To say I am not a fan of 50 Shades of Grey is to say that the universe is kinda big, or that fire is slightly warm. Having spent two solid years of my life breaking down E.L. James’s blockbuster hit series, I consider myself something of a professional critic of the books and the phenomenon surrounding them. From its glaring similarities to Twilight (50 Shades of Grey is an unauthorized reimagining of Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling series), the depictions of unsafe and unrealistic BDSM practices, and the often-cringeworthy prose, there’s a lot to critique. But since the success of 50 Shades of Grey is driven almost entirely by female interest, is it anti-feminist to criticize it?
50 Shades of Grey isn’t just a literary copycat of Twilight, but a cultural copycat, as well. In its heyday, Twilight was lampooned not for its problematic content, but because of the audience it appealed to: teen girls and notably, the mothers of those girls, who were painted as humorously over-sexed cougars lusting after Robert Pattinson’s sparkly young flesh. And, like Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey should not go unexamined simply because it was created and consumed by women.
If you’re unfamiliar with the story, the titular Christian Grey is a young man whose every whim has been indulged by parents who rescued him from a toddlerhood of physical and sexual abuse. As a teenager, his violent behavior was curbed through regular molestation by one of his mother’s friends, who groomed him into a tightly-controlled sadist. He acts out his elaborate psychosexual issues on women who resemble his dead “crack whore” mother–women like the awkward, naive Anastasia Rose Steele. From the day Christian and Ana meet, he seeks total control over her, from asking her to sign a highly detailed sex contract (the terms of which are discussed as he plies Ana with alcohol), to deciding which gynecologist she will see (under his supervision, in his home) and what birth control method she will use. He isolates her from her friends and family, going so far as to follow her across the country uninvited when she visits her mother. He warns Ana that he’ll be able to find her no matter where she tries to run, and once they’re married he has her followed by a security team that reports her every move back to him. Since the story is told in first person point of view, the reader is privy to every moment that Ana fears Christian or his reactions–including during the poorly-executed and unsafe BDSM scenes that leave Ana weeping and confused. Throughout it all, Christian gaslights Ana into believing that his bad behavior is her responsibility, until she comes to the conclusion that her unhappiness is due to her failure to love him enough.
For some women, the themes of control and rape are not a fantasy. These women see their own abusive relationships echoed in the supposed love story of Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele, but efforts to have their voices heard have been roundly squashed by those who seem to believe that if women enjoy something, its feminism is above reproach. E.L. James herself has said she doesn’t like to hear about the comparisons between the abusive relationship she accidentally depicted in her novel and the abuse real life women have suffered, saying in a 2012 interview, “Nothing freaks me out more than people who say this is about domestic abuse. Bringing up my book in this context trivializes the issues, doing women who actually go through it a huge disservice. It also demonizes loads of women who enjoy this lifestyle, and ignores the many, many women who tell me they’ve found the books sexually empowering.”
There’s no doubt in my mind that much of our cultural finger-wagging over the book, and now the movie, is based on our persistent belief that women, especially women “of a certain age,” should not have, or are silly for having, sexual desires. Much like the historical romances that were labelled “bodice rippers” in the last decades of the twentieth century, 50 Shades of Grey and similarly-themed erotic romances have been christened “mummy porn.” The derogatory term takes a stab at the perceived audience of 50 Shades of Grey: bored middle-class housewives reading porn on their iPads during the kids’ soccer practice. The name, and the stereotype, are meant to belittle women who have experienced a sexual reawakening after marriage and motherhood; women who, we are told, should stop having any desire but the aching need to please a husband and 2.5 children once those kiddies are squeezed out. Dismissing 50 Shades of Grey as “bad” or “trash” simply because it appeals to a largely female audience is undeniably sexist, but there is valid criticism to be levied against the franchise by survivors and experts who are trying to contextualize the realities of intimate partner abuse within this cultural phenomenon. Whose voices are we expected to value more in this situation? The women defending their right to read what they please without derision, or the women who don’t want to see abuse romanticized?
If we want to talk about 50 Shades of Grey and our love affair with fantasies of control, we can do so without mocking female sexuality. Yes, 50 Shades of Grey has empowered women, but even those things that empower us are not exempt from criticism. Women are not being harmed when the dangerous messages and themes of the books are called out, but some will be harmed if these elements aren’t explored. So when you head out to the theatre next week, don’t snicker at the women who are there to see their sexual fantasies come to life on the screen. Trust me, there’ll be plenty of actual anti-feminist material to roast.
I have written 50 Shades of Grey fanfiction. I know, I know. But it’s for a good cause. Cosmopolitan is running a contest on Wattpad.com. They’re looking for the very best 50SoG fanfic Wattpad writers can supply for their “Fifty Days of Fifty Shades” celebration, and I feel like, you know, we have a lot of really talented people here in Trout Nation. Surely, surely we can help Cosmo out.
Here’s the deal: you write a Fifty Shades of Grey inspired fanfic, you post it on Wattpad and you tag it CosmoFiftyShades. It’s that easy.
Here’s my offering. Why not write your own little drabble, use Cosmo’s handy tag, and let your righteous fury shine? When you’re done, post a link in the comment, so you can share with the rest of the class. You have until February 3rd to enter the contest, though I’m pretty sure none of us can provide what Cosmo is looking for.
Remember 2014? It was a shitty year for a lot of things, but one big positive came out of it: we got a break in the 50 Shades of Grey mania. The title was barely on the radar for all of 2014. News about the film trickled out the way it does for any highly anticipated book-to-movie adaptation, and the trailer came out, but between those brief flashes, blessed radio silence. There were no thinkpieces on women’s sexuality and how positive the books were for it. Nobody made jokes about spankings on morning news shows. Everything was generally calm, and 50 Shades of Grey barely flitted through the consciousness of anyone trying to avoid it.
Brace yourselves. Bullshit is coming.
The 50 Shades of Grey movie is on its way to ruin your Valentine’s Day like a bad breakup on February 13th. The movie premiers on that most romantic of the commercially-driven gift-giving holidays, which makes sense because it is undisputedly the greatest love story of all time. Who doesn’t swoon when they imagine being trapped into a relationship that stresses them out, chained to a person they’re terrified of but unable to leave because that person has enough money to track them down no matter where they may flee?
Dreamy. Sigh.
In addition to all the magazine and gossip page articles we’re going to be subjected to–”Dakota and Jamie! Such Sexy! Much Hot!”–we’re also going to get shat upon by the commercial machine that is movie tie-in merchandising.
There’s already been a dustup about Target’s rather iffy placement of sexy 50 Shades merchandise, and one big giant crybaby started a change.org petition back in December to urge the superstore to stop selling copies of the novel, lest men who feel oppressed by the impossibly high sexual standards set forth in the book become, I shit you not, violent when they can’t satisfy a woman (but don’t, you know, stop selling the book because it promotes violence toward women in a more blatant and totally obvious sense. Do it to protect the male fee-fees). But the first actual movie tie-in product to come to my attention ahead of the landslide of cheap plastic shit that will no doubt flood shelves anew this February is OPI’s underwhelming nail color collection.
Finally, nail polish that goes well with my dislocated shoulder.
OPI is a brand known for splashy gimmick collections based on movies and celebrities. They’re basically the MAC of the nail polish world in that regard. If you’ve got a movie coming out and your target demographic is females ages 18 – 50, OPI is going to be a part of your merchandising. As you would expect, the 50 Shades of Grey line has four gray polishes, a red that they didn’t even bother to name Red Room of Pain, and some kind of multi-dimensional creme/gray frost. If you go to the OPI site, you’ll find the collection, with names like, “Shine For Me,” and “Embrace the Gray,” but strangely no, “It Takes Two to Charlie Tango” which I personally thought was a shoe-in considering the fucking awful puns OPI’s marketing department comes up with already.
Since the polish names don’t match, I took the liberty of fixing them:
If OPI’s dilution of their own brand with endless repeats of the same colors repackaged every time Gwen Stefani wants to sneeze out a collection hadn’t already driven me far, far from their products already, I would stop buying them. If you’re looking to vote with your wallet out of the mean satisfaction you’ll get (because let’s be honest, there are more idiots in this world than not, and they’d snap up an actual, human turd if someone put it in a box that had Jamie Dornan on it, so boycotting won’t do a damn thing), then I suggest you do the same.
In the meantime, if you find a 50 Shades of Grey movie tie-in product (not the book-related tie-ins that are already out there, like the godawful swill they’re selling as wine or the laughably shoddy sex toys they’re slinging), let me know. I’d like to make fun of it.
Just when I thought I was free from the horror show of Chedward and Anabella, here we are. Like some recurring nightmare in which we’re forced to watch a bad movie based on bad fanfic from a bad franchise that had equally bad movies… wait. No, sorry. Not “like.” That is exactly what’s happening here. It should go without saying that since this is Fifty Shades of Grey, TW: rape, domestic abuse, emotional abuse.
Well howdy there, friends! What would you say if I told you that we were living in a circle of hell that Dante Alighieri couldn’t have imagined in his deepest fever dreams? Okay, well, does your answer change when I tell you that Anna Todd’s After has been acquired by Simon & Schuester’s Gallery Books in a mid-six figure deal? And then when I remind you that the fanfic already has movie rights? And that the author believes editing will ruin her process? Or that when you google the word “after,” not “after fanfic” or “after Anna Todd,” just the word “after,” the first result is her story and not the definition of the word “after”? What would you say then?
Look, it’s not that I dislike Anna Todd. She hasn’t given me the self-aggrandizing, victim-blaming bullshit quotes that E.L. James did over the course of the 50 Shades media shit storm. She clearly likes to write, and she’s dedicated to her readers– something E.L. James hasn’t exactly been praised for. There’s no reason for me to dislike Anna Todd. Not even her quote about not editing because it will ruin her story; I more or less just shake my head and murmur, “Oh, my sweet, summer child.” My hope for her is that, through the process of editing her fanfics for publication, she will become a stronger writer, and never again say that editing will ruin her work.
