Category: Uncategorized

I have this personal policy wherein if something good happens to me, I try to make something good happen for someone else. This purely selfishly motivated, because I do this so that if something really bad happens to me, someone might try to help me out. Some people call this karma, so if that’s the word for it, let’s go with that.

Anyway, I’ve had a really charmed career so far, I would say. And this career has helped me to meet all sorts of interesting people, who read my books and then reached out to me. And some of these people have become good friends, even if I’ve never met them in person.

One of these people is Lindsey Wolfe, a reader who became a very good friend of mine on twitter. Lindsey routinely brightens my day by sending me pictures of hot guys who look like Lestat. I was looking forward to meeting her this summer when she came to be a vendor at the Black Rock Ren Faire in Augusta, MI.

Then, tragedy happened. On the drive to the faire, a U-Haul mishap led to them losing the computer they use to run their business. They continued on their journey, but their car died, their camper ended up with four flat tires, and they’re not going to be able to recoup any of their losses, due the lack of electricty at the faire site, which they were misinformed about. In one trip they’ve lost their car and their business, and they’re in dire, dire straights.

This is where you come in. I’ve set up a little fundraising thing on this website: Go to the fundraiser thinger. If you go there, you will see that I’m trying to raise a thousand bucks here to get them at least back on the road. Every little bit helps, right? You’ll also see that I’ve put in some perks, and author Bronwyn Green has also chipped in some perks, that you can get if you help Lindsey and her fiance, Frank, financially.

PERKS UPDATE: Author Simone Anderson is offering two sets of two ebooks, reader’s choice, for a $15 donation!

PERKS UPDATE #2: Bronwyn Green is going to go UNLIMITED on the 4 ebook perk!

PERKS UPDATE #3: Donations at any level will be entered in a random drawing to win a necklace from Nerdy Necklaces!

PERKS UPDATE #4: Author Kris Norris is going to offer 2 ebooks, reader’s choice, to anyone who comes in with a $15 donation, and she’ll mail out signed copies of her Phases anthology books, with swag, to two donors at the $50 level!

But I’m also offering up another reward. IF WE CAN RAISE $1000 FOR LINDSEY IN 7 DAYS, I WILL RECAP 50 SHADES DARKER AND 50 SHADES FREED.

That’s right. I will do chapter by chapter recaps of the rest of those damned books if we can band together and help Linsdey out.

Now, you might be saying, “Jen, that’s a lot of money, and I don’t have any money.” Well, I don’t have any money, either, so I’m doing what I can. You can do what you can, too, by spreading the word. A setback like this, to a small business, can end the whole shebang in one fell swoop. I don’t want that to happen to Lindsey and Frank. So here’s how you can help:

Donate, obviously, whatever you can, at this link.
Or, donate what you can via paypal, to help them out in a more immediate sense. If you want to go this route, email me at jenny@jenniferarmintrout.com and I’ll get you hooked up with their paypal address. If you match for one of my perks by doing this, you’ll still get the perk. Not Bronywn’s, though. Just mine are doing that, because she’s only got two things up there.
Not able to donate? Spread the word. Share the link to the fundraising campaign, or to this post.
Live in the Augusta, MI area? Do you know anyone who can fix cars? Anyone who has spare tires? Anyone who can help out in another way? Bring them hot food, whatever? Then please, I beg of you, contact me at jenny@jenniferarmintrout.com and I’ll get you hooked up with them.

My readers are the best people in the world, and I want to help out one of them in need. I’m willing to sacrifice my time and my sanity to the other 50 shades books, but only if we can reach this goal! WHO IS WITH ME, BRAVEHEART STYLE?!

BUT WITH LESS RACISM, MISOGYNY AND INSANITY!

July 11, 2012

JennyTrout

One Comment

Let’s get some things straight here, okay?

Posted in Uncategorized

I’ve never once, in my entire life, said that people shouldn’t say what they want to say, when they want to say it. It’s the way I live, it’s the way I conduct my career. But I also accept the consequences for my actions.

For example, when I started recapping 50 Shades of Grey on this blog, I knew there would be eventual backlash. When it came, it was kind of overwhelming, because after all, I’m used to getting like, fifty hits a day. But I had to finally just roll with it and accept that my opinions were reaching a wider audience, and people were going to say shit about it, shit that didn’t look great on me. I knew that it would turn some readers off, and I would lose them. I knew it would turn some potential readers off. But I weighed that against my desire to say what was on my mind, and found that yeah, I really could handle that.

This post is probably going to turn off more readers, and more potential readers. But again, I weighed my options.

No one likes a bad review. Well, that’s a lie. I actually do like some of my bad reviews. My absolute favorite bad review is one on GoodReads that just says, “SUCKS.” That’s it, just one word. And even though it was being said about my book, it made me laugh, because I imagined this person sitting down and going, “I read it, I didn’t like it, I feel like I should warn other people against it, but I don’t want to waste anymore energy on this than I have to.” I felt like, you know, I could get along with this person. This is a person I would probably like in real life.

Now, in the past, long, long ago, I have made the mistake of responding to negative reviews. I would think almost every author has done this. Luckily for me, Amazon.com has a delete function on review comments. I saw someone had reviewed my book, and some of the things they didn’t like about it were things that, to be frank, were not in the book. I don’t know if this person had read a few books all at once or what, but they had characters and scenes they were complaining about that weren’t anything I had written. So, I, being who I am, wrote this scathing indictment of them, and then chickened out and deleted the comment. Then I wrote a comment apologizing for my behavior, and when I realized that I was just digging my little hole deeper, I deleted that. To this day, I don’t know if my weirdo freakout got sent to some poor reader’s inbox, but boy am I ashamed to admit all that.

Now, was it my right as a citizen of the United States of America to exercise my freedom of speech and say what I wanted to say? Absolutely. Even though I’m not sure how the internet is governed, really. I mean, there are people from all over the world on here, right? I guess I should say that as a citizen of the great country in which my ISP is located, I had that right. But I realized how it made me look. Even though the review was apparently a review of several books at once, it made me look, to readers, as though I were obsessed with reviews.

Here’s a pro-tip: Authors are obsessed with reviews. You can comment on this post and tell me how you’re an author and you just really don’t care about reviews, and maybe only pathetic, insecure people worry about what other people think of their work. And I will politely read your comment and not believe a word of it, but I won’t call you out on it, because I have other shit to do.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Authors read the reviews that are out there. And yes, some of them are mean. I’ve seen some really personal ones targeted at myself. I’ve read reviews where I’ve said to myself, “That’s not fair, they’re reviewing me, not the work, and they don’t even know me. I’m fucking rad. This agression will not stand!” Yes, some people get snarky. They say, “This book is a piece of shit,” or maybe the deranged individual recaps all twenty-six chapters of your book on her blog. Whatever. They have a right to express themselves however they see fit. Someone reading that review has the right to form their own opinion of it. A reader might see that review and go, “Huh, I’m not going to read that book.” Or, they might go, “That’s a really unprofessional review.” And they might say, “Wow, that crazy lady has a lot of time on her hands to devote to a book she doesn’t even like.” All of these opinions are totally fine.

So, say you’re an author, looking at a book review that is snarky, that attacks you, personally. No one, in the history of ever, has said that authors are legally bound to not respond to negative reviews. However, it is strongly suggested that authors who do this come off looking less than professional. Names like Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton come to mind. Now, I love Ms. Rice with the majestic fury of a unicorn and a zebra making passionate love on a bearskin rug before a roaring fire. I’ve read and enjoyed Ms. Hamilton’s works, especially the first Merry Gentry book, which made me uncomfortably aroused on a business class flight. However, I don’t agree with their tactics of calling out negative reviewers. I just can’t get on board with that. However, it is their right to respond to these critics as they see fit, and it’s my right to roll my eyes and go, “Oh boy, here we go again with this.”

There are reviewers who say, “I never want an author to respond to my reviews.” To them, I say, STOP REVIEWING. If you’re looking for a place to vent your spleen about a person’s book in the most biting, sarcastic way possible, there will be fallout. You’re going to have to deal with that fallout. That fallout might include authors confronting you. You can either ignore them and move on, or you can respond. But you can’t stop them from responding.

