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Tag: Jealous Hater Book Club

Jealous Haters Book Club: Beautiful Disaster Chapter Three, “Cheap Shot” or “It Doesn’t Stand For Students Against Drunk Dancing, You Irresponsible Fucks”

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A quick note before I start the recap proper: I notice that a lot of people in the comments will say stuff about how terrible it is that I’m enduring this book. Please, don’t worry about that. Nobody has a gun to my head forcing me to write these recaps (although sometimes I’d get them done faster if that were the case). The Fifty Shades of Grey series really did take a toll on my mental health, culminating in me noping the fuck out of Grey. But there were a lot of factors at play at that moment in my life, in my industry, and in pop culture overall that contributed to that. When I blogged Fifty, it was inescapable. So, I’d put in eight hours on a recap, go get on social media and everyone was discussing it, try to watch TV and there were ads for it, interviews with the “author”, eventually there were movie trailers, and if I opened my inbox there would usually be forty to fifty emails about whatever piece of breaking news had developed about it. Fifty Shades of Grey wasn’t just in the zeitgeist, it was the zeitgeist, and it was the inescapability coupled with the mindless proselytizing about how it was going to fix women’s sexuality forever that drove me into the ground.

Beautiful Disaster was never, and will never be, as relentlessly famous as Fifty Shades of Grey. It’s steeped in misogyny, the plot is unbelievable, the writing is atrocious and the characters are intolerable, but that’s all this experience really has in common with Fifty Shades.

Plus, this isn’t a four-year undertaking. I’m sure as hell not going to read all the other Beautiful books.

So, chins up, everyone, don’t worry about this taking any kind of mental toll on me. I’m actually really having fun on this one, just because it’s riding the line of hilariously bad/infuriatingly stupid that makes it easy to mock.

That said, this “fun” recap has all sorts of rape discussion in it. Heads up.

Jealous Haters Book Club: Handbook For Mortals Chapter 8 (part three) or “Carrie, but with lemonade”

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Now, this may be me being overcautious, but there’s a very small instance in this recap where I quote lines that sound like the language used in abuse situations. I’m just giving you a heads up. Because it’s fairly creepy. It’s very brief and comes during an altercation at a lemonade stand.

Yeah, that’s what you’re in for with this one.

Jenny Reads 50 Shades of Midnight Sun: Sunday, May 22, 2011 or “I’m not sure this whole day-by-day instead of chapter numbers thing is practical PART TWO”

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Because this is yet another unbearably long chapter (thirty-three pages, according my Kindle app), I’m dicing this one up. For my reading challenge, I’m reading Anne by Constance Fenimore-Woolson, and the chapters in that are also very, very long. The reason for this is that it was a serial in Harper’s Bazar, and serial installments back in the day were long-ish. Grey is not a serial, and therefore that is absofuckinglutely no need for these chapters to be this long.

I don’t know what I have against long chapters, I honestly don’t. It’s not just this particular book. And it’s not like I don’t write them, either. But as a reader, I absolutely loathe them. Maybe I like that sense of completion you get from reaching a natural stopping point. I don’t know.

In Fifty Shades Darker movie news, the internet was positively abuzz with casting announcements. Bella Heathcote came on board as Leila, and Eric Johnson as Jack Hyde. But perhaps the most exciting casting news came when it was announced that Tyler Hoechlin would portray the unforgettable character Boyce Fox. (warning: autoplay video on that link)

Wait, who?

Turns out Boyce Fox, a character that even I could not remember, is the author Ana signs to her publishing house. He’s mentioned briefly in the third book, if I remember correctly. They’re “expanding” Boyce’s role in the films, so I assume he’ll be yet another handsome man who can’t resist Ana. Okay, I know that I can’t resist Dakota Johnson, either, but this isn’t about me. This is about the fact that the last two movies are apparently being written by E.L. James’s husband, so let’s not kid ourselves. E.L. probably wants the role expanded so her onscreen avatar can be lusted after by even more hot guys.

Also, Hugh Dancy has joined the cast as Dr. Finn, since being in one show about a shitty psychiatrist wasn’t enough for him. He’s dead to me now.

With all of that out of the way, let’s recap.

Jenny Reads 50 Shades of Midnight Sun: Sunday, May 22, 2011 or “I’m not sure this whole day-by-day instead of chapter numbers thing is practical PART ONE”

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Since the original intended release date of Fifty Shades Darker the movie has come and gone, news is starting to roll out about the sequel. Dakota Johnson wants Jamie Dornan to take it all off, full frontal style, and though she may just be joking, it does seem only fair. Major roles have been cast, including Kim Basinger as Elena Lincoln, and filming is apparently underway. They’re going to do the final books in the trilogy back to back, and are now describing them as “thrillers” and talking up how “scary” they’ll be. I think we all knew it was going to be scary, just not in the way the studio is hyping it.

Now, let’s all place our bets on whether or not the final book will be split into two unnecessarily dragged out pieces, in keeping with the Twilight rip-off theme.

If you’re reading along with my Fifty Shades of Grey recaps, this chapter will cover chapters eight and nine.

Also, CW: There’s like, a lot of gross pedophilia vibe in this thing. Although at this point, everyone should just assume that all content warnings ever apply to this stupid fucking book.

Also, Also: Welcome to yet another enormous chapter that I’ll break up into parts, since nobody at the publisher could be arsed to.

Jealous Hater Book Club: Apolonia, chapter 17

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So, we left off with everyone deciding that they need to get to a radio station that will, realistically, be of absolutely no use to them, for reasons more than explained by Trout Nation resident experts in the comments section last time. Thank you to everyone who took the time to teach us a lesson in radio communications, by the way, that was fantastic!

Jealous Hater Book Club: Apolonia Chapter 15

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Recently, a friend asked me if I had stopped doing these recaps. And I was like, yeah, I had to, because they were putting my dog to sleep. But I was just kidding. I’m hilarious like that.

Anyway, no I haven’t stopped, and I’m not going to stop, because I’m over halfway done with this, and there’s no sense in putting myself through the first 66% of the book and not finishing. It would be like letting a Civil War surgeon on a dirty battlefield half amputate my leg and then just leave the job unfinished.

A word of caution here: due to recent injury, I’m using dictation software to write this recap. So some stuff will probably look weird, and I will likely not catch it when I edit. It’s just my luck.

Jealous Hater’s Book Club: Apolonia Chapter 6

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FLASHY GIF WARNING: There is a flashy gif in here. It’s not so flashy that it triggered any events for me, but you know your stuff better than I know your stuff, so heads up, there’s a picture with blinky text on it. It’s David Tennant, and it comes after two pictures of me looking alternately hopeful, then angry.

This book was a finalist in the GoodReads Reader’s Choice awards this year.

For best science fiction.

DoctorFacepalm

 

Jealous Hater’s Book Club: Apolonia chapter 4

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One time, I was hanging out with one of my editor friends, and she was working on an author’s manuscript. She was complaining about how the revisions process with this particular author was driving her crazy, and she said, “At some point will there be sex in your erotic novel?” It made me laugh so hard, because I was thinking, wow, that’s something, an erotic novel with no sex. Stuff like that just tickles me. Anyway, I guess what I’m asking here is, “At some point will there be science fiction in your New Adult Sci-Fi novel?” Because if there is, it’s not in chapter four.