But if authors seem butt hurt when something like this happens, a lot of people say, “Well, you’re just jealous!” You know what? Yes. We are jealous. We’re jealous and we’re frustrated and we’re disappointed. We were told for years and years that the only way to succeed in publishing was to keep learning and developing our skills and to respect our work enough to let only the very, very best land in front of other peoples’ eyes. We were told that the only way to land a traditional publishing contract was to deliver a book that was already in better shape than 90% of what was on the market. To submit anything less would be futile. And with that comes the unspoken corollary: if your book does get published, it’s because it was already flawless.
So, aspiring authors spend thousands of dollars flying all over the country to go to conferences and workshops that tell them how to write one of these flawless books. They get up early and stay up late to grab time to write. They beg or pay people to read their manuscripts, so they can get them into publishable shape.
And then “tattoos are not expectable” winds up taking home a bigger advance than most authors can ever dream of receiving.
Believe me when I say that most writers truly do cheer for the success of newcomers. We don’t operate in a state of constant professional jealousy. Well, I mean. I know some who do, but fuck them. Most of us want to see everyone succeed, because there’s room for everyone at the table. But we get frustrated when we read stuff like this:
“Wilson, the acquiring editor, told PW ‘the book is very long, so we’ll edit it down and get to the core of the story. We’re committed to keeping the story people know but we want to reach traditional readers as well.'”
[Full disclosure for ethics’ sake, Adam Wilson was my editor at Harlequin for my last few books there. This story doesn’t have so much to do with him as it does with the recent trends in publishing, but I thought it would be honest to give a heads up.]
Look at that quote: “The book is very long, so we’ll edit it down and get to the core of the story.” This sticks in my craw. It sticks there so hard. So many times, I’ve been at industry events where editors or agents will give the advice to write tight, to keep the story moving, to have it polished enough that in the lucky event an editor’s eyes land on your manuscript, they’re wowed by your narrative skill. So “edit it down and get to the core of the story” isn’t something you’re supposed to do after you get picked up by a major publisher. It’s something you have to do before your book is even ready to submit.
Furthermore, After lacks another crucial characteristic of what we have been told is a salable manuscript: rudimentary grammar and punctuation, two basic things authors have heard hammered home in lecture after lecture from publishing professionals. “We don’t want to see your manuscript until it’s been proof-read to perfection!” Well, then explain this bullshit, traditional publishing. Explain it.
Obviously, when a publisher sees potential money laying around, they’re going to grab at it. That’s business. But they don’t say, “We’re grabbing this for the cash! Whee!” They make statements like:
“Gallery Books is publishing the book fairly quickly. ‘[Publishing this quickly] is not for every book but we have lots of fan-fiction writers and we’re familiar with the Wattpad community,’ Wilson said. ‘We’ve learned to publish quickly when it comes to self-published authors.'”
See how that makes rushing an unedited manuscript with an aimless plot– “And then Steph makes me go to another party! Again! And I hate it! Again!”– sound like a special commodity that can’t be handled through the usual channels? They don’t want to admit that the bottom line is the bottom line here. No publisher is going to come out and say, “We will publish literally anything, no matter how bad it is, no matter what shape it’s in, whether or not it borders on plagiarism, e.g. 50 Shades of Grey. We will publish anything that we think will make us more money than it costs to print the book.”
Look, I’m not saying that I’m shocked. I’m a realist. But traditional publishing works very hard to convince aspiring authors that every book they sell was accepted and published based on merit alone, and only they are the arbiters of what is and is not “a book.” It’s how they sell their product, I get it. But if those authors had just known that it was okay to rewrite someone else’s entire series and change the names, they could have written 50 Shades of Grey. If we had just known that publishers wanted barely coherent boy band fanfic, we’d have all written barely coherent boy band fanfic.
This is a trap that a lot of commoditized creative ventures fall into; we can’t set out saying we want to make money, because then that means that what we’re making isn’t art, and that’s what we’re supposed to be in it for. Writers are supposed to create for our own pleasure, strive for perfection, and ignore the sometimes disheartening financial realities involved. We’re supposed to buy the line that the books that get published do so by being the best of the best the moment they’re plucked from the slush pile. And we’re supposed to do all this without any public expression of anger when something like After or 50 Shades of Grey achieves staggering success. Who does this model benefit? Not the authors.
I guess what I’m saying is, if you fart and blame the dog enough, eventually people realize where the stink is really coming from. If publishing is a business, then it needs to admit that it’s a business. It would make stuff like this way less insulting authors and readers.
So, here we are. I think this is going to be the last recap. I know there’s “bonus” material, like the first chapter written from Christian’s POV and a story with him as a child, but after this epilogue, I’m honestly defeated. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I fear for women. I fear for the women who embrace this book. I fear for the women who will raise their Greybies to be “gentlemen” like Christian and “strong women” like Ana. I fear for the lives of domestic violence victims to be, the woman who seek out their own Christian Grey and find him. I fear for the women who see their abuse experience reflected in this book, and who find no solace from people they used to trust, because they know that they’ll never be understood so long as 50 Shades is the greatest romance of our time. I fear for the children who will be born to dangerously flawed fathers because their mothers believe, from the example set in these books, that abusive men can change through the shared miracle of unwanted pregnancy.
I’ve seen comments from people out there on the internet saying that they felt the tone of my recaps moved from funny to tragic, and that they could tell that the subject matter had begun to depress me. That assessment couldn’t be more on point. I used to find it fun to mock this book, thinking that surely, at some point in its meteoric rise, people would begin to see how ridiculous it is. But that hasn’t happened. To every person who staunchly believes it is going to happen, that movie will flop, that people will suddenly get what we’ve been saying all along: I understand why you’re clinging to that delusion. It’s easier to live in a world with hope. But there is no hope here. The movie will be a box office success. More fans will be introduced. The cycle will start all over again.
I’ve tried to refrain from too many vicious personal attacks on E.L. James. I’ve said some snarky stuff and left it there. But I’m done with that. This woman is a danger to women and to society in general. She is an ignorant, arrogant, self-important wannabe who accidentally made it, and now believes her own hype. She will never acknowledge that her book is a piece of abuse glorifying trash. She will never do anything to set right the horrible things she’s put into motion. She is, if not the literal devil, certainly a very close approximation of that kind of evil. She is Sarah Palin. She is Michelle Bachman. She is every woman who betrays other women, on a bloated, disgusting scale. Maybe I would have pitied her once, but I have no doubt that she knows what she is doing, and that it will sell and line her already swollen bank account. Perhaps whatever book she is crafting out of unsubtle plagiarism for her next release won’t reach such an impressive height. I can only hope that comes true. But there will never be any consequence for the way she’s endangered the lives of women who want to live this “fantasy” she finds so romantic, or portrayed sexual ignorance, lack of consent, and outright abuse as not only desirable, but utterly necessary for a woman to be worthy of love. No matter how much you want to believe there will be, there never will be and justice .
This is it. The last chapter of the entire 50 Shades of Grey series. I mean, there’s an epilogue, and a vignette, and the first part of the first book rewritten from Christian’s POV– OMG YOU GUISE THIS IS TOTALLY NOT LIKE TWILIGHT LIKE AT ALL–, but the chapters, the main part of the story, the horrible, crushing legacy of “love him ’til he’s well” is over. It’s… it’s over.
If you come here just for my amazing recaps, you might not be aware that I’m a beauty blogger on the side. I try out DIY beauty remedies for Collective310, and this month YOU get to decide what I slather all over a random body part. If you’d like to vote, you can do so here.
*Rolls up sleeves*
We last left Ana in the hospital, about to eat breakfast. Not hospital issue poor people food, of course. Ana starts eating her oatmeal and realizes that hey, the baby she’s growing could be a girl.
“You know,” I mutter between mouthfuls, “Blip might be a girl.”
Christian runs his hand through his hair. “Two women, eh?” Alarm flashes across his face, and his dark look vanishes.
Oh crap. “Do you have a preference?”
What are you going to do if he does, Ana? Worry yourself to death until you get the sonogram? Wait, right, that’s exactly what you’ll do. And pardon me while I’m incredibly grossed out at the thought of how Christian Grey would treat a daughter, and how funny Ana would find it when the poor woman was still locked in a steel-and-glass-and-sandstone-and-steel-and-glass tower when she’s twenty-five, with no friends and a “proscribed list” of people she can never have contact with.
Social workers, for example.
Christian tells Ana he just wants a healthy baby, and then he tells her to keep eating, because we can’t go a page without Christian having some kind of control over a bodily function of Ana’s.
Christian starts reading The Seattle Times:
“You made the papers again, Mrs. Grey.” His tone is bitter.
“Again?”
“The hacks are just rehashing yesterday’s story, but it seems factually accurate. You want to read it?”
I wonder how it is that Christian feels journalism with accurate facts is somehow hackish. Also, as this series has gone on, Christian has had nothing but contempt for all forms of press, even going so far as to force Ana to sign a non-disclosure agreement in the first book… so why did he grant an interview to Kate? I know, he donates huge amounts of money to the university… but why does he do that? He didn’t go to college there. So, the only reason Chedward agreed to Kate’s interview in the first book was so Ana could meet him and the book could happen at all. Ah, character consistency.
Ana asks Christian to read the article to her:
He smirks and proceeds to read the article aloud. It’s a report on Jack and Elizabeth, depicting them as a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde. It briefly covers Mia’s kidnapping, my involvement in Mia’s rescue, and the fact that both Jack and I are in the same hospital. How does the press get all this information? I must ask Kate.
They ask, Ana. Asking is like, the biggest part of journalism. You roomed with a journalism student through college and you don’t know that?