If you’re a reader or reviewer who thinks that all book reviews should be nice and thoughtful and say one nice thing for every three negative things, that’s fine. You have your right to that opinion. You even have the right to set up a website where you declare yourself the bully police, post a person’s name and where they work in an attempt to encourage stalking, criticize another review for not being a saintly enough in their physical disabilities for your tastes, or plan your vendetta against another person’s waiting-to-be-published book while calling her a drunk and insinuating that she’s a bad mother. However, everyone else has the right to call you psychos and assholes, and the offended parties have every right to pursue legal action against you if they so choose.

I love the freedom of speech that my Founding Fathers rallied for, that brave men and women have died for, even if it protects any number of weirdos whose opinions I find distasteful. Case in point, my hatred for people like Kirk Cameron and the Westboro Baptist morons. I love that they can say what they want, and I can get mad about it, and I can rant and rail on my blog against it. I love that people have the freedom to say what they want to say about my books, even if it’s shit I don’t want to hear. I love that authors and bloggers can say shit about me, personally, even if it means I’m going to throw drinks in faces in public some day.

I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you stop saying shit about me on the internet, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will throw a drink in your face.

But I appear to love it with the caveat that I’m able to accept the consequences of that freedom of speech. Authors, you have the FREEDOM to comment on negative reviews. No one is taking that away. But you have to accept the CONSEQUENCE that it’s going to turn off some readers. Reviewers, you have the FREEDOM to be as mean, as snarky, as bitchy as you want in your reviews. No one wants to stop you (she said, cackling maliciously). But you have to accept the CONSEQUENCE that authors have the freedom to respond to you. You also have to accept the CONSEQUENCE that other readers and reviewers are gonna get mad at you, and lash out. And other readers and reviewers? You have that FREEDOM to lash out, but you have to accept the CONSEQUENCE that reviewers, authors, readers, are going to react to that.

It seems like what’s happening is that everyone wants to act however they want and never pay the piper. You have to pay the piper. The piper knows Liam Neeson in Taken, and he’s going to send him to your house, so you better have all your dead sex slaves hidden and not chained to furniture all willy nilly.

What I’m saying is, if you want to be treated a certain way, then treat other people that way. If you don’t mind getting treated the way you treat people, that’s fine, too. But these things should be equal. It’s certainly your right, but totally creepy, weird and gross to respond to an internet fight by posting information that could cause a real life consequence for someone. If that is truly what is in your heart, that you want these people ruined in real life because you disagreed on the internet? You need to spend time away from the computer. You need to spend time in counseling. And I’m not saying that in a pithy, “Gurl, you cray,” kind of way. I’m saying that because those actions are not the actions of sane and rational human being. No reviewer, no matter how mean or snarky, deserves to have their parenting questioned, their livelihood threatened, or to be chastised for not fitting a stereotype. If you think that all sounds very reasonable, and I just sound butthurt, again, back away from the computer. You might have the right to say all these things publicly, but it means you’re firebombing another person’s life, over an internet argument you probably won’t remember a year from now. That doesn’t make you tough and cool. It makes you insane.

I’m saying all of this because I love the way the internet has brought authors and readers together. I love that I can tell a reviewer “thanks for reading my book,” and that a reader can have a twitter conversation with me. I love it, and I don’t want to see walls going up because it turns into all out war. And that’s what StopTheGRBullies is. It’s a declaration of war. It’s a small group of very disturbed individuals saying, “I’m going to scare you, I’m going to make it so you don’t have the right to say what you want to say.” And I’m not okay with that. No one should be.

This is a line in the sand, to quote my lama. I can’t reasonably support this. So, if you’re an author and you’re coming out in support of that site? I can no longer associate with you. If you run a book blog or review site and you support StopTheGRBullies? I will request that my ARCs no longer end up in your hands. And when the identities of the people who run the site are known? If they’re authors, I will exercise my right to no longer purchase their books or associate with them. If they run blogs or review sites, I will request that my ARCs don’t go their way, either. This might sound like an ineffective threat; it’s not a threat. It’s not me stamping my feet and saying, “LOOK AT ALL THIS POWER I HOLD OVER YOU, MUAHAHAHAHA!” It’s me stating that I’m going to exercise my right to not have that kind of poison in my life, and to live authentically according to my values.

For everyone else? Keep reading, reviewing, and even indulge in some smack talk. Yes, even if it’s about me and my books. Yes, even if it’s snarky. I will never dream the dream of a polite, yet dishonest society. To me, that’s a nightmare.

Well, you know, that and Liam Neeson’s American accent.

I promise the blog post tomorrow won’t be about drama.

July 11, 2012

JennyTrout

One Comment

MOTHER. FUCKING. GAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

Posted in Uncategorized

Look, here’s the thing. I don’t want to be known as an “angry” blogger. But everyone keeps pissing me off.

Like these jack-offs at Stop The GR Bullies. Fuck these guys, okay? First of all, I’m going to go on record and say that there is at least one author involved here. I don’t know this for a fact, but I know it with my heart, soul, and guts, because only authors can carry a mean, vindictive streak like this out to its inevitable conclusion. Because we’re all barely functioning vis-a-vis mental health. And if there isn’t an author directly writing these posts? There’s an author mobilizing this with a bunch of “poor me, reviewers are so mean” whinging.

I can’t even coordinate my thoughts, that’s how pissed off I am.

Let’s start here: in one post on “Stop The GR Bullies,” the fuckwads actually post a GoodReads user’s name, the city she lives in, and where she works? What is the point of that? So the next time she steps out of line on GoodReads, someone can try and get her fired. Seriously? This is what constitutes stopping a bully?

In another post, a GoodReads reviewer is accused of being a problem drinker and neglectful mom. Yeah, sure, that’s going to solve the problem of “bullying,” and mocking the fact that she’s writing a novel is TOTALLY going to mean that she gives nicer reviews to YOUR books on GoodReads.

Grow up, book community. You’re accusing people of child abuse and trying to get them fired OVER BOOKS. FUCKING BOOKS. THEY ARE MADE UP STORIES ON PAPER OR DIGITAL MEDIA. IF YOU LIKE SOMETHING AND SOMEONE ELSE DOESN’T? FUCKING DEAL WITH IT.

July 8, 2012

JennyTrout

8 Comments

An angry rant about how we treat each other.

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On Saturday morning, I woke up to find this comic, titled “Wrong Century” from 9Gag.com positively plastered all over facebook:

I get the jist, okay? In another era, she wouldn’t be mocked for her size, she would have been celebrated by artists. Fine.

However.

Take closer look at the painting. It’s clearly meant to be this:

This painting is The Rape of The Daughters of Leucippus, by Peter Paul Rubens. While I suppose one could argue that “rape” also means to abduct by forceful means, in the legend the daughters are then married to their abductors, so I’m going to just say that it’s safe to assume these women are going to be raped in both senses of the word. It’s not a longshot here, there’s a huge naked man ripping their clothes off.

So, what is that cartoon above telling us? That this fat girl is looking wistfully at the painting, wishing she were desirable enough to be raped? I really fucking hope that was not the intention of the male artist who drew this comic. I think more likely it’s a visible sign that rape culture is alive and well in the West. The fact is, there are literally dozens of other Rubens paintings with women of size in them that contain, in the words of my friend Greg, “99% less rape.” So why did the artist choose this particular picture? Who knows, but it’s a real bad choice.

This comic has been burning up the Facebook today as a fat positive statement, but it’s really, really not. It has also sparked the usual internet fat discussions. Everything from “Hurrr durrr fatties,” to “Marilyn Monroe was fat,” and I’m here to tell you, as a Marilyn fan, I’ve seen all her movies and she weren’t never fat. Bloated in the face, at times, but not fat (and if you are the person who made a Marilyn comment on my facebook, please note, this is not directed at you, personally, but at the entire myth that has sprung up re: Marilyn’s fatness).

