50 Shad3s: Chapter 8 part 1

tldnr
Ana is extremely rude to the architect she and Christian hire to remodel their new home. 

So here's the thing:

Just moved. Not even really done moving. Lotsa bags and boxes still. Lotsa hey-where-did-that-go? still. Been taking up most of my non-work time. So that's why we're two full weeks out without an update. I know you all count on me. Me and this important service that I'm doing out of the goodness of my own heart and whatever. I'm sorry for letting you down.

I can't promise it won't happen again because this book is terrible. I barely finished my post on the last chapter. And even once I finished it? I'm pretty sure I never edited it and there are probably some weird parts that sneaked in accidentally. I mean weirder than usual. Ah well.

The discouraging thing is that I'm barely into this book. But the encouraging thing is that, since this is a trilogy, just being anywhere in the third book means that I'm oozing toward the finish line, so good job, me!

We can do this. I know we can. I know we can. I think I can, anyway. And if there's anything I learned from children's literature, it's that if you think you can do something, you can totally do it. (Editor's note: Alden just read an illustrated version of The Secret and I'm worried that it's affecting his judgement.)

So yeah. They had a fight last chapter. Ana got bullied into changing her name because Christian is a whiny baby who cannot handle his wife enjoying symbolic independence. Cool! So it's still the same dumb evening and in comes their architect.

But let's catch up more thoroughly shall we?

So where were we?

50 Shad3s: Chapter 7 part 2

This part is bullshit.

I did warn you guys the other week that this part was total bullshit but I mean, here it is! You can accuse me of a lot of things, for sure, but you can't accuse me of not being thorough because that is one thing that I am. Oh how I am.

I did take a week off. That's how bad this chapter is. It's so bad that I took a whole week off and then procrastinated through most of the next week, too, and now here it is and I guess I gotta do this. Or not. I could also not. But I think I will. I think I will fight my way through this.

I really could just say that the rest of this chapter is some bullshit where CG hassles Ana about not going by "Mrs. Grey" at work because that's all that happens. But if I did that, you would be spared the true depth of my righteous, seething anger. You would get the basic idea of the rest of this chapter, but you wouldn't really feel it. You would not understand just how truly, truly terrible this is. Terrible to read. Terrible to think about. Terrible to imagine as a real-world thing. Terrible to write about. And yeah- probably also terrible to read about! But we are in this together.

I will say one thing about EL: she keeps finding new ways to establish CG's shittiness. She keeps reminding us that, yeah even though our heroes are married and whatever? That isn't the end. Marriage isn't the end. There is no happily-ever-after for Ana. Instead, there's just this endless sine wave. Peaking at sex, then dropping down to another stupid, stupid fight with her stupid, stupid husband who's just a fucking tantrum-toddler who wants everything his way all the time and he wants it goddamn yesterday.

I suppose part of my beef is that I don't really get ladies changing their names. Life is a big enough hassle as it is. I gotta move soon because my new landlords want to make more money or whatever and I cannot bear the thought of changing my address on every goddamn thing. The bills. The credit cards. The Netflix. The everything. And that's pretty much just doing a bunch of forms online. Not like changing my whole goddamn name. That sounds brutal. If that's a thing that you want to do, do it! Please! But it seems like a pretty big hassle to me, and not one I'd ever ask anyone to endure for my sake. Plus? It's just another one of those old school things where it's like, "Oh see, legally, you used to be your dad's property, but now you belong to your husband. Good luck! Enjoy life!" So if you have found a contemporary relevance for this antiquated thing, great! I shan't judge you for having a strength of imagination that I personally lack.

I do judge CG for being an asshole tho. Ana is awfully proud to be Mrs. Christian Grey and she runs around calling herself Mrs. Grey and everything yeah. I just don't see any possible angle for CG to doubt Ana's commitment to him. He literally bosses her around all the time about everything, and then she's like, "Oh maybe I want to maintain a certain amount of professional distance from your name so that in my professional life, I can be judged on my own merit and not merely feared because of your reputation," and he flips out because he is a bad, bad person, and bad people need little reason to flip out I guess.