Here’s something interesting: this is one of the very few times that it makes sense for Ana to be in the press. They’re always talking about paparazzi following her around and stuff, and it’s never made any sense to me. It makes sense that they would have had their engagement and wedding announcements in a lot of different magazines and newspapers, but Christian isn’t Richard Branson. He’s very private. He’s not out there trying to be the rock star billionaire. So why would people care about him? I mean, if we want to do a comparison of famous and successful business people here…without googling, what’s Mark Zuckerberg’s wife’s name?
Exactly.
But this is really one of the only times it makes sense for Ana to be in the press. She’s been involved in a dramatic kidnapping. If that happened to Bill Gates’s wife, whose name I also don’t know off the top of my head but which I sort of murkily recall as being similar to “Mindy,” we’d hear about it.
When Christian finishes, I say, “Please read something else. I like listening to you.”
So he gets out a copy of Twilight.
Just kidding.
It’s actually Breaking Dawn.
Just kidding again. He reads to her from the papers while she eats breakfast and thinks about Little Blip and how scary parenting is going to be for Christian. Oh, um, her, as well, but obviously her main concern is how it will affect Christian, because have you been reading these books at all?
What puzzles me is that he hasn’t lacked for positive role models as parents. Both Grace and Carrick are exemplary parents, or so they seem.
What we know of Grace and Kerrick’s Parenting:
They adopted a severely traumatized child and apparently ignored or weren’t overly concerned by his emotional issues, because they think he’s just fine at the beginning of the series.
They’re relieved that an outside influence (Ana) came in and fixed the son that they don’t admit was broken until like, the third book.
When his mom found out that he’d been molested by one of her friends, she blamed him.
His mom snoops other people’s private information– so we know where Christian gets it from.
What Ana doesn’t understand is that having money, giving your kids a fancy house and gifts and elegant table manners? That’s not parenting. That’s just a lifestyle. Parenting is, you know, just a for example, shaping a young mind so that it understands that imprisoning another human being with guards and proscribed lists and spying and manipulation isn’t great.
Maybe it was the Bitch Troll’s interference that damaged him so badly. I’d like to think so. But in truth I think it goes back to his birth mom, though I’m sure Mrs. Robinson didn’t help.
Yet again, we’re treated to the theme of “child molesters are better than negligent addict mothers.” Can we just do a comparison here? I think we need to.
The Crack Whore vs. The Bitch Troll
Let’s get ready to be illlllllllllogicaaaaaaaaaaal
The Crack Whore
Was addicted to drugs
Was impoverished
Did not stop her abuser from abusing her son
Prostituted herself for survival and the survival of her child due to hardships the reader is not privy to
Died
The Bitch Troll
Was sexually attracted to her best friend’s minor child
Knew Christian’s history of abuse and subsequent mental and emotional issues
Used this history of abuse and abandonment issues to manipulate minor child into a sexual relationship lasting years
Put the minor child in danger from her violent husband’s wrath pending discovery
Selected Christian’s sexual partners when their relationship ended
No, you’re right, Ana. It’s probably all to do with his mother. She had no business being a prostitute addicted to crack! That’s a choice she made! Hellooooo? She lived in Detroit. In the 80’s. She could have gotten a job and pulled herself up by her bootstraps, in a thriving economic boomtown like early 1980’s Detroit! Instead, she liked drugs and getting hit so much, she moved herself straight into that shitty apartment where she died and she did it all because she clearly hated her son. Just because Elena sexually manipulated Christian throughout his teen years and early adulthood, causing damage that has resulted in Christian being unable to trust or love another human being, she probably has nothing to do with it compared to Christian’s skeevy slut of a mom.
Ana is thinking about all of this stuff when there’s a knock at the door.
Detective Clark makes an apologetic entry into the room. He’s right to be apologetic– my heart sinks when I see him.
Yeah, he should apologize to you for doing his job and trying to keep you safe from the guy who tried to rape you more than once, who kidnapped your sister-in-law and tried to kidnap you, who set fire to your husband’s business, invaded your home, extorted a ransom from you, and beat you so bad you were hospitalized. Like, I’m really sure Detective Clark is thrilled that he’s staring in Law & Order: Grey Family Crimes Unit.
“Mr. Grey, Mrs. Grey. Am I interrupting?”
“Yes,” snaps Christian.
Clark ignores him. “Glad to see you’re awake, Mrs. Grey. I need to ask you a few questions about Thursday afternoon. Just routine. Is now a convenient time?”
“Sure,” I mumble, but I do not want to relive Thursday’s events.
“My wife should be resting,” Christian bristles.
Remember how every other time Christian has met with this detective, he’s been surly and uncooperative? At some point, wouldn’t Detective Clark start thinking, “Why is this guy so hostile and constantly trying to get rid of me without anyone giving me any information?” Well, of courseDetective Clark won’t, because he’s in 50 Shades of Grey. But I guarantee Olivia Benson would have picked up on this shit, if she weren’t on a different spin-off. The difference is that this time, Christian is negatively impacting Ana, not himself. Ana just withdrew five million dollars from the bank, then shot somebody. Yeah, on the surface it’s going to look like a kidnapping/ransom thing that went wrong, but with Christian wanting to constantly chase away any police involvement, maybe Detective Clark is going to wonder if that five million was being extorted to cover something seriously up.
Don’t worry, that doesn’t happen here.
There’s a section break where we thankfully don’t have to hear all the details of the most improbable ransom drop in history being repeated again, and Detective Clark tells Ana she would have done “womankind” a service if she’d killed Jack Hyde. He also tells them that he’s pretty sure Jack won’t make bail this time. Excuse me, but how the hell did he make bail the last time? Christian wants to know who posted bail for Jack, but it’s confidential. Ana suspects Christian has someone in mind, but obviously he’s not going to tell her because communication is the anti-sexy.
After another section break, Ana is being discharged from the hospital:
I nod, trying to contain my delight at going home.
The staff of the entire hospital are probably struggling to do the same thing.
As Dr Singh leaves, Christian asks her for a quick word in the corridor. He keeps the door ajar as he asks her a question She smiles.
“Yes, Mr. Grey, that’s fine.”
He grins and returns to the room a happier man.
“What was that all about?”
“Sex,” he says, flashing a wicked grin.
You know what? Let’s have an imagination time.
ImaginaaaaAAAAAaaaatiiiioooooOOOOnnn
Let’s imagine, shall we, what that conversation with Dr Singh would have been like in a real world, not a 50 Shades of Improbability world:
Christian: “Dr. Singh, when can my wife have sex again?”
Dr. Singh: “Mr. Grey, your wife has been through a very traumatic experience. Not only does her head injury still pose the risk of possible lasting side effects, the emotional toll of being taken hostage, beaten, and extorted cannot be taken lightly. I would advise Mrs. Grey to bring up the topic of sexual intimacy with whichever mental health professional she engages for therapy. She can get a referral from her family doctor, whom she should see within the next few days.”
Obviously, there will always be medical professionals who still act like women are property who should start spreading again as soon as possible after surgery or birth or hospitalization, but seriously? Dr. Singh thinks it’s funny that Ana has been the victim of a violent crime– a violent crime at the hands of a man who’d already threatened to rape her on multiple occasions– and her husband wants to start banging her right away? Fuck you, Dr. Singh. You suck so much balls.
Ana’s reaction to all of this is to crack a joke about her head injury:
“I have a headache,” I smirk right back.
“I know. You’ll be off limits for a while. I was just checking.”
If you weren’t going to have sex with her, then why did you need to know? Well, dear reader, here is why he needed to know: because Christian Grey manipulates Ana with sex, and he needs to know if his manipulation tool can feasibly be put back into use. See, what he’s done here is plant the seed of the possibility of sex in Ana’s mind. For the rest of the chapter, she’s drooling and panting like Pavlov’s dog at a handbell choir concert, because Christian brought it up. And for the rest of the chapter, Christian makes it a point to remind her that he’s going to deny her sex, for her own safety. He’s just protecting her.
Isn’t it funny how often Christian’s protection of Ana looks like deeply calculated psychological manipulation?
Before they leave the hospital, Ana wants to go see Ray. Jesus, is that guy still there? It feels like he’s been in there for fucking ever, but it’s only been like five or six days at this point, right? So really wrap your head around what an average week for Ana Steele is. In one week:
Her father nearly dies.
She finds out she’s pregnant.
Her husband explodes in a rage over the pregnancy and goes to his ex lover.
Her sister-in-law gets kidnapped.
She gets beaten unconscious during a ransom drop.
She shoots a man.
She spends some time in a coma.
Seriously, every week seems to be like this for these people. There’s always some kind of bullshit drama happening. I’m starting to imagine Christian and Ana becoming aged before their time by the stress of just getting through a full calendar month without anybody dying.
Pictured: Christian and Ana during income tax season.
Christian tells Ana that he hasn’t told Ray or Carla about the baby:
“Thank you.” I smile, grateful that he hasn’t stolen my thunder.
Or, you know. Disclosed personal information about you without consulting you. THAT TOO.
Christian warns Ana that Ray is mad at her:
“I should warn you, he’s mad as hell. Said I should spank you.”
What? Christian laughs at my appalled expression. “I told him I’d be only too willing to oblige.”
GROSS.
Christian tells Ana that Taylor brought her some clothes– because even after everything they’ve been through, Christian apparently can’t do anything to take care of Ana that involves him doing literally any other action than giving another person orders to do it for him– and then there’s a section break and we get:
As Christian predicted, Ray is furious. I don’t ever remember him being this mad. Christian has wisely decided to leave us alone. For such a taciturn man, Ray fills his hospital room with his invective, berating me for my irresponsible behavior.
Keep in mind, my friends, that the sole reason Ana went on this ransom drop was to save the life of another human being. She was trying to save Mia. But nobody cares about that. It seems like every character in this book would have been totally fine with Mia getting murdered.