But does it matter? Does Marilyn’s size or the fact that fat women were once celebrated in art matter? No, not a damned bit. Because no one has a time machine (except for The Doctor). Ruminating on the sensibilities of the past will not magically drag our social standards back there. Sure, people during the Renaissance liked big butts and they could not lie, but they also liked stuff like torture and trading women like baseball cards. And people in Marilyn’s generation, sure, they might have liked a Coke-bottle figure, but they weren’t real into black people living and working in their part of town. Why do we want to emulate those times? Just so people don’t feel bad about being fat? That’s bullshit, because fat people were just as maligned in the ’60’s as now, and it might have been awesome to be a fat chick in the middle ages, but probably only marginally more than just being a chick in the middle ages, and that would still be pretty shitty. None of that stuff washes with me.

I’m tired of women on both sides of the fat vs. skinny battle. I’m so tired of them. “At least I’m not a stick!” No, but look at what you’re priding yourself on. You’re priding yourself on having a body type you find more desirable than another body type. It’s the same thing a thin woman who says, “At least I’m not a fattie!” is doing, and newsflash, you both look rude and judgmental when you do it. You don’t get a free pass because you’re fat and your feelings are hurt by the media. You don’t get to just openly mock other women because you’re too insecure about the size of your jeans.

I know that’s hard. Believe me, I know it. I have resorted to calling people boney. Hell, I’ve done it on this blog. I’ve made fun of women for being too thin. You know why I did it? Because I hated myself. Then I sat there and watched someone critique the way my cousin D-Rock eats. D-Rock has a metabolic disorder that leaves her drastically underweight no matter how many calories she takes in, and she’s often embarrassed when people call attention to how much she eats, or the fact that she eats like a starving person. She can’t help it. She really is starving. And I thought, as I heard someone tell her that they could hate her for the amount she’s capable of eating, and that they wished they had the same disease she has, that if this was being said to a fat person, everyone would call this person out.

Fat girls of the world, knock this shit off. Seriously. Stop defending your body by degrading other women. Like I said, I know it’s hard, but you can train yourself out of it, if you’d get your head out of your ass for a moment and realize that thin people have feelings, they don’t have magical self-esteem armor by virtue of being not-fat. And if you can’t grasp this concept, then remember that every time you mock someone for being thin, you’re justifying all those assholes who mock people for being fat, because it’s turnabout/fairplay and all that.

Finally, I’m sick to death of the notion that not-fat people on the internet are just concerned for the health and well-being of us fatties. First of all, “Burn more calories than you consume! It’s math! It’s not hard!” is not new information to most fat people. We understand how losing weight works, and we understand that food choices we make might be bad, and it doesn’t matter, because people who get on message boards and comments sections and Facebook and say shit like, “It’s not a matter of looks, it’s about health!” are lying out their chocolate starfishes. It’s not about health. Fat vs. fit vs. skinny is never about health, it’s about, “You have a body type that makes me uncomfortable for some reason. If I admit to that, then I’m admitting to a form of prejudice, and rather than own it and confront it, I want to seem like Mother Theresa to fat people, nurturing them to health with my own loving kindness.” Shove your loving kindness, because we don’t want it here. The same goes for any fat girl who concern trolls pictures of celebs saying, “Angelina Jolie should eat a sandwich!” Guess what? Angelina Jolie has all the money in the world. She can afford all the sandwiches. Ham, turkey and swiss on rye, peanut butter and jelly, bitch can buy them ALL. If she wants a sandwich, she’ll have a damned sandwich, and when she’s licking her fingers clean she’ll still be thin and rich and successful and you’ll still be hating yourself, no matter what size you are.

Again, this is thinking that you can train yourself to adopt. I once had a letter printed in People magazine where I said I wanted to buy Tara Reid a ham. Because apparently, Tara Reid’s thinness was an affront to my fatness, and I needed that shit stopped, like, today. But you know what? I continued to be fat, even after saying that mean thing, and Tara Reid is still skinny. Calling her too skinny? It didn’t stop guys from thinking she was hot, and it damned sure didn’t make them find me hot.

I propose that we stop the thin vs. fat vs. fit nonsense and do something radical: treat other people the way we would like to be treated. I know, I know, it’s a totally foreign concept. But before you type out that letter to People about Tara Reid’s unacceptable hip bones, think about how you would feel if someone was judging your body that way. And don’t give me that bullshit about how you wouldn’t care, because at least you’d be skinny. You would care, because you’re a person with warm and squishy feelings in you.

While you’re at it, treat yourself the way you would treat other people. If you wouldn’t call another woman a cow or a pig, don’t call yourself that. And if you would call another woman a cow or a pig, see directly above. And don’t make self-deprecating jokes, thinking that if you say it first it will be more bearable than if someone else said it, because no one is going to say it. This is another hard one that I struggled with, but it took me a really long time to realize that the only person in the room obsessed with my fatness was me. No one else was going to bring it up, and when I brought it up, even as a joke, it just displayed how insecure I was and made everyone else uncomfortable.

Let’s just treat people as individuals with individual bodies, the sizes and shapes of which are not our property to assign value. Let’s stop worrying about the amount of sandwiches they are or aren’t eating. And if you’re not a doctor, speaking directly to your patient? Don’t give out fucking health advice and expect to met with anything other than the cold, hard bitch-slap of reality when people call you out.

And it should go without saying that if you’re a cartoonist, don’t draw a comic where a fat girl stands in an art gallery wishing she lived in an era where rapists would be all up on her. I thought that would go somewhat without saying, but…

July 6, 2012

JennyTrout

I’m not trapped under something heavy!

Posted in Uncategorized

This week has been a bit of a bust, blogging wise, and I apologize for that. I’m working on two books right now, Silent Surrender, a Victorian-era erotic romance novel contracted with Ellora’s Cave (release date TBA) and Triple Play, the last novella in my Hard Ball series from Resplendence Publishing. I’m also working on a proposal for a hot older man/younger woman romance that I’ll shop around at Authors After Dark in Nola this August, and another erotic romance novel I’m hoping to sell this fall. So, as you can see, I’ve got my hands full.

However, an amazing thing happened this week. Danny Trejo’s movie, Bad Ass, came out on DVD. Which means you can expect a review with much fawning and fannish praise coming your way next week, and details of my trip to the Magician’s Cemetery in Colon, MI.

In the meantime, if you haven’t seen this, you’re probably not living your life to its fullest potential:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BVvYf-kGZY]

July 4, 2012

JennyTrout

One Comment

SOMEONE OUGHT TO OOOOOOPEN UP A WINDOW!

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Usually, I spend the 4th drinking hard from 9 am and blowing shit up, but I’m trying to quit drinking and the fire danger is high in my area, so this year I’m going to settle for working and avoiding the outside as much as possible.

However, one tradition that I recently picked up for myself is an annual watching of 1776, a fine film in which Mr. Feeny is history, rather than teaches history.

So, I guess what I’m saying is, here is a half-ass blog post full of clips from 1776.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3TGbKfkwGA&w=420&h=315]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urgrF6OBuZc&w=420&h=315]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMEL1Uo-4SU&w=420&h=315]
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an7ptwH4ZPc&w=560&h=315]
Before you ask, yes, yes I was insufferable on my trip to Philadelphia last summer.

July 2, 2012

JennyTrout

One Comment

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

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I think you should probably brace yourselves, dear readers, because I’m going to be talking about this vacation all week.

Here’s what went down: Bronwyn Green, Jess Jarman, Kris Norris, Mia Watts, my mentee Emily and myself all holed up in a cabin on Michigan’s beautiful Keweenaw (pronounced “cue-en-naw” by Yoopers) peninsula. There was no phone, no lights, no motorcar, not a single luxury. Like David Caruso, we were leaving NYPD. Okay, we had lights and cars, but we definitely didn’t have cell or internet reception. It was the most peaceful, idyllic setting a writer could wish for, except for all the giggling and drinking, which really cut into our writing time.

Several days during the week, I went running along the beach:

Seriously, gorgeous views like this were just steps from our lodgings, and we saw… I counted five other people the entire time we were there. It was like being in a world all our own.

The wildlife was another story all together, though. We saw plenty of evidence of our forest friends. The catchphrase for the trip quickly became, “Or the bears will come,” based on the ominous wording in the cabin rental instructions. If you do… I would say pretty much anything, the bears will come.

I think they might be vampire bears, too, because:

I’m pretty sure that’s a box of wooden stakes there. We never needed it, but I was grateful that our hosts thoughtfully left them for us.

