THIS REVIEW HAS SPOILERS AND CONSTANT COMPARISONS TO THE TWILIGHT SAGA. I ALSO DON'T THINK THE SEX IS HOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM. THIS IS THE BLANDEST PIECE OF EROTICA THAT'S EVER GRACED MY PRESENCE. UPON FINISHING IT, I WANTED TO CONSUME MY FACE. EGADS."A hundred images dance through my mind: The Ipad, the gliding, flying to see me, all his actions, his possessiveness, one hundred thousand dollars for a dance. Is this love? And hearing it from this woman, having her confirm it for me, is frankly, unwelcome. I'd rather hear it from him. My heart constricts. He feels unworthy? Why?"
-Ana Steele, On Love
Let’s not delude ourselves, there is no quality in Fifty Shades, so instead of trying to pretty this review up, I'll just lay it down on the table and meet it with the same quality in review. Most of this is just rough notes, but I feel as if it gets the point across nicely.
Fifty Shades Darker has a set schedule after Ana and Christian hook up. It's so mundane and it's like reading someone’s list of things they need to get done that day.
Very little happens in between aside from copious amounts of describing how rich Christian is, Ana's thoughts are always questions. Christian always gets jealous of Ana and Ana always hates on Christians Ex Subs.
Why the fuck don’t they consider getting a damned restraining order on Leila is beyond me. It makes me actually suspend belief for Twilight when they don't seek help when Bella is being trailed by Victoria. At least there they had the super-secret world of the supernatural behind them.
Without fail, I always think about rapper 50 cent when she calls him Fifty.
To our shock, Christian has a manila envelope in his filing cabinet with her name on it. In it, is a copy of her birth certificate, a list of hard limits, social security number, resume, employment records and god knows what else. Most likely a calendar with heart stickers on it marking off the days she was on her period.
Just before he reveals the envelope, he admits he transferred a few thousand dollars to her bank account.
"How do you know my account number?" She asks
"I know everything about you, Ana." He replies.
One thing that peeved off to no end about the Twilight Saga was Bella's constant whispering. She WHISPERED everything and if she wasn't whispering, she was murmuring or muttering. PROUNOUNCE SOME WORDS! Everyone has the hots for this guy, I swear during the bar scene after one of her first days at work, Christian Grey turned at least 10 guys gay and made all the women drop their panties.
We get this gem of a line:
"I glance up at Jack who is mentally assessing the fine specimen of manhood in front of him."
And:
"I glance at Claire, who is, of course staring, open mouthed and with frankly carnal appreciation at Christian."
He also buys the company she works for to 'keep her safe'.
I can't stress enough how ANNOYING it is that she can't keep herself from asking herself these questions at the end of every thought. She doubts herself SO much.
Ana is constantly uppity about his ex subs. I can get the jealousy, but wondering 'what the fuck this woman wants?'
Speaking of which, the woman on woman hate in this book is astounding.
Quite frankly, I don't understand Leila. She knew he didn't want the commitment and she HAD moved on until she saw the pictures in the magazine. She goes into crazy stalker mode and winds up finding Ana and confronts he with a 'I don't get it, what do you have that I don't?'
This comes from a woman, who has moved on from Christian, who hasn't been around for the last two years, has GOTTEN MARRIED and has BEEN MARRIED for two years. She winds up cutting her wrist in front of Christian and his oldest sub.
"... I don't want the police involved. Leila needs help, not police intervention and I don't want them here. We just have to double our efforts to find her."
It's revealed that Leila's husband has washed his hands of her. It takes her roughly 2 or 3 days to slide the downwards spiral going from stalker to downright nuts, at one point breaking into Christians house to holding Ana gun point. Stop me at any time and tell me at what point would you get the police involved.
Mrs. Robinson threatens Ana at a party, telling her she nearly killed the man with loneliness. Ana points the 'and you're a pedophile who fucked him up.'
Calling her Troll Bitch? How about acting your age, Ana.
Oh and the dance bidding. So all the other girls go for 1000, 2000 dollars... keep in mind these guys are filthy rich. For some reason, starting bid for Ana starts at 10 000 grand, what the hell?
The whole party seems to serve as an 'Oh, I can totally see the difference in Christian, don't worry your pretty little head, he loves you.'
Then I nearly split my head on this:
"Dr. Green is coming to sort you out...."
"Dr. Greene?" I halt.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I hate condoms," He says quietly.
"It's my body," I mutter, annoyed that he hadn't asked me.
"It's mine, too," He whispers.
I gaze up at him as various guests pass by, ignoring us.
He looks so earnest. Yes, my body is his... HE KNOWS IT BETTER THAN I DO.
*Slams head on desk*
Okay, some other points of interest:
When she thinks: WHY CAN'T I TAKE A LITTLE MORE PAIN FOR MY MAN?
Ana flushes WAY to much like the Red Room of Pain.
I feel as if I'm reading the same sex scene over and over and over. No really. By the end she seems like she's dominant and controlling Christian but she's rehearsed the damn scene so much for the past week the girl has finally memorized her lines.
There is SO much more I could pry into, this is just a small fraction of what I could rip into and I could have done it far worse or better depending on how you look at it. Fifty Shades Darker is FAR WORSE than Fifty Shades of Grey, at least in FSoG we had a little variety in the sex. I honestly stopped paying attention by page 200, skimming most of it as it just kept repeating itself like a damned broken record.
Bitches, I'm out.