“And poor Christian! I’ve never seen him like that. He’s aged. We’ve both aged over the last couple of days.”
Pictured: Christian and Ray, worrying.
I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure if anything is aging Christian, it’s the heroic amounts of alcohol and stress he and his wife consume like life giving oxygen in this fucking series. At least Ray didn’t say he died a thousand deaths, though.
In the car on the way home, Ana calls her mom, but it’s not as long a scene as the one with Ray, because the only thing that really matters in this narrative is how many male characters are concerned over Ana’s safety and continued existence. This is made even more clear when, after three whole sentences glossing over Ana’s conversation with her mother, she notices that Christian is concerned about something:
“What’s wrong?” I ask when I’m finally free from my mother.
Finally free. She just woke up from a coma. She’s speaking to her mother for the first time since cheating death, and it’s this big imposition, but we’re also supposed to believe she’s got a good relationship with her mom? Verily, I calleth bullshit.
Anyway, Christian is concerned because Welch has uncovered some information about Jack Hyde in Detroit, and he didn’t want to share it on the phone. Ana and Christian get back to their building, and being in a familiar environment reminds Ana that, hey, some pretty fucking horrible shit just happened to her. Christian is all like, don’t worry, because you’re home now and you’re safe, but haven’t they had like, two home invasions in the past, what, like a month or three months or some shit? It seems like statistically speaking, the least safe place for Ana to be would be in their apartment.
When the doors of the elevator slide open, Christian picks me up like a child and carries me into the foyer.
I’m noticing a theme here. When Ana’s father is scolding her at the hospital, she thinks she feels like she’s twelve again. Her dad tells Christian to spank her. She’s being carried like a child. She isn’t terribly close to her mother or even her “best friend” Kate, two women who treat her like an adult woman. In fact, Ana seems to have a lot of contempt for anyone who does treat her like an adult woman, and she reveres the two men who treat her like a child.
I have a theory. I thought that somehow, some way, Ana developed this hole in her, this longing for male attention. I thought it was due to her discomfort with sexuality, because of her tendency to refer to herself as childlike or her childlike thoughts during sex scenes. But I’m starting to get a different sense here. It’s not that Ana is uncomfortable with sex, and therefore reverts to these childish tendencies. Ana is uncomfortable with autonomy. She was perfectly happy living with Kate during college, when they were both crazy kids having fun. But they graduate, and Kate is getting into a serious relationship with a guy, and suddenly Ana is completely grossed out by this (despite being in a relationship herself). Kate is moving into adulthood, while Ana clings to a man who wants to treat her like a child. Her mother makes the mistake of referring to her as a woman during a few scattered conversations, and suddenly a mother’s love is a burden Ana needs to be freed from. Now the only thing I can’t figure out is if this is a symptom of Grey’s abuse, or a character trait that has enabled him to abuse her without her recognizing it. Either way, his abuse is allowing her to stay in a static state in which she will never have to actually become a self-sufficient human being if she doesn’t want to. Is this really a fantasy that women are looking for? A man to come sweep them off their feet and psychologically abuse them until they don’t have to live their own lives?
Christian takes Ana into the bathroom, because his solution to like, every problem a woman could possibly have is to get her wet, in either physical sense.
“Bath?” he asks.
I shake my head. No… no… not like Leila.
“Shower?” His voice is choked with concern.
I’m sure Leila has probably taken showers before, too.
“Hey,” Christian croons. Kneeling in front of me, he pulls my hands away from my tearstained cheeks and cups my face in his hands. I gaze at him, blinking away my tears.
“You’re safe. You both are,” he whispers.
Blip and me. My eyes brim with tears again.
“Stop, now. I can’t bear it when you cry.” His voice is hoarse. His thumbs wipe my cheeks, but my tears still flow.
“I’m sorry, Christian. Just sorry for everything. For making you worry, for risking everything– for the things I said.”
I wish I would have kept a running tally of the times Ana has apologized to Christian, compared to the times Christian has apologized to Ana. She just went through an insanely traumatic event trying to save his sister’s life. She risked her life for his benefit and for the benefit of his family. And he’s not even allowing her to cry, because it’s an inconvenience to him. Then she apologizes for saving his sister! She apologizes to him, for the things she said… okay, but didn’t she say them the day after he became violently enraged over the fact that she got pregnant? And then he went to his ex-lover? And yet Ana still risked her life and the life of her wanted fetus because she didn’t want him to feel the emotional pain of losing his sister. And she’s apologizing.
This is why I keep my handy “50 Shades Emergency Puke Bowl” close at hand.
At least this time, Christian steps up and takes responsibility for his own misdeeds:
“Hush, baby, please.” He kisses my forehead. “I’m sorry. It takes two to tango, Ana.” He gives me a crooked smile. “Well, that’s what my mom always says. I said things and did things I’m not proud of.”
Wait, what?! “It takes two to tango?” What the shit is that? Ana didn’t do anything wrong! In fact, for the first time in the entire series, she FINALLY did something that wasn’t selfish! How was she tangoing? And he’s not sorry he hurt her, he’s sorry he did things he’s not proud of. His only regret is that he can’t be proud of himself?
This guy. This fucking guy.
To feel his skin against my cheek… this man I love, this self-doubting, beautiful man, the man I could have lost through my own recklessness.
Dear reader. The only reason, and I mean the ONLY reason I am still doing these recaps is because I promised I would do them. And because I don’t want this book to defeat me. But I’m going to have to talk to my therapist for a WHILE after I’m done with these things. I feel like I’ll continually wake up from nightmares that I’m still reading these books.
Like this movie, only instead of a haunted hotel room, it’s these books, so it’s much, much worse.
Ana decides that if she’s going to hang on to Christian, she can’t be so needy about stuff like wanting to know why he’s treating her like absolute garbage:
He has some explaining to do, but right now I want to revel in the feel of his comforting, protective arms around me. And in that moment it occurs to me; any explanations on his part have to come from him. I can’t force him– he’s got to want to tell me. I won’t be cast as the nagging wife, constantly trying to wheedle information out of her husband. It’s just exhausting. I know he loves me. I know he loves me more than he’s ever loved anyone, and for now, that’s enough. The realization is liberating.
I know E.L. misuses a lot of words, but Christ, you’d think she’d know what “liberating” means. HINT: it’s the exact opposite of surrendering total autonomy without question. Note that in Ana’s mind, the problem here isn’t that Christian is secretive and manipulative, but that she simply wants to know more than she’s entitled to know about situations that directly concern her.
This is the take away, ladies: If you want a true and perfect love, you’ll stop worrying your pretty little head off about things that are better left to the menfolk. As long as he says he loves you and showers you with expensive things, you don’t need to worry about shit like respect and your inalienable human rights. He never has to actually display any kind of tender feeling toward you that can’t immediately be reflected back onto him in a way that makes him feel good about himself. It’s enough that he says the words and you convince yourself to believe them.
Goddamn these books are fucking stupid.
So, after they’re done crying in the shower, Christian washes Ana and makes a big deal about her bruises and how he wanted to kill Hyde, because apparently the only person allowed to put bruises on Ana without her consent is him.
I love how we hear all the time about how Christian would have totally kicked this guy’s ass, or this dude should be glad that Christian wasn’t around, but the only time we’ve seen anyone actually defend Ana from the advances of a creepo have been when Taylor beat up Hyde and Ana decked that guy on the dance floor. But ooooh, if Christian had been around, because he’s such a tough guy…
No, wait, he was “around” both of those times. He just didn’t do anything.
Ana tries to get sexy with Christian, but he’s not having it, because she needs to “get clean.” You know they routinely bathe you in the hospital, right Christian? After they get out, he makes a crack about her “enjoying the view” and of course she’s embarrassed to be caught looking at him naked because gasp and double crap, he’s her husband:
“How do you know?” I ask, trying to ignore that I’ve been caught staring at my own husband.
Would it have been better if you’d been caught staring at somebody else’s husband?
Ana isn’t asking how Christian knew she was looking at him, but how he knew Elizabeth was involved in the thing with Hyde. As it turns out, Hyde kept blackmail video of all his PAs, because he slept with all his PAs and was apparently trying to amass some kind of army made out of women he’d fucked and then fucked over? At what point did he think, “That could never collapse and destroy me?”
“Exactly. Blackmail material. He likes it rough.” Christian frowns, and I watch confusion followed by disgust cross his face. He pales as his disgust turns to self-loathing. Of course– Christian likes it rough, too.
“Don’t.” THe word is out of my mouth before I can stop it.
His frown deepens. “Don’t what?” He stills and regards me with apprehension.
“You aren’t anything like him.”
What do you mean? They both get off on overt, non-consensual violence.
Sometimes I run into spots in these chapters where two or three lines are just like, so, so wrong, and I struggle to figure out the order in which to pick this shit apart. Let’s start on this thing about blackmail. This is the second time in this series that it becomes obvious that the author, editors, and readers of these books have no idea what blackmail is or how it works. The first time was when Christian decided to keep photos of all of his subs in sexual situations so that he could use them for blackmail if they ever told on him for his kinky ways. Which makes no sense, because the photos would only confirm the allegations, allegations that are being made by a woman who’s already admitting to having kinking sex with him. So she’s got nothing to lose. This time, the way the “blackmail” was supposed to work is apparently, “If you ever accuse me of anything, I’m going to hand over proof to Santa and everybody that I not only had sex with an employee, but I was into some shit people might find really sick and overreact to if they saw it, thus branding me as a pervert and revealing all the ways I victimized you as your employer.” Yeah. That’ll sure show ’em, Jack. Good thinking.