We did a lot of rock picking on the beach. Every wave washed up new treasures. My favorite being this mitten shaped rock that looks a hell of a lot like the Lower Peninsula.

And one day we got to watch a freaking enormous moth emerge from his freaking enormous cocoon on one of the deck chairs. When he came out, his wings were all limp like noodles, and then after a few hours they poofed out and he was a pretty good looking dude.

I’ve written about the beauty of the U.P. before, specifically about Lake Superior and her strange, primal beauty. But how does one celebrate the majesty and grandeur of the Big Lake, the “Big Water of Many Faces” as she is known?

With bacon cheesecake. Fucking duh.

Awesome Armintrout Bacon Cheesecake

You will need:

Six strips of bacon, cooked but not too crispy, because they’ll get hard in the refrigerator (that’s what she said… if “she” were a particularly horny gallon of milk, I suppose).
A tub of that pre-made cheesecake filling.
A pre-made graham cracker crust
Potential toppings, which we will discuss in a moment.

Basically, all you need to do is take four of the cooked bacon strips (don’t use the pre-made bacon, that shit is terrible. It’s like pork paper) and dice them up, then mix them into the tub of filling. Then you spread it out in the crust, take the other two strips to garnish the top (I am of the “yeah, an x. An x of bacon will do,” school of cake decorating on this one) and put it in the fridge for a few hours.

You can top this with basically whatever you want. I did strawberries macerated in sugar and mashed up, but maple syrup or hot fudge would also be good. You really can’t mess this one up. The bacon does all the work.

For the record, on this trip, I wrote thirteen thousand words and gained three pounds.

June 30, 2012

JennyTrout

2 Comments

BOOK RELEASE! (A little late, due to vacation)

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So, there I was, just relaxing and luxuriating and thinking that not having internet access wasn’t a problem because I had everything taken care of when LO! I forgot about a book release. Not to sound like one of those authors who are ungrateful for their opportunities, but it’s easier to forget a book release when you have several come out in a single year and also you’re on vacation and there is a ton of booze there.

Without further ado, here is my official announcement that my awesome m/m baseball romance, DOUBLE HEADER, is available now:

When Javier Vargas was traded from the Portland Pioneers to the Grand Rapids Bengals, he didn’t just leave his team behind… he turned his back on the love of his life. Now, a year later, short stop Zach Martin is playing for the Bengals, as well, and Javier can’t believe he ever walked away from the scorching heat between them.

Being a Bengal brings its own complications for Zach, who’s tired of never setting down roots. Playing beside Javier, Zach is constantly reminded of their passionate nights—and the pain of his loss.

Javier screwed up one chance with Zach, and he’s not about to let a second one slip by. With scandals swirling all around the team, he has to choose between his career and his heart, and in the end, he might have to sacrifice both.

Buy this awesome book by clicking here and throwing all your cares away.

Tune in Monday, when I’ll share video of my vacation and a recipe for bacon cheesecake.

June 23, 2012

JennyTrout

56 Comments

50 Shades of Grey chapter 26 recap or “The end! The end! My god yes, yes, yes, the end!”

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Just when I thought I couldn’t stand it anymore, just when I thought that surely I would die from the exquisite torture of it, I am done with recapping this fucking book. Let me tell you, it was almost more difficult re-reading it than reading it in the first place.

Before we dive into this bittersweet last recap, I want to just thank everyone who has come here and had discussions, pointed out errors (E.L. James’s and my own), who have enjoyed the recaps, and really, to the people who didn’t enjoy them, too, because you participated as well. This has been a lot of fun. I’m still on the fence about book two, but we’ll see what happens after my vacation.

Oh, what’s that, you ask? My vacation? Well, I’ll tell you. When this beauty posts on Saturday, I will be on my way up north, to Michigan’s beautiful U.P. That is, I’ll be leaving the part of my beautiful state that looks like a mitten and heading to the part that looks more like a shark or someone’s hand if they’ve worked in a paper mill their entire vocational life and they maybe had some industrial accidents. If you’ve never been to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, you’re missing a really unique time capsule of a place. It’s like stepping back into the 1950’s in some places. It’s truly magical, and I’m going to spend a whole week on the shores of the big lake they call Gitcheegoomi, otherwise known as Lake Superior. That’s one of the Great Lakes, Chet. Be jealous. There’s a sea monster in it. I’ll be working on a book of mine own, for the first time in months, and hanging out with some like-minded author friends and probably passing my days in a Hunter S. Thompson style substance binge. Maybe it will cleanse my soul and I’ll be all geared up to read more about Jack Hyde. Who knows. Maybe I’ll blow off the Mighty Mac and die. I really hope not, because I think that’s only happened to like, one other person and it would SUCK to be the second person that happened to. I wouldn’t even make the papers.

So, without further ado, here is the final 50 Shades of Grey recap, with way fewer punches pulled, in my opinion.

I wake with a jolt.

I realize that this is the last time I’m going to have to read a chapter that begins with Ana waking up or going to sleep. Victory is mine!

Ana wakes up at five in the morning because of the three hour time difference. She was only there for four days, dude. She gets jet-lagged easily. She needs to take her pill, so she gets out of bed to do so. I wonder why she’s taking her pill so early in the morning, that she’s going to have to set an alarm to wake her up that early. Or maybe she forgot her pill the day before. Don’t know, don’t care, this is the last day of school for me.

Christian is playing piano, so she puts on her robe and goes to listen to the “melodic lament” he’s playing. Doesn’t this guy know any happy songs? Oh shit, that’s right, he couldn’t know any happy songs, because he’s tortured.

Shrouded in darkness, Christian sits in a bubble of light as he plays, and his hair glints with burnished copper highlights. He looks naked, though I know he’s wearing his PJ bottoms. He’s concentrating, playing beautifully, lost in the melancholy of the music.

I feel like this has happened before. I have the oddest sense of deja vu.

Just ignore it.

He looks lost, sad even, and achingly lonely – or maybe it’s just the music that’s so full of poignant sorrow. He finishes the piece, pauses for a split second, then starts to play it again.

That’s probably the only piano piece he knows, and he just plays it when women are over to like, impress them. Once, I saw some youtube clip where James May was talking about how even guys who can’t play the piano could learn to play this one, impressive sounding piece, and it would get them ladies. Let me see if I can’t rustle that clip up and post it here for all my James May lovin’ sisters and brothers:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV0ciUOk63g]
Okay, I may have confused this clip with the one from Man Lab where he teaches the guy to cheat on guitar. But in any case, that’s what happened. Christian Grey only knows how to play one song on the piano, and I’m sticking with that theory, because it’s hilarious.

Full disclosure, I had to share that link because I love all of you who have come out to me with your James May crushes and I thought we should share this moment before the fickleness of the internet forces us apart. Know that I will forever remember your excellent taste in over-forty hotties.

I move cautiously toward him, drawn as the moth to the flame… the idea makes me smile.

You know, that metaphor will never get old. I assume I’ll see plenty of it in book two.

Sigh.

You know I’m totally going to read the damn thing.

Christian tells her she should be asleep. Well, maybe if someone with a piano wasn’t making a bunch of fucking racket and forcing us to experience scene deja vu…

I ignore his facial expression and very bravely sit down beside him on the piano stool, placing my head on his bare shoulder to watch his deft, agile fingers caress the keys. He pauses fractionally, and then continues to the end of the piece.

“What was that?” I ask softly.

“Chopin. Opus 8, number 4. In E minor, if you’re interested,” he murmurs.

There’s like, only one way to improve on that sentence, and that would be to add, “Pleb,” to the end of it. That would be hilarious.

Ana says that she’s always interested in what he does, and I’m kind of expecting him to say, “Not super controlling pseudo BDSM,” but he doesn’t, unfortunately.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t. Play the other one.”

Oh snap, she’s on to him and his one song repertoire!

“The Back piece that you played the first night I stayed.”

“Oh, the Marcello.”

Just play it, jackass.

He starts to play slowly and deliberately. I feel the movement of his hands in his shoulder as I lean against him and close my eyes. The sad, soulful notes swirl slowly and mournfully around us, echoing off the walls. It is a hauntingly beautiful piece, sadder even than the Chopin, and I lose myself to the beauty of the lament. To a certain extent, it reflects how I feel. The deep poignant longing I have to know this extraordinary man better to try and understand his sadness.

