Fifty Shades Freed

Author: E.L. James
Genre: Erotic Fiction
Rating: F

Despite the many flaws of the Fifty Shades books, I can say that there is one thing that I actually really liked about them: the titles.  The name “Fifty Shades” in itself refers to Christian Grey and as you read the books it kind of becomes apparent that the protagonist is not narrator Ana so much as it is her lover, Christian.  Sure, things don’t follow him as nicely, but the story is more about his development and growth than it is about hers.  Fifty Shades of Grey sets up who Christian is, while Fifty Shades Darker divulges deeper into his many, many issues.  The finale, Fifty Shades Freed shows Christian being freed from his plethora of issues.

I really had to force myself to read this book.  I tried to read it when I read the first two, but I just could not get into it.  I spent the first four chapters yelling at the book and rolling my eyes and feeling just overall bothered by it.  So I put it down and moved on to other things.  Then I came back to it, because despite my dislike of the series I did want to finish it.  I like completing things, no matter how bad they are.

At one point in the novel, Ana thinks to herself “I’ve had enough of his cavalier, petulant, and frankly childish behaviour.”  I’m glad that she’s finally had enough of it – I’d had enough of it fairly early on in the first book.  Christian is a fucking child and acts like one – and he treats Ana like a child.  There is no development on this.  For a moment she finally stands up for herself and points out the bullshit way that he treats her and the way that he insists on getting his own way… then he starts talking about sex and she caves.  Because the way to solve all problems is to fuck.  I get that this is erotica, but I really hate going “this really dramatic thing happened and they almost died and now they’re fucking lots” or “fight, fight, fight, Christian basically abuses her, sex.”  I think that’s what I hate most about these books.  It’s not the poor writing or the melodramatic plot, but rather the fact that none of the issues between the two protagonists ever seems to get resolved and everything is just some sort of preamble for them to have sex.  There are a few moments in the series that I found hot, but they tended to not actually be the sex ones.  The scene in Freed when Ana washes Christian’s hair was amazingly hot – right up until Christian started talking about fucking her.  When you think about the hottest moments in a movie or book it’s never the actual sex, that’s just sex.  It’s the moments of tenderness between the characters.  Fifty Shades doesn’t have many of these moments, and the ones that it does have are often quickly ruined by Christian being a douche.

What else… I’m not going to touch on things like the stalking and Ray’s accidents, because simply put I think James’ attempts to introduce suspense to the story are really just ridiculous and over the top.  I’m not going to touch on the pregnancy because… well, really, the whole thing pisses me off and I don’t want to go off on a rant about how much of a giant douche Christian is or about how when I read erotica I don’t want to have to also read about transvaginal ultrasounds and the importance of using protection.  Also, did I mention that Christian’s a giant douche?  And a sexist one at that.

I’m not going to get into any of that because I’ve spent enough time yelling at this book and rolling my eyes while reading it.  I don’t need to do the same while writing a review of it.  I will give Ana credit in one count: when she gets pregnant she does stand up for herself.  The problem is, by this time I’m so used to their ridiculous fights that go nowhere that even as she’s standing up for herself I’m waiting for her to back down and fuck Mr. Perfect.  And really, she didn’t fail me there.  She stood up for herself, but as soon as Christian started giving her the silent treatment she effectively broke.  When your husband flips out on you for getting pregnant (because he of course had nothing to do with it) then goes and gets drunk with his ex you’re not supposed to essentially forgive him – at least through your actions if not your thoughts – within a day.  I think I just came to the conclusion that I would have liked these books a lot more if they had acknowledge Christian’s douchery more.  As messed up as it is, it would have made him a more attractive character.  There’s something hot about things that you know are wrong and bad for you.  There’s nothing hot about things that are wrong and bad for you when they’re presented as being completely normal and okay – and I’m not talking about the sex.  Furthermore, in not really standing up for herself Ana just becomes this wet towel of a character; the type of woman who brushes away domestic abuse because, well, he didn’t really mean to punch her in the face he was just having a bad day and had had a bit too much to drink.  Sure Christian doesn’t physically abuse her (outside of the bedroom, which doesn’t count because that’s part of an agreed upon sexual act that both parties enjoy), but he’s still abusive.

I think I need to wrap this up.  When I was in high school I was always told that when providing criticism I should do so in what my teachers called “feedback sandwiches” (or something to that extent) and I called “shit sandwiches.”  According to them you were supposed to say a good thing, then a bad thing, then another good thing, and repeat for each bad thing that you said.  The way I’ve always done it, however, is to say at least one good thing, then all the bad things (sometimes with a few other good things tossed in there), and then finish on a good thing.  Instead of the feedback sandwiches that overload you on all the good stuff and thus potentially lose the bad stuff, I try to provide the manwich of shit sandwiches.  So, to close this review of Fifty Shades Freed, I’m going to end on a good note, something that I’m happy about in regards to this novel.  I’m happy that it’s finished and that I will most likely never again read another book by E.L. James.  Oh, also, the Epilogue made me feel much better about the Epilogue in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  I'm even okay with "Albus Severus Potter."