Now, let’s move on to how fucked up it is that Christian is grossed out by the fact that Hyde likes rough sex. I get it, he’s supposed to be thinking, “My god, is that how I’ve been treating Ana? I’m such a fool! Tender and quiet lovemaking with a minimum of bodily contact from now on!” But it’s so, so stupid. The thing that makes Jack Hyde evil isn’t that he likes rough sex. It’s that he likes rough sex specifically to humiliate and manipulate women into doing what he wants them to do for him, without caring about obtaining enthusiastic consent, and that’s nothing like what Christian…
Ohhhhhhh, now I see it.
Ana tells Christian that she could hear some conversations when she was in the coma, and he mentions Kate had stopped by. And of course, Ana didn’t know that, or it would have made her coma sooooo much worse.
“Kate was there?”
“Briefly, yes. She’s mad at you, too.”
I turn in his lap. “Stop with the everyone is mad at Ana crap, okay?”
FUCKING THANK YOU! Ana finally points out that, hey, Dickfart McGee, your sister was in danger, but of course, that isn’t good enough for Christian:
“Thank you,” he says, surprising me. “But no more recklessness. Because next time, I will spank the living shit out of you.”
You know, if it SURPRISES you when your husband thanks you for risking your own life to save a member of his family, as in, you didn’t expect him to THANK YOU for doing so? Then you shouldn’t be with that person. Ditto if your husband threatens to spank you as a punishment, when you’ve repeatedly objected to punishment spankings in the past, irregardless of your D/s relationship.
You know what I think? I think E.L. James doesn’t know that BDSM can exist without punishments. Did anyone watch her when she was interviewed by Barbara Walters this year? Barbara asked her about research, and E.L. like, wouldn’t answer the question. Barbara asked her if she’d done any of the stuff in the book, and she said, “What do you think?” Well, I think no. I think you did zero research, dude. I think you went off stuff you’ve read in other misinformed fanfics (The Office, cough cough) and got a bad idea about what BDSM is, and now you won’t admit that you didn’t know anything about it.
He’s serious. Holy cow. Deadly serious. “I have your stepfather’s permission.” He smirks. He’s teasing me! Or is he?
If you can’t tell whether or not your partner is seriously threatening to use corporal punishment on you when you’ve told him many times that you don’t want him to, and you’re using adverbs like “deadly” to describe his mood/tone? You should not be with this person. This person shouldn’t be with anyone.
Then Christian tenderly caresses her belly and talks about how it’s not just her anymore, and he trails his fingers along the top of her sweatpants in a sexy way, so that when she gets all hot, he can tell her no, he’s not going to have sex with her because he’s so worried about her health and shit. Or whatever. When he’s just threatened to spank her because he has a male relative’s permission. TENDERNESS!
Christian gives Ana some chicken soup, and he tells her she needs to rest. He decides to facilitate this rest by bringing his work into the bedroom, presumably so that he can stare at Ana while she sleeps. I know I do all my best recuperating while being intensely stared at.
So, of course when Ana wakes up:
Christian is sitting in the armchair, watching me, gray eyes luminous in the ambient light.
Sweet dreams, Ana.
Christian is obviously traumatized by some news he’s received from Welch. Apparently, Christian and Jack Hyde lived together… wait, like, in college?
“After I was found with the crack whore, before I went to live with Carrick and Grace, I was in the care of Michigan State. […]”
Could have been worse.
See, ’round these parts, if a kid is in foster care– as Christian was– we call that being in the care of the state. But you’d say it like, “I was in the care of the State of Michigan,” not “I was in the care of Michigan State,” because Michigan State is a university. Unless Sparty is taking in homeless children.
He talks like Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness and he makes you do Crossfit like allllllll the time.
Christian shows Ana a photo of himself with his foster family– including Jack. And of course, Jack’s evil personality is apparent from a photo of him as a child, because that is how this book works:
I gaze at each of the children: two boys– identical twins, about twelve– both with sandy blond hair, grinning broadly at the camera; there’s another boy, who’s smaller, with reddish blond hair, scowling; and hiding behind him, a copper-haired grey-eyed little boy. Wide-eyed and scared, dressed in mismatched clothes and clutching a child’s dirty blanket.
So, they were in foster care together. That’s the connection. Jack is jealous of Christian because Christian got adopted and he didn’t. That’s the impetus for all of these shenanigans.
No, for real.
Ana is so full of herself that she’s pretty sure Jack only hired her to seduce her to get back at Christian, and he’s all:
“I don’t think so,” Christian mutters, his eyes now open. “The searches he did on my family didn’t start until a week or so after you began your job at SIP. Barney knows the exact dates. And, Ana, he fucked all his assistants and taped them.”
Thanks for the recap, but we already discussed him taping his assistants once in this chapter. You know, back when you didn’t understand how blackmail works, Christian.
Ana thinks about all the contact she’d had with Jack and what could have happened to her:
I knew deep down he was bad news, yet I ignored all my instincts. Christian’s right– I have no regard for my own safety. I remember the fight we had about me going to New York with Jack. Jeez– I could have ended up on some sordid sex tape.
UGH THIS BOOK IS SO FRUSTRATING. Okay, Ana? You thought Jack was a little overly friendly. You didn’t know he was “bad news.” You didn’t seem to know that until he attacked you in the break room. Also? Christian had no idea about any of this, he didn’t know Jack was “bad news.” All he was doing was jealously keeping you home from a business trip that your job may have relied on, because he didn’t want you going somewhere with another man. Not because he was worried about what that man might do, but because he’s terrified that you’re going to just lay down in the airport and invite everyone to take a crack at your v. Possessive and protective are different, and once again we have Ana and the author misunderstanding this and making bullshit retroactive justifications for Christian’s abusive behavior.
And in that moment I recall the photographs Christian kept of his submissives.
Oh shit. “We’re cut from the same cloth.” No, Christian, you’re not, you’re nothing like him.
Right? Jack was keeping tapes of all of his PAs because he wanted to use them to control them on pain of humiliation, while Christian kept pictures of all of his subs because he wanted to use them to control them on pain of humiliation. Totally different.
You know what’s kind of funny? Both of those “blackmail” scenarios assume that all the women who had sex with Christian and Jack would be embarrassed to admit that they had engaged in BDSM. Then you go and watch E.L. James in her Barbara Walters interview, and she can’t admit to ever having done anything in the book, she gets all flustered. E.L. James is uncomfortable with BDSM, and her assumption is that everyone who does it is, as well. Christian and Jack are apparently experienced Doms who don’t realize that literally any photo or video they could possibly take of any activity they’re into has already been photographed or filmed a thousand times and put up on Fetlife by people who realize that, hey, sex isn’t that big a deal, and neither is kink.
Ana tells Christian to call his parents, he does, Ana realizes that Christian just told her personal stuff– thus validating her “I shouldn’t ask my romantic partner any questions about any subject” decision– and after a section break they are arriving at Carrick and Grace’s house.
“Ana, Ana, darling Ana,” she whispers. “Saving two of my children. How can I ever thank you?”
If you’re Orthodox Christian, this might be very funny to you.
Then Mia thanks Ana, but of course since Mia is a female character of child-bearing age, she must do something wrong that Ana can notice while she’s doing it:
Then Mia grabs me, squashing my ribs. I wince and gasp, but she doesn’t notice. “Thank you for saving me from those assholes.”
Remember in the Twilight series, how Alice would hug Bella too enthusiastically? Do you have any idea how hard it was to type that sentence? I don’t remember what anybody’s names actually were in Twilight now.
After a section break, Ana sees Kate, who, you know, is also mad. Because everyone hates Mia.
“What were you thinking, Ana?” she shouts as she confronts me in the kitchen, causing all eyes in the room to turn and stare.
“Kate, please. I’ve had the same lecture from everyone!” I snap back.
Wouldn’t it be funny if, in the movie, Mia is standing in the background and she just looks really hurt and silently mouths, “Everyone?”
She glares at me, and for one minute I think I’m going to be subjected to a Katherine Kavanagh how-not-to-succumb-to-kidnappers lecture, but instead she folds me in her arms.
“Jeez– sometimes you don’t have the brains you were born with, Steele,” she whispers.
You misspelled “weren’t” there, Kate.
Elliot and Kate have set a date for their wedding, but it’s really close to Ana and Christian’s due date, so Ana is worried. In reality, Kate should be worried, because her wedding is going to be overshadowed by Christian climbing astride the bridal party’s table and raising his infant son aloft, just moments after Ana has smeared a fistful of wedding cake over the kids forehead and whispered, “Siiiiiiiiiiiiimba.”
Ana is having a baby, Kate. You don’t ever get to be the center of attention, ever again.
Elliot hands Ana some champagne and uh-oh, nobody knows she’s pregnant, and Christian is unhappy that she’s even holding the damn glass:
“Your meds, Mrs. Grey.” He eyes the glass in my hand.
I narrow my eyes. Damnit. I want a drink. Grace smiles as she joins me in the kitchen, collecting a glass from Elliot on the way.
“A sip will be fine,” she whispers with a conspiratorial wink at me, and lifts her glass to clink mine.
Or she could have just gone along with Christian’s line about being on pills. Even though she didn’t take her pain pills after leaving the hospital, she could have easily just said, “Nope, I’m not drinking because I have a head injury and I’m on medication.” I know that in some parts of the world, drinking during pregnancy isn’t a huge deal, but in America it’s a giant taboo, to the point that when I got pregnant the first time, by accident, my OB shamed me for having had anything to drink ON THE NIGHT OF PROBABLE CONCEPTION. Ana will have grown up in a culture paranoid about fetal alcohol syndrome and that treats pregnant women like livestock. She started out the first book having never had a drink, and now she’s longing for booze not a day out of the hospital for a serious head injury.
What I’m saying is, I think Ana might be developing a substance abuse problem.
Back at home, Ana and Christian get into bed, and they’re talking a little bit about his life in the foster home, including a book his foster mother read him. Guys. It’s Are You My Mother? WHO THE FUCK READS THAT BOOK TO A KID WHOSE MOM JUST DIED RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM?! No fucking wonder Jack Hyde is all messed up. Jesus Christ.