I’m sure that’s exactly what the composer intended. He was like, “Some day, not soon, but some day, my work will be immortalized in a book about an intensely unlikable woman and her abusive boyfriend.” And then Thomas Tallis swooped in and stole his thunder.

“Why do you only play such sad music?”

For attention.

Christian asks Ana for what feels like the hundredth time in this scene already why she’s up, and she explains the timezone difference and that she has to take her pill. He chides her about starting birth control in another time zone, and then lays out this very specific plan for getting back on schedule. I realize that they really do recommend you take your birth control pill at the same time every day, but is three hours difference really going to matter on your, what, fourth or fifth pill? I don’t think it would. I’m not a gynecologist, but I just don’t think it would.

Christian wants to have sex, but Ana would rather talk. Because that’s what this book is about, one slow, teasing build up to a conversation. I bet you thought it was about the sex!

The sex was a red herring.

“Maybe on the piano,” he whispers.

Oh my. My whole body tightens at the thought. Piano. Wow.

Go for it. It will never, ever be as hot as this:

Nothing will ever be this hot.

Rather than have sex on the piano, Ana wants to figure out, once and for all, what is up with their relationship, and specifically the contract.

“Well, I think the contract is moot, don’t you?” His voice is low and husky, his eyes soft. “Moot?”

“Moot.” He smiles. I gape at him quizzically.

“But you were so keen.”

So… wait a second. You spend the entire book bitching about how you don’t want to sign the contract, and now you’re all, “Hey, why haven’t I signed the contract?” about it? Ana cannot make up her damned mind.

“Well, that was before. Anyway, the Rules aren’t moot, they still stand.” His expression hardens slightly.

So, he’s not into the paperwork anymore, but he’s still going to want total control over her entire life. You know, at least under the contract, thee were safeguards for the stuff she didn’t want to do. But before, he says? Before what?

“Before,”… He pauses, and the wary expression is back, “more.” He shrugs.

“Oh.”

“Besides, we’ve been in the playroom twice now, and you haven’t run screaming for the hills.”

“Oh.”

“Do you expect me to?”

“Nothing you do is expected, Anastasia,” he says dryly.

Are we reading the same book, Christian? I’ve been able to pretty accurately predict every thing she’s done so far.

“So, let me be clear. You just want me to follow the Rules of element of the contract all the time but not the rest of the contract?”

“Except in the playroom. I want you to follow the spirit of the contract in the playroom, and yes, I want you to follow the rules – all the time. Then I know you’ll be safe, and I’ll be able to have you anytime I wish.”

You guys got that? She doesn’t have to follow the contract, just the rules, unless they’re in the play room, but he wants her to follow the rules all the time. And the reason she needs to do this is so that he’ll be able to have her any time he wants. Look at how reasonable that is!

“And if I break one of the rules?”

“But won’t you need my permission?”

“Yes, I will.”

“And if I say no?”

He gazes at me for a moment, with a confused expression.

“If you say no, you’ll say no. I’ll have to find a way to persuade you.” I pull away from him and stand. I need some distance. He frowns as I stare down at him. He looks puzzled and wary again

“So the punishment aspect remains.”

“Yes, but only if you break the rules.”

What the shit is this, the freaking LSATs? It’s like a logic problem, and in the answers it says “none of the above” right above “all of the above.” How is she supposed to figure any of this out? Is she writing it down?

Ana can’t really remember what the rules are. If she could hear me, I would remind her that the rules are as follows:

Rules for being Chedward’s girlfriend

Do what he says, whenever he says.
If you don’t, he gets to beat you.
Don’t have friends or family he doesn’t approve of.

See, super easy.

Chedward goes to get her a copy of the rules, and Ana thinks about how weird it is that they’re talking about it early in the morning while his business is in crisis. Well, you know, Ana, you were the one who brought it up. It’s not like you didn’t know what time it is.

When he returns with the rules, I don’t see a lot of changes, though Ana assures the reader that some things are crossed out. she’s still expected to do whatever he asks “eagerly and without hesitation” sleep the number of hours he wants, eat the foods he approves, wear the clothing he approves, work out with a trainer, stay completely waxed, and behave the way he deems appropriate. She must do all these things, or be punished.

They start to talk a little bit about the contract, but then Ana has the audacity to roll her eyes. Christian wants to spank her for that infraction, but Ana tells him he has to catch her first.

“I’m quite fast you know.” I try for nonchalance.

“So am I.”

He’s stalking me, in his own kitchen.

Must be nice for him to be working from home for a change. Christian points out that if Ana runs and gets hurt, she’ll be breaking one of the rules, but she takes off, anyway.

Suddenly, he lunges for me, making me squeal and run for the dining room table. I manage to escape, putting the table between us. My heart is pounding and adrenaline has spiked through my body… boy… this is so thrilling. I’m a child again, though that’s not right.

So not right.

Ana outruns him for a while, and he says it seems like she doesn’t want him to catch her:

“I don’t. That’s the point. I feel about punishment the way you feel about me touching you.” His entire demeanor changes in a nanosecond. Gone is playful Christian, and he stands staring at me as if I’d slapped him. He’s ashen.

“That’s how you feel?” he whispers.

Those four words, and the way he utters them, speaks volumes. Oh no.They tell me so much more about him and how he feels. They tell me about his fear and loathing.

We can’t stop here. This is spank country.

Ana backs down from her assertion that she hates being spanked as much as he hates being touched, because she gets this crazy feeling that disliking being spanked due to not being spanked as a child is probably not the same as disliking being touched due to having someone put fucking cigarettes out on your chest as a child. Then she claims that she’s “‘ambivalent about it. I don’t like it, but I don’t hate it.'” Okay, that’s selling yourself a little short. You don’t like physical pain, speak up and be honest about it, don’t back down like, “Oh, I’m actually just ‘meh’ about it,” when you really feel strongly that you do not want to be involved in physical pain as a sexual fetish.

Because that’s what this is, readers. In the final chapter, we get to the crux of things. Christian isn’t into BDSM. He’s into causing pain, which, while sometimes falling under the umbrella of BDSM, is a pretty specific subgenre of BDSM fun times:

“I do it for you, Christian, because you need it. I don’t. You didn’t hurt me last night. That was in a different context, and I can rationalize that internally, and I trust you. But when you want to punish me, I worry that you’ll hurt me.” His gray eyes blaze like a turbulent storm. Time moves, and expands and slips away before he answers softly.

“I want to hurt you. But not beyond anything that you couldn’t take.” Fuck!

“Why?”

He runs his hand through his hair, and he shrugs.

“I just need it.” He pauses, gazing at me with anguish, and he closes his eyes and shakes his head. “I can’t tell you,” he whispers.

Ana asks if it’s “can’t” or “won’t” and he admits that he just plain won’t tell her. Because he’s afraid she’ll leave him. So, he just wants to cause her pain, for no reason, and she should be cool about it, because he knows exactly what she can/can’t handle with regard to his tortured past.

“Don’t leave me. You said you wouldn’t leave me, and you begged me not to leave you, in your sleep,” he murmurs against my lips.

Oh… my nocturnal confessions.

“I don’t want to go.” And my heart clenches, turning itself inside out.

This is a man in need. His fear is naked and obvious, but he’s lost… somewhere in his darkness. His eyes wide and bleak and tortured. I can soothe him. Join him briefly in the darkness and bring him into the light.

How is she going to do this? By letting him beat the ever living shit out of her. No, I’m not kidding. She tells Christian she wants to see how much it can hurt, and he expresses disbelief.

“Yes, I said I would.” But I have an ulterior motive. If I do this for him, maybe he will let me touch him.

This seems like the sort of thing you might want to work out, perhaps on paper, in a contract of some kind, perhaps, before you let someone unleash hell on your butt. Either way, he’s DTS (down to spank) and he takes her into the red room and tells her to bend over a bench. He’s going to hit her with a belt. A straight up belt.

“We’re here because you said yes, Anastasia. And you ran from me. I am going to hit you six times, and you will count with me.”

Six times, with a belt, so it hurts as much as it can possibly hurt. You dig? This is the moment, guys.

“I am doing this so that you remember not to run from me, and as exciting as it is, I never want you to run from me,” he whispers.