But anyway. I'm just delaying the inevitable.

So where were we?

50 Shad3s: Chapter 7 part 1

tldnr
Christian starts flipping out about Ana keeping the last name "Steele" in her professional life. 

Warning: 
This is just several pages of me being angry about how bad this book is. I know it's always just that, but I get angrier than usual. Like, I literally take a break in the middle, leave, come back, and then I'm angrier than ever. 


I've threatened, at various points, to abridge my own edit of one or more of these books and I still think it's kind of a good idea because I bet I could get it down to like, 100 pages per book and then if people really wanted to know what the deal was they could just read those. And the main reason that I think this would be plausible is just how repetitive everything is, all the time. Every chapter just circles through these repeated bits where CG and Ana say the same goddamn things to each other and my eyes kind of glaze over because I'm like, "Oh this again" and I start scanning more and more rapidly and then pretty soon I'm at the end of the chapter and I realize that I've gotten all the way through to the end and nothing at all has happened. Not anything.

So anyway take this chapter, for example. Where nothing happens. Oh! But you might want me to catch you up on the previous nothing that already happened. Or didn't happen. Since what did happen was nothing. Right? Cool.

So where were we?

50 Shad3s: Chapter 6

tldnr
Ana figures out who the arsonist was. 

Warnings:
At long last our heroes get around to some buttstuff.


It's always a bummer when I know I have to start talking about sex. It's like, c'mon guys. Can't you like, lead up to it a little? Or just, you know. Leave out part of the sex? Because I get it! Christian Grey is so good at sex! Probably the best sexer who ever sexed a sex. But now, I gotta read about it. At least I know that they can only have sex for an hour because CG has to yell at his security people or some shit. Remember how there was a weird car chase last chapter for no reason? Oh and how Ana and Christian just had car sex in the afternoon like, five minutes ago? Well here comes some more! #yay

Wait. Should probably catch you up to speed. I mean just in case for some reason, you decided to start right here and don't know what's happened already. Don't worry! You haven't missed much. You haven't missed anything. 

Where were we?

50 Shad3s: Chapter 5 part 2

tldnr:
Car chase / car sex. 

I wonder if I'll be like, invigorated after going to see the movie and not even hating it that much? Probably not. Because the problem is that book-Christian is just as bad as movie-Christian, and book-Ana is way, way worse than movie-Ana. And while early in the movie, Kate calls Ana a "goddess" as a "clever" nod to the worst thing in the book, I'm probably going to have to keep reading about inner goddesses and whatever for several hundred more pages.

All I do is just give, give, give.

Lessee. Where were we?

Special Movie Edition: We Watched It

tldnr
Meh. Not that bad.


OK so here’s the deal: 

The movie isn’t that bad. If, some crazy how, this blog hasn’t, on its own, provided you with a detailed-enough account of this mess, and you're like, "Ugh I still want to learn more tho," please please please just watch the movie and don't read the book. Please don't. Please.

Of course, this introduces a bit of a conundrum: is it possible that all my enjoyment of the movie is directly related to the misery that the book has caused me? Probably! So it's very possible that someone who hasn't dissected the book(s) in the pointless way I have would totally hate the movie and be like, "Ugh why'd you make me watch this, Alden?" And I'd like to respond to that in two ways:

1. I didn't make you.
2. At least you didn't read the book. 

Here's the main thing the movie has going for it:

50 Shad3s: Chapter 5 part 1

tldnr
Honeymoon ending. Jet ski. Flight back to Seattle. Sex. Breakfast in Bellevue. Car chase.

I still haven't seen the movie yet. I'm sorry. I'm going this weekend. I'll tell you all about it. I mean, if you're interested.

Where were we?