Anyway, somehow this all leads to Christian starting to talk about Mrs. Robinson:
He begins in a soft voice. “Picture this,
Sicily. 1922.
an adolescent boy looking to earn some extra money so he can continue his secret drinking habit.”
And then Ana is all like, I can’t believe he’s communicating with me, and the chapter is over.
Before we get going into the recap proper, a member of Troutnation needs your help. She has three beautiful children that she is in danger of losing to her abusive ex-husband, who is countering claims that she has abused the children. Alleging that the fleeing partner is guilty of child abuse is a common tactic of abusers; it deflects the attention away from their abuse and puts the fleeing partner– who is often short of resources to defend hirself– on the defensive. I’ve known many women who have lost their children because they dared to leave, and I’m fucking sick of it. If you can help out monetarily, that would be great. If you can’t, please boost her signal and help her reach her goal, so she has a chance at fair representation in court. THE LINK IS HERE.
Let me start off this recap by saying that I love, love, L-O-V-E love the way you guys look forward to my recaps. I really do. And in the past, I’ve kicked my own ass trying to keep these recaps on some kind of regular schedule. But as much fun as I have doing them, I do have obligations in my life that sometimes impose upon my laborious slog through blogging these bullshit books. These are mentally stressful and time consuming (each chapter clocks in at around eight hours worth of work), so please, please be patient with me if I’m not jumping right on the chapters with the same speed I was at the beginning of this death march. Early on in my recaps of the first book, I said that this was going to be like a marathon. It’s actually turned out to be more like the marathon from Run, Fatboy, Run. I am Simon Pegg, trying to run a marathon on a broken ankle here. So I hope you all understand.
Also, a lot of you have been asking if I would blog “the last chapter of.” Oh, what dear, sweet, optimistic things you are. We’ve still got chapters twenty-five and twenty-six, as well as a sixteen page epilogue, a short-story from four-year-old Christian’s ridiculously stilted POV, and the beginning events of 50 Shades of Grey written from Chedward’s POV. We are not done. We are not done by a long shot.
And can I just, while we’re on this subject… what the fuck is up with people writing a book in the heroine’s first person POV, then rewriting the same book from the hero’s first person POV? From a reader’s perspective, that doesn’t even sound remotely interesting to me; I cannot think of a single book I would want to read over, from a different POV. Even if you handed me a copy of Les Miserables and you were like, “Oh yeah, same book, but it’s all from Javert’s POV,” I would be like, “Nah, I’m good with the original, thanks.” I could thoroughly understand writing the first book in the series from one POV, then writing the next from the opposite POV, but I can’t for the life of me imagine why someone would want to read the same story twice. And from a writing standpoint, I break out into a cold sweat just imagining it. If you mess up one tiny little detail, you’re going to hear about it, because if a reader liked the first book enough to reread it from a second POV, they’re going to have liked it enough to remember all the little details you can’t avoid fucking up. So from now on, if you’re writing a book, and there are pertinent details in the other character’s view point, why not just– and this is revolutionary, I tell ya– put all that shit into the book in the first damn place?
Now that I’ve got my Andy Rooney pants firmly strapped on, let’s hit this recap like the truck I’d like to hit both Ana and Chedward with.
When we last left Bella Ana, she had just gone to the dance studio the ransom drop to save her mom Mia from James the vampire Jack Hyde the stalker. Even though she had no proof that her mom Mia was being held by James the vampire Jack the stalker, she didn’t tell anyone, not even Edward Cullen, who finds her just in time and heroically rescues her.
Now, Bella Ana is in the hospital, trying super hard not to look anything like she’s in the “Bella becomes a vampire” portion of Breaking Dawn. But she’s just not that good at looking like her own character, because this is what happens next:
There is only pain. My head, my chest… burning pain. My side, my arm. Pain. Pain and hushed words in the gloom. Where am I? Though I try, I cannot open my eyes. The whispered words become clearer… a beacon in the darkness.
I feel guilty comparing this chapter to the Bella-turns-into-a-vampire chapter in Breaking Dawn, because Breaking Dawn is written better. Through the melodrama, Ana hears:
“Her ribs are bruised, Mr. Grey, and she has a hairline fracture to her skull, but her vital signs are stable and strong.”
“Why is she still unconscious?”
“Mrs. Grey has had a major contusion to her head. But her brain activity is normal, and she has no cerebral swelling. She’ll wake when she’s ready. Just give her some time.”
“And the baby?” The words are anguished, breathless.
“The baby’s fine, Mr. Grey.”
“Oh, thank God.” The words are a litany… a prayer.
Yeah, we know what a litany is. We’re not stupid. Also, I refuse to believe that Ana’s brain activity is normal. This is a woman who thinks Tess of The D’Urbervilles is a romantic comedy. Not only is the presence of normal brain activity questionable at best, but so is the presence of any brain at all.
By they by, because this is totally not Breaking Dawn, Ana keeps conveniently waking up for exposition points and lapsing into unconsciousness when the reader’s question has been answered. Let’s count them as we go, shall we?
I relax, and unconsciousness claims me once more, stealing me away from the pain.
When she wakes again:
My eyes and mouth are resolutely shut, unwilling to open.
Again, thanks for clearing that up for us, Ana, because we couldn’t tell they were unwilling to open from the part of the sentence where you said they were resolutely shut.
In this slice of awareness, Ana overhears Christian arguing with his father about leaving Ana’s side, and she overhears their conversation about Mia, who was roofied by Jack Hyde. Also, Ana saved Mia’s life, which we all saw coming. I mean, we’ve heard about Ana’s bravery over and over again for three books, right?
“I know. I’m feeling seven kinds of foolish for relenting on her security. You warned me, but Mia is so stubborn. If it wasn’t for Ana here…”
So, there we have Carrick, telling his son, “You’re right. The only way to protect these headstrong young women is by keeping them on total lockdown. I should have listened.” Which is exactly what Christian Grey needs: a man he admires backing up his shitty misogynist ideas.
And Carrick, don’t you mean you’re feeling seven shades of foolish?
Carrick tells Christian that Ana is a “remarkable young woman,” which we keep hearing over and over again from so many different characters, yet we’ve never once seen proof of in the book. If anything, with all the pratfalls, the utter lack of any life experience, and the fact that she almost never talks in front of secondary characters, they should believe that she’s completely unremarkable.
It was at this point in the chapter, by the way, that I realized we were going to have to read about Ana being “brave” about a hundred and fifty times per page.
Ana’s unconscious again, so the score now is:
I relax, and unconsciousness claims me once more, stealing me away from the pain.
The fog closes in.
That looks like a dude forcefully exhaling a massive bong rip.
The very next sentence, by the way, is:
The fog lifts but I have no sense of time.
Just in case you were keeping tags on what THE FOG was doing.
Hey, I bet you thought the tampon scene was the grossest thing you’d ever read in this series. Let’s just take a look here…
“If you don’t take her across your knee, I sure as hell will. What the hell was she thinking?”
“Trust me, Ray, I just might do that.”
Let’s examine all the ways this is fucking disturbing. One, we know all about Ana and Chedward’s bedroom activities, and how often they involve spankings, or sexy threats of spankings. In addition, we know that Ana and Chedward are masters of the uncomfortable innuendo, so you know where Christian’s mind is. That’s one point for gross. The second, more disturbing point of grossness is that Ana’s father is telling her husband to beat her, because it’s what she deserves. And it marks the second time in this chapter that an older male figure has backed up Christian in his belief that women should be treated like unruly children.
Ana’s out again, so:
I relax, and unconsciousness claims me once more, stealing me away from the pain.
The fog closes in.
I fight the fog… fight… But I spiral down once more into oblivion. No…
Someone should type up this entire section of the book, and find/replace “fog” with “burning,” then print the file. I bet money a hardbound copy of Breaking Dawn shoots out of your printer.
Ana comes to again to hear Christian arguing with a detective, telling him that Ana is in no condition to be questioned. You know the police, always trying to interrogate coma patients. What does the detective say, when Chedward says Ana can’t be questioned?
“She’s a headstrong young woman, Mr. Grey.”
Wait, what? I understand that what E.L. is trying to do here is have the detective grudgingly praise Ana to reinforce to the reader just how brave and headstrong and totally like a real, not two-dimensional character Ana is in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. But it just sounds like he’s accusing her of being stubborn for being in the coma and unwilling to answer his questions.
We learn that Elizabeth is informing on Jack, and Jack is “twisted” which we already knew from the hundred and fifty-seven other times he’s been described as twisted, and then… THE FOG!
I relax, and unconsciousness claims me once more, stealing me away from the pain.
The fog closes in.
I fight the fog… fight… But I spiral down once more into oblivion. No…
The fog surrounds me once more, and I’m dragged down… down. No!
Then she hears Christian and his mother arguing over the fact that Ana and Christian were having marital troubles, and we are blessedly spared the fog:
I relax, and unconsciousness claims me once more, stealing me away from the pain.
The fog closes in.
I fight the fog… fight… But I spiral down once more into oblivion. No…
The fog surrounds me once more, and I’m dragged down… down. No!
The world dips and blurs and I’m gone.
But then she comes-to again in the middle of another discussion between Christian and his mom:
“You told me you’d cut all ties.” Grace is talking. Her voice is quiet, admonishing.
“I know.” Christian sounds resigned. “But seeing her finally put it all in perspective for me. You know… with the child. For the first time I felt… What we did… it was wrong.”
“What she did, darling… Children will do that to you. Make you look at the world in a different light.”
Remember when Grace first found out about Mrs. Robinson and Christian’s statutory naughty times? And she blamed Christian for it? She’s certainly changed her tune now, hasn’t she?