And the irony is not lost on me. I was running to avoid this. If he’d opened his arms, I’d run to him, not away from him.

Ana notices that as he talks, though, he sounds more like the Christian she’s used to, like he’s in his element or something.

I close my eyes, bracing myself for the blow. It comes hard, snapping across my backside, and the bit of the belt is everything I feared. I cry out involuntarily, and take a huge gulp of air.

So, the belt hurts. At least it’s not the canes, right? So, he hits her, it hurts, etc.

“Five.” My voice is more a choked, strangled sob, and in this moment, I think I hate him.

Once he’s done whipping her with the belt, she doesn’t want him touching her, but all he wants to do is straight up cuddle. Guys, pssh. Always with the cuddling, am I right, ladies?

“Don’t touch me!” I hiss. I straighten and stare at him, and he’s watching me as if I might bolt, gray eyes wide, bemused. I dash the tears angrily out of my eyes with the backs of my hands, glaring at him.

“This is what you really like? Me, like this?” I use the sleeve of the bathrobe to wipe my nose.

He gazes at me warily.

“Well, you are one fucked-up son of a bitch.”

Let me just remind you, he bought what appeared to be murder supplies in front of her in chapter two. Straight out of Dexter murder supplies. And then she found out they were just for sex. And only now does she think he’s fucked up?

Ana tells him to sort his shit out and then goes to her room.

What was I thinking? Why did I let him do that to me? I wanted the dark, to explore how bad it could be – but it’s too dark for me. I cannot do this. Yet, this is what he does, this how he gets his kicks.

What a monumental wake-up call. And to be fair to him, he warned me and warned me, time and again. He’s not normal. He has needs that I cannot fulfill. I realize that now.

Let’s keep on forgetting how he doesn’t meet a single one of your needs. Let’s roll around in our anguish about not being able to meet his. Oh, you’re going to do that for a whole bunch more paragraphs? Please, carry on.

Why, why, why have I fallen in love with Fifty Shades? Why?

Replace “I” with “Women” and you will be echoing my frustration with this book, Ana.

Oh, his distraught look as I left. I was so cruel, so shocked by the savagery… will he forgive me… will I forgive him? My thoughts are all haywire and jumbled, echoing and bouncing off the inside of my skull. My subconscious is shaking her head sadly, and my inner goddess is nowhere to be seen.

Maybe Christian beat her to death.

I have to go. That’s it… I have to leave. He’s no good for me, and I am no good for him. How can we possibly make this work? And the thought of not seeing him again practically chokes me… my Fifty Shades.

I feel like that phrase has been used so many times in this book, both the words “fifty” and “shades” are now meaningless for all eternity.

Christian comes in and tries to snuggle with her, but she’s still not having it. He’s brought her Advil and Arnica cream, but I don’t know what Arnica cream is, so I’m going to just call it ass cream.

Here goes. I need to say my piece. “I don’t think I can be everything you want me to be,” I whisper. His eyes widen slightly, and he blinks, his fearful expression returning.

“You are everything I want you to be.”

What?

“I don’t understand. I’m not obedient, and you can be sure as hell I’m not going to let you do that to me again. And that’s what you need, you said so.” He closes his eyes again, and I can see a myriad of emotions cross his face. When he reopens them, his expression is bleak. Oh no.

We all know that they’re breaking up, so allow me to interrupt this recap to defend “a myriad of.” I know it sticks in some of your craws when it shows up in this book. And God knows I don’t want to be E.L. James’s champion or anything. But this is important. If you look up “myriad” in Miriam-Webster, it’s going to tell you that either “myriad” or “a myriad of” are correct usage. I’m sorry for your loss.

Ana and Christian continue to break up, complete with a whole, “You’re right, you should go”/”I don’t want to go”/”I don’t want you to go” back and forth, but then Ana lets loose with the game changer:

“Me too,” I whisper, “I’ve fallen in love with you, Christian.” His eyes widen again, but this time, with pure undiluted fear.

Remember how he had that whole commitment problem before, readers? Dropping L-bombs doesn’t work great with him, for some reason, and he flips out. Why? Because he can’t make Ana happy.

Holy fuck. This really is it. This is what it boils down to – incompatibility – and all those poor subs come to mind.

They make their break up official and Ana asks for privacy to get dressed, because she is going to leave.

I have had my eyes opened and glimpsed the extent of his depravity, and I now know he’s not capable of love – of giving or receiving love. My worst fears have been realized. And strangely, it’s very liberating.

The pain is such that I refuse to acknowledge it. I feel numb. I have somehow escaped from my body and am now a casual observer to this unfolding tragedy.

She takes a shower, gets dressed, and as she’s digging through her suitcase she finds the little gift she got for Christian. Bit reveal time, it’s a model kit of a glider. She even wrote a note that says, “This reminded me of a happy time.”

Wait, what? Reminds her of a happy time… yesterday?

She leaves the glider and the note on Christian’s pillow, thinking really dramatic thoughts about breaking up with her boyfriend of less than a month:

I cannot believe that my world is crumbling around me into a sterile pile of ashes, all my hopes and dreams cruelly dashed.

Okay, hold up. All your hopes and dreams? You’ve been with this guy like, a few weeks. Didn’t you have hopes and dreams before you met him? Or did you just throw those out when the more important boyfriend came along?

As Ana comes out of the bathroom, she hears Christian on the phone, yelling at someone, ordering them to “find her.” I assume he’s already stalking his next lady love, then?

Ana tries to return the computer and BlackBerry, she just wants the money Taylor got for selling her car. They argue about it, but he ends up giving her a check. While Taylor brings the car round, and after they argue some more, Christian says:

“I don’t want you to go,” he murmurs, his voice full of longing.

“I can’t stay. I know what I want and you can’t give it to me, and I can’t give you what you need.”

Ana leaves Christian in his sterile art gallery of an apartment, and goes downstairs to get in the car.

Embarrassment and shame washes over me. I’m a complete failure. I had hoped to drag my Fifty Shades into the light, but it’s proved a task beyond my meager abilities. Desperately, I try to keep my emotions banked and at bay. As we head out onto 4th Avenue, I stare blankly out of the window, and the enormity of what I’ve done slowly washes over me. Shit – I’ve left him. The only man I’ve ever loved. The only man I’ve ever slept with.

Ana starts bawling in the car, and then when she gets home, shit really hits the fan, because she sees the deflated helicopter balloon tied to the end of her bed.

I fall onto my bed, shoes and all, and howl. The pain is indescribable… physical, mental… metaphysical… it is everywhere, seeping into the marrow of my bones. Grief.

You know, I’ve had a similar reaction, myself. WHEN SOMEONE FUCKING DIED. GET YOUR SHIT SHIT TOGETHER ANA.

This is grief – and I’ve bought it on myself. Deep down, a nasty, unbidden thought comes from my inner goddess, her lip curled in a snarl… the physical pain from the bite of a belt is nothing, nothing compared to this devastation. I curl up, desperately clutching the flat foil balloon and Taylor’s handkerchief, and surrender myself to my grief.

So, basically what just happened in this chapter is the beginning of the second Twilight book. So, we’re going to leave our recaps just like this:

THANK YOU FOLKS! (AB)NORMAL BLOG ENTRIES RESUME JULY 2nd!

WE FUCKING SURVIVED THIS BOOK TOGETHER!

June 22, 2012

JennyTrout

25 Comments

50 Shades of Grey Chapter 25 Recap or “DTF”

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At the airport, Ana’s mom rattles off every motivational poster she’s ever seen hanging in an insurance agent’s office:

“Follow your heart, darling, and please, please – try not to over-think things. Relax and enjoy yourself. You are so young, sweetheart. You have so much of life to experience yet, just let it happen. You deserve the best of everything.”

Hang in there, baby! I hate Mondays! Creation is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration!

You get the picture.

“Darling, you know what they say. You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince.”

Okay, enough with the inspirational quotes, Carla, Jesus!

As Ana leaves her mother, her thoughts turn to Christian. Because Ana has two modes of operation, thinking about Christian and having sex with Christian.

