Wednesday, January 28, 2015

50 Shad3s: Chapter 3 part 1

tldnr
Ana sees that Christian gave her a bunch of hickies and she's mad for like one minute. 

Hey so this is important:

The film version of this trainwreck is coming, and soon. I plan to watch the movie version of this somewhere, somehow. Do you want to watch with me? I mean, it's not going to be good. It's going to be bad. But it'll only take like, two hours. And let's be real: I can't even get through like, half a chapter of this dumpster fire in two hours. So surely you could put up with a two-hour movie. I know you could. Your moral support would mean a lot to me. So, I dunno. Leave a comment! Or something. If you want to participate in the official Complainist viewing party. I'll be drunk.

So. Another chapter of this. So.

I'm going to tell you now: the plot does not start yet. I hope you aren't expecting the plot to start yet? Because it does not start yet. No, it does not start yet at all. It's another one of those chapters that follow a false cliffhanger but the false cliffhanger is resolved immediately but only sort of. Which is to say that the false cliffhanger is always a symptom of what a super shitty dude Christian is. So the immediate problem might be addressed, but the larger problem--Christian is shitty--goes unresolved. He's still shitty. And he'll always be shitty. And the only way to "resolve" his shittiness would be for Ana to, I dunno. Seek asylum somewhere? It's tough getting involved with super rich people because they're difficult to escape.

But yeah. Let's read another chapter! Probably they'll make up real fast and eat some food and drink some food and have sex and then get in another fight about how shitty Christian is and then the chapter will end and you'll be like, "Wait did Alden accidentally write about Chapter 2 a second time instead of writing about Chapter 3?" and you'll never know. None of us will ever know.

Where were we?

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

50 Shad3s: Chapter 2 part 2

So.

I realized the other day that I say "So" instead of "um." It's not much better. Just a pointless syllable that gives me an extra little moment before I have to proceed. It's hard to dive into these things; you'll forgive me just a little bit of procrastination before I leap in. So.

Here's what's bothering me the most: so there was never any plot in this thing, in the standard sense. Just a general, unpleasant tension between Ana and CG punctuated by either big dumb fights or sex. Just two character bumbling back and forth between these two poles, both basically uninteresting.

And that's where we still are, only they're married now. In real life, of course, the wedding isn't where the story ends. But this is a book, and that's where the book is supposed to end, because it's a big deal or whatever. So now that we've raced through the wedding, into territory unknown, where will we stop? I don't know where we will stop. I have no idea where this will stop or why it even started. Why did it even start? Oh well.

So.

Onwards and upwards.

Where were we?


Tuesday, January 13, 2015

50 Shad3s: Chapter 2 part 1

tldnr
CG is mad about Ana taking her top off but a jet ski cheers him up a little. 

So. Chapter 2.

I'm having a harder time sticking with this. I think it's weakened me, in general. Like, I think I used to be kind of smart or whatever. But I think I'm less smart now than when I started. I think that this is actually making me a worse person? Reading this book? Thinking about this book? I've become that piece of cheese that you find in the back of the fridge, and you open it up, and you're like, "Huh. Well. This looks like cheese. And it's something in the blue family; it was always moldy. But was it this moldy? Is this safe to eat?"

I was always moldy. But was I always this moldy? I don't know. You tell me.

So where were we?


Our story thus far:

Ana Steele is married to billionaire / kink-enthusiast / child-abuse survivor Christian Grey. He is domineering and they are usually upset with each other except for when they're having sex. 


  1. Ana takes her top off on a beach while reminiscing about the wedding and Christian gets mad.
Not off to a very good start! Hey. Onwards, I guess. 

Thursday, January 8, 2015

50 Shad3s: Chapter One



TLDNR
Ana and Christian are on a beach honeymoon and maybe people see Ana's boobs.

Having a difficult time getting back into this, pretty much because it's so, so terrible. You get to the end of the chapter, and these people are just doing the same stuff that they always do. Having their little fights which hint that Ana is straight-up going to get murdered if she strays from Christian's rules. Doing rich-people stuff that somehow feels false, like it was thought up explicitly for the sake of sounding rich to readers who are not actually rich.

Oh and you know that thing on TV shows where they have somebody get married because I guess that's good for ratings or whatever and people like watching weddings? EL decided she was having none of that! The young couple's entire engagement and wedding is dispatched with boring efficiency. Great, I guess! Gets us through this first chapter, and onto the rest of the book! Whatever that's about. I have no idea, yet, what this book is about. Probably the same as the other books.

But holy shit this is a dumpster fire.

Ok. Am I prone to hyperbole? Sure. But omigod this is so brutally bad. Here's what Chapter 1 is like: Chapter 1 is like fanfic by a 50 Shades superfan. It's fanfic of fanfic and it's just bullshit. It's so bad that it's gone past good and back to bad again.

I feel bad for having potentially overused the phrase "dumpster fire" in my recent life so I might need to retract that. Instead I'm going to call this chapter a shitcano, which I definitely haven't overused because it's a dumb nonsense word that I just mashed up right now. (Editor's note: gets about 3.5k hits on google so you're not that original, Eagle.)

Here's the thing: there just isn't any book in this book. There's no story. There are none of the conventional things you need to like, make you read a book.

Since there's no story in this story, you don't really need to be offered a plot refresher but hey. I'll do it anyway because I'm a very generous person.

Ana Steele is engaged to billionaire / kink-enthusiast / child-abuse survivor Christian Grey. He is domineering and they are usually upset with each other except for when they're having sex. 

. . . only now we'll have to update this straight away because [gasp] they're already married! We learn it immediately so don't worry. No spoilies. After the jump!