Another thing I find troubling about this section is that we don’t find out what, exactly, Christian is referring to. What they did was wrong… but what? Having sex? The BDSM stuff? The lying? I have this horrible feeling that he means the BDSM, because that’s the road these books have been going down since the moment he opened the playroom door. He needs to be cured of liking BDSM.
And guess who’ll do that? THE BABY! Because babies = nobody ever needing or wanting sex again.
Look, I’m a parent. I’m not going to lie and say that having kids doesn’t change your outlook on life. But I get really pissed off when people act like it changes it to a superioroutlook on life. That’s such a crock. Having kids hasn’t made me wiser or more in tune with my sense of right and wrong. I’m just as much of a fuck up as I was before I had kids. The only thing I’ve become more aware of is how to clean gum out of things.
Grace also says:
“[…] I think you can only be truly mad at someone you really love.”
What? That doesn’t even make sense, Grace. Everyone on this planet can think of a time they’ve been truly mad at someone they didn’t even know that well. If being mad at someone means you love them, then the next time I take a bite out of a magic apple, wheel my glass coffin into the capitol building and let any Republican have a crack at me. I’ll be awakened by true love’s kiss in no time.
Wake up! Oh god, wake up, Ted Cruz is looking over here!
Remember how everyone was like, “Christian gets so much better! You just don’t understand how a series works?” And now we’re getting close to the end of the third book and we’ve yet to see him make literally any progress as a human being, and he has in fact regressed to the mental state of a toddler?
Well, the wait is over. For Christian Grey is about to have THE BIG REVELATION:
“I thought about it, and she’s shown me over and over how much she loves me… to the point of putting her own life in danger.”
No. That’s Stockholm syndrome that you’re seeing. But it doesn’t matter, because this is the point where Christian miraculously becomes… whatever the 50 Shades fans seem to believe is “better,” for some reason.
And then Ana passes out, so:
I relax, and unconsciousness claims me once more, stealing me away from the pain.
The fog closes in.
I fight the fog… fight… But I spiral down once more into oblivion. No…
The fog surrounds me once more, and I’m dragged down… down. No!
The world dips and blurs and I’m gone.
Oh… the darkness closes in. No–
Whatever happened to these guys? They were awesome. Are they just playing comas now or what?
Then Ana wakes up a little and it’s STILL Christian and his mom talking, but now it’s so we can hear Grace talk about being a grandmother, and
I relax, and unconsciousness claims me once more, stealing me away from the pain.
The fog closes in.
I fight the fog… fight… But I spiral down once more into oblivion. No…
The fog surrounds me once more, and I’m dragged down… down. No!
The world dips and blurs and I’m gone.
Oh… the darkness closes in. No–
Sweet oblivion beckons.
Then Ana wakes up to feel Christian’s stubble on her hand, and he’s saying how sorry he is and how much he loves her and
I relax, and unconsciousness claims me once more, stealing me away from the pain.
The fog closes in.
I fight the fog… fight… But I spiral down once more into oblivion. No…
The fog surrounds me once more, and I’m dragged down… down. No!
The world dips and blurs and I’m gone.
Oh… the darkness closes in. No–
Sweet oblivion beckons.
But my body disobeys me, and I fall asleep once more.
Remember what I said before about starting with a character waking and ending with a character going to sleep, and how that can make a book feel terrible? IT JUST HAPPENED EIGHT TIMES IN FOUR PAGES. I seriously feel like I need a nap right now.
Finally, Ana wakes up for real, not just to give us exposition:
I have a pressing need to pee. I open my eyes. I’m in the clean, sterile environment of a hospital room.
Where the fuck did you think you were? Just tucked away in somebody’s garage? Down in the basement, behind the Christmas decorations?
She runs her fingers through Christian’s hair, because he’s sleeping with his head on his folded arms at her bedside. He wakes up, sees she’s out of her coma, and they IMMEDIATELY START FIGHTING.
“Ana, stay still. I’ll call a nurse.” He quickly stands, alarmed, and reaches for a buzzer on the bedside.
“Please,” I whisper. Why do I ache everywhere? “I need to get up.” Jeez, I feel so weak.
“Will you do as you’re told for once?” he snaps, exasperated.
The nurse comes in:
She must be in her fifties, though her hair is jet black.
Are you suggesting these things are mutually exclusive, E.L.?
I mean, really? Are we doing this?
Ana waking from a coma is a total non-event to this nurse, by the way. She doesn’t go to get a doctor or anything. It’s just like, Oh, this patient is awake now? That’s cool.Now, I’m not a medical-type person, but I did work in the ICU/NCU of a hospital before, and I’ve been around when people wake up from days long comas. It wasn’t just like, “Oh hey, glad to see you’re up, no big deal.” It wasn’t an emergency or anything, but nurses and doctors got in there pretty quick to examine the patient. But whatever, we know this isn’t even slightly based in reality. Ana wants to get up to go to the bathroom, but the nurse tells her she has a catheter.
“Let me remove your catheter. Mr. Grey, I am sure Mrs. Grey would like some privacy.” She looks pointedly at Christian, dismissing him.
“I’m not going anywhere.” He glares back at her.
“Christian, please,” I whisper, reaching out and grasping his hand. Briefly he squeezes my hand, then gives me an exasperated look. “Please,” I beg.
“Fine!” he snaps and runs his hand through his hair. “You have two minutes,” he hisses at the nurse, and he leans down to kiss my forehead before turning on his heel and leaving the room.
In real life, I guarantee that nurse calls security and takes her damn time. Christian is behaving in a threatening manner toward her while she’s just trying to see to the best interest of her patient. This is something that will continue to happen, by the way, because Christian Grey knows better than medical professionals what Ana needs.
After Ana’s catheter is out, Christian “bursts” in. Nurse Nora is helping Ana from the bed to the bathroom. LOL, no. Ana said she had a “pressing need” to urinate at the beginning of the section. If she had to pee that bad, I guarantee she already did when the nurse pulled her catheter. But whatever.
“Let me take her,” he says and strides toward us.
“Mr. Grey, I can manage,” Nurse Nora scolds him.
He gives her a hostile glare. “Damnit, she’s my wife. I’ll take her,” he says through gritted teeth as he moves the IV stand out of his way.
“Mr. Grey!” she protests.
He ignores her, leans down, and gently lifts me off the bed. I wrap my arms around his neck, my body complaining.
Your body is complaining because you need to move it, and Christian doesn’t want you to because he knows better than the nurse (who was walking you to the bathroom for a purpose. She could have just brought you a bedpan, moron).
“Mrs. Grey, you’re too light,” he mutters disapprovingly as he sets me gently on my feet.
I’m starting to get really concerned about Ana’s metabolism, okay? We saw that she lost an alarming amount of weight in the five days she and Christian were broken up. We find out later that she’s been unconscious for twenty-four hours. She’s been in this coma, let’s assume that if she was losing a ton of weight they would have started giving her high calorie feedings through an NG tube… how did she lose enough weight that Christian can tell just by lifting her?
But way to body police your wife within minutes of her coming out of a coma. Maybe you should comment on how her hair looks, as well.
Tentatively, I sit down on the toilet.
“Go.” I try to wave him out.
“No. Just pee, Ana.”
Could this be any more embarrassing? “I can’t, not with you here.”
“You might fall.”
“Mr. Grey!”
We both ignore the nurse.
“Please,” I beg.
He raises his hands in defeat. “I’ll stand outside, door open.” He takes a couple of paces back until he’s standing just outside the door with the angry nurse.
Yeah, uh, he’s definitely getting security called on him. The patient is saying, “you are making me uncomfortable, visitor,” and the visitor is refusing to comply with the patient’s request for privacy? Chedward would be out of there.
Nurse Nora has to examine Ana when she gets back from the bathroom:
“How do you feel?” she asks me, her voice laced with sympathy and a trace of irritation, which I suspect is for Christian’s benefit.
She’s just distracted, trying to figure out if she should involve a hospital social worker or just jam domestic violence pamphlets into your bag when you’re discharged.
Ana tells Christian that she’s hungry– and this time, it’s actually for food!
“What do you want to eat?”
“Anything. Soup.”
“Mr. Grey, you’ll need the doctor’s approval before Mrs. Grey can eat.”
He gazes at her impassively for a moment, then takes his BlackBerry out of his pants pocket and presses a number.
“Ana wants chicken soup… Good… Thank you.” He hangs up.
I glance at Nora, whose eyes narrow at Christian.
I’m sure we’re supposed to interpret this scene as Christian valiantly protecting his wife and tenderly caring for her. But in reality, what he’s doing is going against medical advice. All the nurse is suggesting is that the doctor give the go ahead before he starts cramming Ana full of food she might not even be able to hold down.
Christian tells Ana that Mia was drugged, and he tells Ana how “brave” she was and how stupid it was to get involved in the ransom without telling him– he doesn’t remind her it’s also stupid to do such a thing and not involve the authorities– and then he expresses his totally original and not at all repeated every single time something dramatic happens to the two of these overdramatic morons feelings about what happened to Ana:
“I have died a thousand deaths since Thursday.”
He said something similar when he proposed to her, and I believe Ana “died a thousand deaths” while Christian was missing in the helicopter incident. I could be misremembering on that last one, but the point is… I would be happy with them dying just one death. Just one.
Preferably grisly enough that open casket would be impractical.
Hey, what happened to Jack?
“In police custody. Although Hyde is here under guard. They had to remove the bullet you left in him,” Christian says bitterly. “I don’t know where in this hospital he is, fortunately, or I’d probably kill him myself.”
I love how big, tough Chedward is always bragging about what he would do. Remember, it was Taylor and Sawyer who have beaten up Jack Hyde, and Ana hit that guy on the dance floor. Christian always just stands around talking about how he could kick somebody’s ass. I bet Claude Bastille isn’t even a real trainer he sees. He’s totally made up, so Christian can brag, “Yeah, I’m such a good kick boxer that I beat my trainer all the time. He’s really famous, his name is Claude Bastille, he’s won medals.” He’s the guy who doesn’t get involved in a real fight situation when it arises because he insists his fists are registered weapons and he would probably just go berserker and kill the guy, so it’s best if he sits that round out.