What does Christian know of love? Seems he didn’t get the unconditional love he was entitled to during his very early years. My heart twists, and my mother’s words waft like a zephyr through my mind: Yes, Ana. Hell – what do you need? – a neon sign flashing on his forehead? She thinks Christian loves me, but then she’s my mother, of course she’d think that. She thinks I deserve the best of everything.

Then why does she want you to be with Christian? That seems counter-intuitive to the whole “wanting the best for you” process. But I really am admiring the way E.L. James teases out the “People who like BDSM are damaged from childhood” theme, slowly twisting it like a biopsy probe to wring out maximum offense.

Ana realizes that she “needs” to be loved by Christian Grey. And it brings up another point about Ana that really irks me:

This is why I am so reticent about our relationship – because on some basic, fundamental level, I recognize within me a deep-seated compulsion to be loved and cherished.

EVERYONE. HAS. THAT. ANA. I absolutely loathe the kind of person Ana is, that is, the kind of person who makes these profound statements about obvious, shared experiences. Ana telling the reader, “Hey, I think that deep down, I really just want to be loved,” is like Ana telling the reader, “I came to the most stunning realization… did you know that water is wet?” Almost everyone in the world has a need to be loved. It’s part of the human condition. Ana coming to this realization as though it never occurred to her makes me want to shake her again.

Speaking of shaking Ana, commenter Julia Burns suggests that me shaking Ana would look something like this:

The Hulk and I do have similar body types.

And because of his fifty shades – I am holding myself back. The BDSM is a distraction from the real issue. The sex is amazing, he’s wealthy, he’s beautiful, but this is all meaningless without his love, and the real heart-fail is that I don’t know if he’s capable of love. He doesn’t even love himself. I recall his self-loathing, her love being the only form he found – acceptable. Punished – whipped, beaten, whatever their relationship entailed – he feels undeserving of love. Why does he feel like that?

I feel like Ana is making a lot of presumptions here. She doesn’t know that Christian doesn’t love himself. In fact, to the casual observer (reader), it seems like he loves himself more than he loves anyone else, because he’s a narcissist. All Ana knows is that Christian’s relationship with Mrs. Robinson involved her “acceptable” form of love. Because she’s jealous and a narcissist herself, Ana assumes that Mrs. Robinson “broke” Christian. She can’t fathom that in the years since his relationship with his molester, Christian could have come to some kind of inner peace about his upbringing. I’m not trying to give credit to a molester here, I’m just saying, maybe the experience spurred some inner changes in Christian that led to him being better, not worse. Ana didn’t know Christian six years ago, even a year ago. She’s known him for a few weeks, and suddenly she thinks she knows what’s best for him.

Worse, she seems to get off on playing Florence Nightingale to Christian’s tortured soul, despite not knowing if he really is messed up or not:

I close my eyes, imagining his pain, and I can’t being to comprehend it.

There is word for people who abandon their own problems and self-development to meddle with the problems and development of others. They’re called Britta.

And Britta is a ruiner.

I could make an entire blog post out of how very similar Ana is to Britta in a totally-not-funny way, but that wouldn’t be fair to Britta and it might make me hate Community, which would be a real tragedy.

On the plane, Ana emails Christian. When he emails her back a short message about looking forward to seeing her, she thinks that’s strange. Rather than say to herself, “You know, my boyfriend is the head of a multibillion dollar empire, he’s probably just busy,” Ana keeps emailing Christian in the hopes it will elicit a warmer response. And of course, it doesn’t.

Crap. Okay. Jeez. What is eating him? Perhaps ‘the situation’? Maybe Taylor’s gone AWOL, maybe he’s dropped a few million on the stock market – whatever the reason.

Pff, just a few million? Way to be cavalier about something else’s money. Although I did get a laugh at the thought of The Situation from The Jersey Shore doing a bunch of bath salts and literally eating Christian Grey.

Now, if it were meant as a double entendre, we would also be getting somewhere.

Ana keeps emailing him until she can finally construe something as an apology, and I realize at this point that Ana and Christian are both terrible people and probably deserve each other. How fucking rude is that? “I know my boyfriend has some dire thing going on, but he needs to be paying attention to meeeeeeeeee!”

Perhaps ‘the situation’ is out of hand.

Ana bought a gift for Christian to say thank you for flying her first class and taking her gliding. I wonder if she bought her mom anything to say sorry for abandoning her in the middle of a visit to go bonk a boyfriend who lives like, fifteen minutes away most days. But she doesn’t know if she’s going to give him the gift, because he might not like it if he’s in a strange mood. When is this guy not in a strange mood? I ask aloud in my lonely office while my family wonders if I’ve finally gone round the bend.

As I mentally flick through all the scenarios that could be ‘the situation’,

I become aware once again that the only empty seat is beside me. I shake my head as the thought crosses my mind that Christian might have purchased the adjacent seat so that I couldn’t talk to anyone. I dismiss the idea as ridiculous – no one would be that controlling, that jealous, surely.

Right? The only kind of person who would do something that crazy is the kind of person who would like, track your cellphone and abduct you from a bar when you’re good and roofied, and then try to make you sign a sex contract and follow you across the country because they can’t stand to be away from you for four days.

Ana arrives in Seattle eight hours later (she must have had a layover) and Taylor is there with little chauffeur sign with her name on it. And of course, when he sees Ana, she can tell that he wants to smile at her, because everyone loves Ana, against all reason and logic.

I remember, though I would like to erase it from my memory, that this man has bought me underwear. In fact – and the though unsettles me – he’s the only man who’s ever bought me underwear. Even Ray’s never had to endure that hardship.

Where does she buy underwear, that it’s such a hardship? Does she have two asses, so you have to special order it? This is another of the things that irks me about Ana, her utter immaturity turns things that aren’t remotely sexual into embarrassing pseudo-sexual problems. “Oh no, he bought me underwear, tee hee.” He’s probably bought a lot of underwear for women, working for Christian Grey. It’s no big deal, almost everyone wears underpants, Ana. I have such a hard time believing, “Yeah, she’s going to be totally into being hit in the clit with a riding crop,” when she is mortified at the thought of someone buying her underwear.

In the car, Ana decides to pick at Taylor for information:

“How’s Christian, Taylor?”

“Mr. Grey is preoccupied, Miss Steele.”

Oh, this must be ‘the situation’.

Ana doesn’t really get much from Taylor, and instead listens to classical music until they get to the Escala, where Ana thinks that Taylor’s tone is “avuncular” because E.L. James got a Word-A-Day calender for Christmas. Headed up to Christian’s apartment, Ana is all nervous, because she’s kind of hoping he’s going to want to fuck her, and kind of worried that he’s going to be a bad mood. Those are basically the only two modes Christian has, when you think about it. “Frost Giant” and “Fuck Me”.

In the great room, Christian is on his BlackBerry talking quietly as he stares out of the glass doors at the early evening Seattle skyline. He’s wearing a gray suit with the jacket undone, and he’s running his hand through his hair, he’s. H agitated, tense even. Oh no – what’s wrong? Agitated or not, he’s still beyond beautiful. How can he look so… arresting? It’s such a pleasure to stand and drink in the sheer sight of him.

Note, that fucked up bit in there was totally in the book. I didn’t get a weird case of the spaz fingers. I like how Ana is seemingly surprised to find that something’s wrong, when she’s been aware that something is wrong since he left Georgia.

“No trace… Okay… Yes.” He turns and sees me, and his whole demeanor changes.

From tension to relief to something else: a look that calls direction to my inner goddess, a look of sensual carnality, gray eyes blazing.

See, he’s gone from “Frost Giant” to “Fuck Me.” There really are only two modes here.

“Keep me informed,” he snaps and shuts of his phone as he strides purposefully toward me. I stand paralyzed as he closes the distance between us, devouring me with his eyes. Holy Shit… something’s amiss – the strain in his jaw, the anxiety around his eyes.

Aaand it looks like he’s stuck somewhere between those two gears. He’s gonna need a whole new transmission. And note how Ana continues to point out that something is wrong. We know. We are already painfully aware. Yet you keep pointing it out without giving the reader any new information. At this point, I don’t even care what the problem is anymore, I just want them to say “the situation” a few more times because I have a cache of hilarious pictures of Mike.