Fifty Shades of Grey

Author: E.L. James

Genre: Erotic Fiction

Rating: F

I don’t know how Fifty Shades of Grey became a bestseller.  I don’t even know how Fifty Shades of Grey became a published novel.  There is much that can be said about the novel, little of it that is good.  In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I very rarely read full out romance novels, almost never read erotica, and am not into BDSM.  None of that is what made me dislike this novel, however.  The reason why I disliked Fifty Shades of Grey is because it’s a bad novel.

To sum up the plot: Anastasia Steele is an innocent, virginal soon-to-be university graduate who, at the start of the novel, has to interview billionaire, CEO, and late twenty to early thirty-something Christian Grey.  Grey is a domineering, controlling douche who essentially takes to stalking Ana, despite the fact that he repeatedly tells her that he’s bad news and a danger to her.  Despite all the signs that pursuing a relationship with Grey might be a bad thing, Ana lets Mr. Grey sweep her off her feet, all while protesting against his actions.  It turns out that Grey is a dominant looking for a new submissive and despite the fact that Ana resists him on everything, he thinks she’d be the perfect one.  For reasons that I can’t really figure out, Ana decides that, despite the fact that she has no desire to be controlled and is afraid of what Christian might do to her, he is the man for her.  Because, of course, stalker tendencies, anger issues, and an inability to take no for an answer, are no match for beauty.  I kid you not – Christian’s only redeeming quality is his physical attraction (his money is redeeming as well, but as Ana gets upset every time Christian tries to buy her anything, I’m fairly certain that’s not why she’s attracted to him).

This novel started out as Twilight fan fiction and really should have stayed there.  I have to give James points for attempting to write in first person, present tense, only because doing so successfully is extremely difficult.  However, she doesn’t successfully do so.  Her attempt at creating a plot is ludicrous.  Ana provides her readers the most mundane details about absolutely everything, even treating the reader to scenes that have absolutely nothing to do with the plot.  Entire characters are created with no purpose to the story – Ana is given not one, but two secondary love interests, just to establish that she is attractive to the male population.  One of them serves a point in pushing forward the plot, the other just makes you question how our protagonist made it to almost twenty-two without ever having so much as a kiss. 

Sadly, the flaws with the characters do not stop at pointless secondary characters.  James seems to think that by adding melodrama elements to her characters she makes them deeper, but this isn’t true.  There is no real depth to Ana or Christian, and the details that she adds just makes them more and more ridiculous.  Ana is written as if James has no clue what a twenty-something university student is like – which is entirely possible, given as it has been a while since she was a twenty-something anything.

I have a hard time buying that there are attractive twenty-two year old students who have never had sex or gotten drunk (without having some specific reason for having never done either), and don’t own their own computer.  I’m also a bit confused as to just how Ana has never gotten drunk prior to her graduation, given just how often she drinks alcohol and her obvious lightweight status.  I’m also not buying her overall innocence; sure she’s a virgin and never been kissed, but in the age of the internet (which as a twenty-something, she grew up in), the average person is at least aware of many of the sexual practices that come up in the novel.  They’re definitely aware of the concept of blow jobs, although Ana is blown away by the suggestion that Christian might enjoy one.  Every time she is shocked by something that he suggests I can’t help but feel the same way I do whenever Taylor Swift is surprised that she won another award.

Then of course, there’s Christian Grey.  While James has cast Ana in the role of the unbelievable innocent, she’s cast Grey in the role of the horribly damned – he’s the serpent to Ana’s Eve.  In addition to being a billionaire and the C.E.O. of his own company, Grey was adopted at the age of four by a ‘perfect’ family (his words, not mine), to which he never really fit in.  Grey’s birth mother was a crack whore who was unable to support her son and possibly burned him with cigarettes, consequently Grey has issues with people wasting food and doesn’t like to be touched.  As a teenager he entered into a sexual relationship with one of his mother’s friends; she was the dominant, he was the submissive.  Since then he’s become the dominant, having had fifteen significant partners and countless others.  Grey spends much of the book trying to convince Ana to trust him and saying that the submissive has all the power in the relationship because the submissive has the ability to say no – completely disregarding the fact that almost every time Ana says no he either completely disregards her wishes or gets angry with her and threatens physical harm – at one point he even threatens to tie her up in a crate and put her in the cargo hold of a plane.  It’s impossible to tell when Christian’s joking and when he’s serious because both his jokes and his behaviour cross the line.  He outright stalks Ana at points in the novel, having gone so far as to put a tracking device on her phone so that he can always know where she is.  But did I mention that he’s hot?  Because in the world of E.L. James, that’s really all that seems to matter.

When it comes down to it, this book is trash.  To call it “Mommy Porn” is to insult the intelligence of mother’s everywhere.  James should have stuck to writing fan fiction.