Ana assures Christian that she would never actually leave him:
“You took me by surprise,” I mutter into his shirt collar. “When we spoke at the bank. Thinking I was leaving you. I thought you knew me better. I’ve said to you over and over I would never leave.”
Uh, until you had this whole conversation with him about how you were going to leave.
Oh.
Oh shit.
I get it now.
Ana finally got angry enough with Christian that she expressed her anger and didn’t let him off the hook when he tried to fuck his way out of trouble. She didn’t rush to forgive him, so he was unforgiven when she said she was going to leave him. And the moral of the story that results is that because Ana put her foot down about Christian’s unacceptable treatment of her, she created a situation in which he believed she was mad enough to divorce him. This hurt Christian, and that’s the last thing Ana wants to do, so now she’ll probably never, ever do it again.
Christian explains that he had just arrived back in Seattle when the bank called him. He also tells her that he’s mad at her, Sawyer’s mad at her, everyone is mad at her, yadda yadda. Then a doctor comes in:
Dr. Bartley checks my ribs, her fingers probing gently but firmly.
I wince.
“These are bruised, not cracked or broken. You were very lucky, Mrs. Grey.”
Why didn’t they check her for broken ribs like, at any point while she was in the coma?
The doctor tells Ana that she might be able to go home the next day. Really? She was unconscious for more than twenty-four hours, you don’t want to keep her in the hospital for any further tests or observation? Okay. I won’t tell you how to do your job, but only because I really don’t care what happens to Ana.
There’s a knock on the door, and Taylor enters bearing a black cardboard box with Fairmont Olympic emblazoned in cream on the side.
Holy cow!
“Food?” Dr. Bartley says, surprised.
“Mrs. Grey is hungry,” Christian says. “This is chicken soup.”
Dr. Bartley smiles. “Soup will be fine, just the broth. Nothing heavy. Sh looks pointedly at both of us, then exits the room with Nurse Nora.
So, the doctor has made it pretty clear, only broth, right? Well, excuse me, but she might have experience in keeping people from dying and stuff, but she doesn’t have as much money as Christian and therefore he’s just a little bit wiser than her, okay?
Christian is unpacking the box, producing a thermos, soup bowl, side plate, linen napkin, soupspoon, a small basket of bread rolls, silver salt and pepper shakers… The Olympic has gone all-out.
I hope the reason the doctor said Ana could only have broth, aka, the clear liquid diet, is because she’s on some medication that makes people super nauseated or gassy, and Ana spends the rest of this chapter puking and farting with bruised ribs while everyone stands around talking about how brave and remarkable she is.
“Well, after the bank called and I thought my world had completely fallen apart–” He can’t hide the pain in his voice.
I stop eating. Oh shit.
“Don’t stop eating, or I’ll stop talking,” he whispers, his tone adamant as he glares at me. I continue with my soup.
The soup, by the by, isn’t even broth-based, she describes it as “creamy.” And she eats bread, too. Because money is smarter than knowledge. Or something.
But look at how he manipulates her in that excerpt. He makes her feel guilty for making him believe his “world had completely fallen apart,” and when she reacts to the statement, he gives her a command, which she guiltily follows. He’s making it seem like she can’t count on the doctors or nurses. He’s telling her that everyone is mad at her. Then he’s setting himself up as the only person who truly wants what’s best for her, by controlling her food intake. This is some seriously messed up shit. It’s even more messed up that this was written into the story accidentally.
“Anyway, shortly after you and I had finished our conversation, Taylor informed me that Hyde had been granted bail. How, I don’t know, I thought we’d managed to thwart any attempts at bail. But that gave me a moment to think about what you’d said… and I knew something was seriously wrong.”
Hyde has committed arson, and has broken into the house of a person he is stalking with clear plans to commit rape, kidnapping, and murder. How on earth was he granted bail?
Ana is outraged that Christian believed she was after his money, and Christian keeps telling her to eat, and Ana asks how Christian found her. Funny story:
“The Saab is fitted with a tracking device. All our cars are. By the time we got near the bank, you were already on the move, and we followed. Why are you smiling?”
“On some level I knew you’d be stalking me.”
“And that is amusing because?” he asks.
“Jack had instructed me to get rid of my cell. So I borrowed Whelan’s cell, and that’s the one I threw away. I put mine into one of the duffel bags so you could track your money.”
Are you scratching your head right now, going, “Uh… wait, that didn’t happen. We were in her POV and that didn’t happen… at least… I don’t remember…?” Well, you’re not crazy. Even though we were in Ana’s POV, we never saw the phone switch happen. During her ordeal, she didn’t think, “Christian will totally be able to find me and save me.” She didn’t even think, “I’m glad I put that phone in that bag.” This is totally new information she’s springing on us, and it’s so jarring because it comes from a narrator who gives us even the most boring, mundane little details of her life, from showering to what she does at work during the day. But this one major plot detail never entered into her inner monologue? This is sloppy writing in the extreme.
Plus, Ana’s car is fitted with a tracking device? And she didn’t know about it? That’s freaky, especially considering how quickly Chedward mobilized a response to her leaving him.
Ana asks Christian to sleep in the bed with her, so he does, and Ana tries to get him to talk about why he went to see Elena:
“Oh, Ana.” He groans. “You want to discuss that now? Can’t we drop this? I regret it, okay?”
Christian went to see his ex-lover, who has purposely meddled in his relationship with Ana, immediately after he exploded at Ana about daring to get pregnant, and Ana is supposed to just let it slide without further comment because he regrets it. Yeah, that sounds fair. It’s okay for you to do whatever you want, Chedward, just so long as you feel really bad about it, and then you’ll never have to answer for it. Ever.
He tells Ana they can talk tomorrow, and then she falls asleep. Nurse Nora is there when Ana wakes up for the ninth time in this chapter, and NN doesn’t like that Chedward and Ana are sharing a bed. Ana asks her to leave him alone, and then Christian has the fakest, most literal sleep babble anyone has ever uttered:
He mumbles in his sleep, “Don’t touch me. No more. Only Ana.”
Ana goes to sleep (again) and wakes up (again) and Christian is gone. Carrick is there, and he’s just come by to remind the reader that Ana is a brave and wonderful hero. He tells Ana that Mia is home now and very angry because of what she went through, and that Grace won’t let Mia out of her sight.
“You need watching, too,” he admonishes. “I don’t want you taking any more silly risks with your life or the life of my grandchild.”
I flush. He knows!
“Grace read your chart. She told me. Congratulations.”
Why the fuck was Grace reading her chart? She’s not Grace’s patient. Yeah, Ana is family, but that’s precisely the reason why Grace shouldn’t have read Ana’s chart. That is incredibly intrusive. She should have asked for permission. No fucking wonder Christian doesn’t know shit about boundaries.
Hey, know what I noticed about this whole thing? Ana saved Mia’s life. And even though everyone acknowledges that she saved Mia’s life, they still say she’s stupid and shouldn’t have done it. That’s Mary Sueishness of the highest degree; the family members of the person Ana endangered herself to save are telling her they wished she hadn’t done it, because she got hurt. Sorry, Mia, but at least you know where you rank now. No wonder she’s angry.
About the baby, Carrick says:
“Christian will come around,” he says gently. “This will be the best thing for him. Just… give him some time.”
You’re right, Carrick! When someone is an abusive, controlling monster toward his wife, the very best thing for him is to have to adapt his volatile temper and rigorous thinking around a child. That’s a sure fire cure for psychological issues.
Carrick also assures Ana that the doctors, Dr. Bartley (who is African-American) and Dr. Singh (who has a name of Asian origin) are good doctors. You know, just in case they needed to be vetted by a safe white lady.
Christian brings Ana breakfast, and marvels at how hungry she is. She says:
“It’s because I’m pregnant, Christian.”
Um… you’re barely pregnant. It’s probably because you were in a coma and you’re always perched on the very edge of starvation, to begin with.
Christian has come to accept the fact that he’s going to be a father, but he’s afraid he’s not going to be a very good one. Don’t worry, Chedward. Grace and Carrick have both unequivocally stated, having kids changes people, so you’ll probably be fine. Ana even thinks so:
“Of course you can. You’re loving, you’re fun, you’re strong, you’ll set boundaries. Our child will want for nothing.”
Do you hear yourself, book?
How is Christian going to set boundaries? He has no clue what they are. The only boundaries we’ve seen him set have been this grandiose, bizarre ones, like “You’re not allowed to come past the Mississippi,” or “If you roll your eyes, I’ll spank you.” He’s paying for his ex-stalker’s art school tuition. This is not a man who could define “boundaries” on a vocabulary test.
“Yes, it would have been ideal to have waited. To have longer, just the two of us. But we’ll be three of us, and we’ll all grow up together. We’ll be a family. Our own family. And your child will love you unconditionally, like I do.”
A) You need to be grown up before the baby gets there. Because you’re the grown ups, and your shit needs to be at least partially figured out before you decide to take on another human life. It’s not the baby’s responsibility to teach you shit about life and how to grow up. B) You don’t have to have kids to be a family. C) Your child might love you unconditionally, for a while. But then it gets older, and it realizes that you’re a shitty parent, and it gets a blog and it tells EVERYONE.
Then Ana calls the baby Blip, and Christian is all:
“I had the name Junior in my head.”
And Ana is all:
“Junior it is, then.”
And then Christian is like:
“But I like Blip.”
And I go: It doesn’t really matter what you idiots call it now, because your moms are Grace and Carla, so you’re going to name the baby Grarlac anyway. And then the chapter is over.
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