up (okay, she had a banana and some yogurt…really?).  Even though she got a job working at a big publishing house and I can’t see her going without food during a busy lifestyle without passing out at least once. Well, it’s obvious – being that it’s a sequel – that Ana and Christian get back together…in the first chapter (okay, second chapter but let’s be honest, he had her again with those stupid flowers congratulating her on her new job).  Now they are back together. Oh joy *eye roll*.

So here comes what I call the weekend of the non-stop sexcapeds.  Yup, I flipped through that overdone plot point.  Don’t get me wrong, sex in a book (especially an Erotic novel) is okay but describing it over and over, one right after the other, I’m sorry but I’m not that sex deprived to care.  I will also admit that where the first book lacks in plot the second book tries, it’s a weak one but it’s there.  Christian has given up his BDSM lifestyle to be with Ana – which means they will be in a regular relationship having regular (Vanilla, or non-kinky) sex. 

   But that means his past has to come flying in like bats out of Hell heading to a Batman convention.  His first sexual partner, Elena / Mrs. Robinson, meets Ana and wants to talk with her.  Ana goes ah hell no on her and turns her down.  Then an ex sub(missive) of Christian’s shows up.  She’s gone bat-shit crazy and has a gun.  I know what you’re thinking... “Oh goody, there’s a plot”, I thought the same thing.  The idea was wonderful of E. L. James but she failed in the execution.  The suspension could have been dragged out, Ana could have been kidnapped, and oh-good-Lord-I-wish Christian could have been shot.  So much could have been done but she only uses it to cause a shift in Christian and Ana’s relationship – which is fine but only if used right and it wasn’t.

Gun Control:

   He is afraid his Ex, with a gun, will go after Ana so he tells her not to leave her work building during her work time.  What does she do? Yup, leave.  Now, just because Ana can go to work doesn’t mean she gets a break.  You see, Christian doesn’t like her boss.  Christian won’t let Ana go on a trip to New York with her boss Jack because Christian – somehow – knows that he is a philanderer.  By the way, her boss (after working there for a week and a half) makes a pass at her.  Basically blackmailing her to have sex with him.  She kicks him in the balls and Christian, magically, shows up and saves her.

  Anyway, so there’s this build up to his ex with a gun only to have her break into Ana’s apartment and act weird (she has a gun but nothing happens, she doesn’t try to harm Ana or herself).  Mr. Grey shows up (magically) and tells Ana to leave so he can calm the Ex down.  When Christian goes back to his apartment (where Ana went) they get into a fight where – and I shit you not – Mr. Grey, age 27, has a childlike fit.  He keeps thinking Ana is going to up and leave him again.  He gets down on both knees, and doesn’t say a word.  He manipulates her into being worried and entrapping her into talking to him and swearing that she won’t leave.  For the record this is what I get from it, E. L. James doesn’t have him think or say that’s why he did it but the way it’s written that’s how it sounds.  James doesn’t realize that she wrote her character to be a manipulating, dominating (no pun intended), and OCD basket case.

  After all this fighting what do they do? They have sex.  Yeah, let’s have sex because that will fix all our problems. *smack self in the face*

In which I have read another book involving incest:

  Christian admits that he thinks himself a Sadist because all the submissive he has are brown haired because his “crack whore” birth mom was brunette. Yup, you read right, he has an Oedipus complex (see page 329).  If you haven’t read my review on Flowers in the Attic, an Oedipus complex is when a male sees his mother as the most wonderful, beautiful, idealistic woman, lover and wife in the world or as the worst person ever.  Either way, according to Freud, he wants to have sex with her (NOT literally – it’s simply a psychological overlap of deep subconscious thinking).  Point is he is mad at his birth mom for giving him a poor childhood and not loving him.  So when Ana admits she loves him and breaks down in the first book after he beats her, he has an epiphany and decides to suddenly stop his lifestyle. 

   Aside from that, he also asks Ana to marry him.  Yup, after an emotional confession, and an emotional day, in the heat of the moment he asks her that (page 332).  But only after, days before this, asking her to move in with him.  Ana tells him she won’t move in yet because it’s too soon.  Um, you are having sex and admit you love each other, and only after so many weeks and now it’s too soon?  Later Ana ask to speak with Christian’s shrink Mr. Flynn to figure out if she should consider the proposal.  Long story short she gives him the benefit of the doubt of being a sadist / that he would want to go back to the lifestyle of BDSM.  By the way, more sex!

  Here’s my problem: she can’t see her friends.  He is a bratty teenage (mentally) boy.  Then we learn, thanks to his therapist, that Christian has had the best therapy in the country, but nothing can help him.  That is until he meets Ana.  This brunette, brown eyed, smart mouth, virgin (at least in the first book) who is insecure and bites her lip which makes him want to have sex with her IS WHAT CURES HIM?  He has had this shrink for two (2) years and she fixes him in two (2) months??????

   REALLY!????!!!!

   Come, let us frolic in this field of bullshit!

Almost done and still there's more:

  *sigh* Christian has a birthday party on Saturday, but he goes missing the night before.  It’s only been a few hours but let’s send search parties out as far as Portland!  It turns out his plane has crashed (fire to engine) and he…is still living?  We were given a montage (or is it quotage?) of the things he has said to Ana before he magically shows up.  When he enters the room after the crash we get this;

He’s dressed in just his shirtsleeves and suit pants, and he’s holding his navy jacket, shoes, and socks.  He looks tired, dirty, and utterly beautiful.

  Really? Your boyfriend was in a crash, he could have health issues but no, don’t get help, just stand there.  Well they don’t get help, because no one in an erotic romance novel may have coughing fits from breathing smoke in and nothing bad happens to traumatize people.  Now Ana and Christian are alone, he gets to open the present she bought him and it’s…a keychain.  But not just any keychain; on the back of this is the flashing word “Yes” as in “Yes, I’ll marry you.”  Guess what that means? More sex! And more of me flipping pages of “You’re mine” and “Oh, my inner Goddess” (Ana doesn’t say it but she thinks it and that’s bad enough).

The last chapters involve telling Kate (Ana’s friend) and both their families that they are engaged.  Elena shows up talking crap about how Ana can’t give him what he wants; and out of everyone she calls Ana a Gold digger.  Christian’s mom hears this and kicks Elena out of the house.  Then Christian confesses to his mom about Elena and him having an affair since he was 15 to 21.  Next, in the boathouse, Christian proposes in a romantic (hearts and flowers) way.  They have sex.  And then there’s some guy (Ana’s boss) staring at Christian’s parent’s house, smoking.

My Final remark on the whole thing: 

  Dear Lord, in two months they have had sex, are practically living together, confessed their love and want to marry.  And no family member thinks she’s a gold digger? Why is it it has to be the “villain” of the story – Elena/Mrs. Robinson – who calls her a gold digger? And why does no one try to stop them or tell them they are going too fast?   If this is love, true and unconditional love, then I don’t want it.

Note: E.L. James, I don’t like this Inner Goddess crap but make up your mind; is it Inner Goddess or is it Subconscious?

Page 205: This man – God’s gift to women – loves me. 

            God’s gift to women?  Translation: douchbag.

Page 234: Oh Fifty, Fifty, Fifty…give me strength

            He is not a God damn it!