Despite the extremely fucked up state of affairs – that the reader still knows nothing about – Christian wants to have sex with Ana, and of course it’s going to be super erotic and amazing, but first, the medical review:

“I want you now. Here… fast, hard,” he breaths, and his hands are on my thighs, pushing up my skirt. “Are you still bleeding?”

“No.” I flush.

No, I’m not still bleeding, because I store all of my blood in my face. Permanently. But let’s look at this whole, “Are you still bleeding” thing. Ana started her period the day before Christian arrived in Georgia. Christian was supposed to have dinner with Ana on her last night at her mother’s house, because when she spoke to Christian on the phone, he said he would see her “tomorrow”. Which means that Ana’s period only lasted… three days? Is she currently breastfeeding? Think about that, she had a heavy enough flow that she bled all over him having sex, but she’s not bleeding now? Ana is blessed with unusually short periods, I guess. That, or she has a tumor.

They have sex, it’s mind-blowing and all-consuming, she explodes, etc. And they don’t use a condom. There is a debate raging in the chapter twenty-three post about when and how she should have started her birth control, but I’m thinking back to when I was on the pill, you started it the Sunday after you started your period. So, would Ana even have started the pill yet? If today in the book is Friday, and she was at her mom’s house for four days, and she started her period the day before Christian got there… she hasn’t even gotten to Sunday yet. So, they’re having completely unprotected sex. I’m quite disappointed, because earlier I had praised E.L. for making her hero wear a condom when so may romance authors talk their heroines out of it. Even me, although my characters were vampires who couldn’t conceive.

When they’re all done having sex, Ana tells Christian that she has a job, and he has no idea where, because he hasn’t been stalking her. But they don’t have a lot of time to talk about unimportant shit like her new job, because Christian wants to take a shower with her.

“Ow,” I squeal. The water is practically scalding. Christian grins down at me as the water cascades over him.

“It’s only a little hot water.”

And actually, he’s right. It feels heavenly, washing off the sticky Georgia morning and the stickiness from our lovemaking.

Are you fucking serious, Ana? “Ow, this water is hot. Oh, what’s that, Christian? You say it’s not? MY SKIN HAS MAGICALLY FUCKING ADJUSTED TO THE TEMPERATURE TRULY YOU ARE THE MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE.”

Ana asks Christian to go to Jose’s art show with her, and he says okay, but he also threatens her a little, warning her to remember how jealous he is. Ana asks when she’s going to be allowed to touch him, and he responds by making her put her hands on the wall so he can fuck her. Shocking the hell out of me, the sex scene is skipped over! Huzzah! And they go to the kitchen for pasta and wine.

“How’s the um… situation that brought you to Seattle?” I ask tentatively.

Going okay, but he keeps taking his shirt off.

Christian doesn’t want to talk about it, though, and he tells her that she needs to be ready and in his playroom in fifteen minutes. Oh, and he’s bought her a whole closet full of clothes. Because apparently ‘the situation’ was a Denim & Co. marathon on QVC. He tells her to get ready in her room.

Ho! My subconscious has her snarky face on. I ignore her and make my way upstairs toward my room so, it is still mine… why? I thought he’d agreed to let me sleep with him.

I suppose he’s not used to sharing his personal space, but then, neither am I. I console myself with the thought that at least I have somewhere to escape from him.

You could go to your apartment, Ana. You do have one of those.

Ana waits for him in the red room.

Anticipation runs bubbling like soda through my veins. What will he do? I take a deep steadying breath, but I cannot deny it, I’m excited, aroused, wet already. This is so… I want to think wrong, but somehow it’s not. It’s right for Christian. It’s what he wants – and after the last few days… after all he’s done, I have to man up and take whatever he decides he wants, whatever he thinks he needs.

That’s right, ladies. Listen to the nice, sexy book everyone is talking about. If your man buys you stuff, you have to do the sex things he likes. HAVE TO. Ana is always so worried about being a ho, but then she can make a statement like the one above without any irony whatsoever.

The memory of his look when I came in this evening, the longing in his face, his determined stride toward me like I was an oasis in the desert. I’d do almost anything to see that look again.

These sentences tell us two very important things about Ana. 1. She is severely codependent, and is more turned on by the thought of someone desperately needing her than loving or desiring her. 2. She is a better sub than she thinks. She just doesn’t know what a sexual submissive is. All along she’s been laboring under this delusion that to enjoy sexual submission means giving up all personal autonomy. Now, we can’t entirely blame her for this impression, because she’s inexperienced and she’s being taught by a guy who also doesn’t understand submission. He’s not a dom, he’s a control freak. But the way she’s sitting there, thinking she wants to do things to please him, to the point that she’s getting wet from imagining it, well, I dispute Chedward’s claim that she doesn’t have a submissive bone in her body.

Christian comes in, he’s so hot that Ana says “Jeez” in her head, her subconscious and her inner goddess are both ready to go, and while he takes stuff out of a chest, she thinks about how she wants to lick his sexy, naked feet. He tells her to get on her feet and reminds her of the safe words, “red” and “yellow”.

I feel like I’m skipping over a lot in this chapter recap, but there’s just another sex scene, except he puts a blindfold on her and some headphones so she can’t hear him in a sensory deprivation type thing. It’s just that it takes so fucking long for him to tell her what he’s going to do, that I was thoroughly bored with reading it the first time, not to mention when I’m reading it now to recap it.

Okay. A musical interlude, not what I was expecting. Does he ever do what I expect?

Jeez, I hope it’s not rap.

Thank you, Ana, for officially taking over as musically oblivious 8th grader:

He braids her hair for her and then we get the exceptionally erotic language this book is known for:

He hums softly as he does, and the sound resonates through me. Right down… right down there, inside me.

DOWN. THERE.

He ties her to the bed, blindfolds her, puts headphones on, etc. and she listens to Gregorian chant while he uses a fur glove on her before he starts in on her with the flogger. When he’s got her all worked up, in comes the seemingly impossible sex position I’ve been trying to figure out with stick figures for the past two months:

Then, grasping my hips, he lifts me so that my back is no longer on the bed. I am arched, resting on my shoulders. What? He’s kneeling up between my legs… and in one swift, slamming move he’s inside me… oh fuck… and I cry out again.

Here’s what I’m trying to figure out. How tall is Christian, if his dick can reach her from a kneeling position when her body weight is resting on her shoulders? I keep trying to imagine this position and I just can’t make it work. Are her legs off the bed, then? Is she doing that bridge thing from gymnastics? But she’s not using her hands to support her, she’s on her shoulders… what the fuck is going on in that sentence? Whatever it is, it sounds super uncomfortable. I assume that the “oh fuck” and her cry is because he just broke her neck with his “slamming” thrust.

Christian fucks her in time to the music until she has the most intense orgasm ever. It’s hard to get excited about that, considering that every orgasm she has is the most intense ever. You know, fucking to music is fun, but it works better with something like Tool or Nine Inch Nails, I think. King Diamond, if you really want to get a workout. When they’re done, Christian tells her all about the music, which I guess in hindsight isn’t really Gregorian chant:

“It’s called Spem In Alium, or the Forty Part Motet, by Thomas Tallis.”

“It was… overwhelming.”

“I’ve always wanted to fuck to it.”

According to Wikipedia, that bastion of truth and infallibility, the text of the piece translates to:

I have never put my hope in any other but in You,

O God of Israel

who can show both anger

and graciousness,

and who absolves all the sins of suffering man

Lord God,

Creator of Heaven and Earth

be mindful of our lowliness

Oh yeah, that gets me hot, I don’t know about anyone else. While Christian gives her a back rub, they talk about what she says and doesn’t say in her sleep:

“What did I say to you in my sleep, Ch – err, Sir?”

His hands pause their ministrations for a moment.

“You said lots of things, Anastasia. You talked about cages and strawberries… that you wanted more… and that you missed me.”

Oh, thank heavens for that.

“Is that all?” The relief in my voice is evident.

Christian stops his heavenly massage and shifts so that he’s lying beside me. His head propped up on his elbow. He’s frowning.

“What did you think you’d said?”

Oh snit, how is Ana going to recover from that one?

“That I thought you were ugly, conceited, and that you were hopeless in bed.”

This doesn’t throw Christian off the scent, but he doesn’t get an answer before the chapter ends.

And I never even got to use this picture.