Happy Wednesday! Let’s take a break from the long work day and have some laughs at the expense of the absurdity that is the novel Fifty Shades Darker. It’s so bad, it even makes the show Gossip Girl look like quality TV. On we go with Chapter Fourteen!
Tears begin to ooze down my cheeks, and suddenly it is too much to see him in the same prostrate position as the pathetic creature that was Leila. The image of a powerful man who’s really still a little boy, who was horrifically abused and neglected, who feels unworthy of love from his perfect family and his much-less-than perfect girlfriend . . . my lost boy . . . it’s heartbreaking.
Then if it’s so bad, call Peter Pan to take him off to Neverland.
As my thoughts clear, I can see only one way. Not taking my eyes off his, I sink to my knees in front of him.
The wooden floor is hard against my shins, and I dash my tears away roughly with the back of my hand.
Like this, we are equals. We’re on a level. This is the only way I’m going to retrieve him.
Um, you’re not equals. At all. He keeps insisting on having the upper hand and you keep on capitulating to his whims. You will never be on an equal level with him if you stay with him.
“I was going to suggest going back to my apartment this evening. You never give me any time . . . time to just think things through,” I sob, and a ghost of a frown crosses his face. “Just time to think. We barely know each other, and all this baggage that comes with you . . . I need . . . I need time to think it through.”
Lady Violet is appalled at all of this. Whirlwind courtships with men who carry an absurd amount of emotional baggage are not sensible at all, my dear.
“I don’t understand why you find me attractive,” I murmur. “You’re, well, you’re you . . . and I’m . . .” I shrug and gaze up at him. “I just don’t see it. You’re beautiful and sexy and successful and good and kind and caring–all those things–and I’m not.”
Oh, Ana! Mr. T pities you, for you’re clearly a fool!
“I just wanted you gone,” he murmurs, with his uncanny ability to read my thoughts. “I wanted you away from the danger, and . . . You. Just. Wouldn’t. Go,” he hisses through clenched teeth and shakes his head. His exasperation is palpable.
Yeah, Ana. He wants you gone, so please disappear into the next available alternate dimension.
He takes a deep breath and swallows. “I’m a sadist, Ana. I like to whip little brown-haired girls like you because you all look like the crack whore–my birth mother. I’m sure you can guess why.” He says it in a rush as if he’s had the sentence in his head for days and days and is desperate to be rid of it.
It seems like Sigmund Freud would have a real field day with this, wouldn’t he?
“How can your compulsion just go, Christian? Like I’m some kind of panacea, and you’re–for want of a better word–cured? I don’t get it.”
Face it: You’re not a panacea, but just the placebo for him.
“What can I do to make you understand I will not run? What can I say?” He gazes at me, revealing his fear and anguish again. He swallows. “There is one thing you can do.” “What?” I snap. “Marry me,” he whispers. What? Did he really just– For the second time in less than half an hour my world stops. Holy fuck. I stare at the deeply fucked-up man I love. I can’t believe what he’s just said.
WHAT THE HELL? YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS!
And for a moment I am on my own, looking down at this absurd situation, a giggling, overwhelmed girl beside a beautiful fucked-up boy. I drape my arm across my eyes, as my laughter turns to scalding tears. No, no . . . this is too much.
3 replies on “Linotte Reads “Fifty Shades Darker”: Chapter Fourteen”
What the frick is a panacea and how much money can I bet on it that she got this from synonyms.com because it sounded ~fancy?
It’s a cure all, and the only other place I can think she would have learned it is from a certain sort of frilly high fantasy novel. Or at any rate that’s where I learned it and I don’t really see it outside of that context.
I think it may have been used in one of the Dickens or Bronte novels or another gothic novel. I don’t know for sure.
I just find myself in disbelief over how juvenile the writing is. This is the level I was at when I was in high school and thought the Brontes were so awesome. The reactions to a lot of the situations are very dramatic, and some of the ways in which Ana and Christian behave are right on par with teenagers. And her lack of self-esteem. Just, really? I’m just shocked that it won best romance on Goodreads.
Be tee dubs, I checked out some other Twilight fanfictions just out of curiosity because there’s another 50 Shades-type book coming out, and the writing and plots in them are all quite juvenile. The crappy Versailles AU one had me in stitches. It was very poorly researched in terms of 18th-century etiquette and mode of court dress and everything.
3 replies on “Linotte Reads “Fifty Shades Darker”: Chapter Fourteen”
What the frick is a panacea and how much money can I bet on it that she got this from synonyms.com because it sounded ~fancy?
It’s a cure all, and the only other place I can think she would have learned it is from a certain sort of frilly high fantasy novel. Or at any rate that’s where I learned it and I don’t really see it outside of that context.
I think it may have been used in one of the Dickens or Bronte novels or another gothic novel. I don’t know for sure.
I just find myself in disbelief over how juvenile the writing is. This is the level I was at when I was in high school and thought the Brontes were so awesome. The reactions to a lot of the situations are very dramatic, and some of the ways in which Ana and Christian behave are right on par with teenagers. And her lack of self-esteem. Just, really? I’m just shocked that it won best romance on Goodreads.
Be tee dubs, I checked out some other Twilight fanfictions just out of curiosity because there’s another 50 Shades-type book coming out, and the writing and plots in them are all quite juvenile. The crappy Versailles AU one had me in stitches. It was very poorly researched in terms of 18th-century etiquette and mode of court dress and everything.