Review: Fifty Shades Darker by E.L. James

In which Ana returns to Christian and resumes their abusive relationship because she is an idiot.

I really do not understand why this whole series is so popular. If Fifty Shades of Grey a book which basically depicted an abusive control freak and his successful attempt at seducing an innocent virgin into a kinky, semi-sadomasochistic arrangement, is supposedly liberating then how come Christian Grey shows all the signs of being an abusive partner. Seriously. The guy controls every aspect of Ana's life, from what she eats to what she wears. He even hires people to sit outside her workplace all day and watch her and seems to object to the idea of her undertaking any type of paid employment at all. He justifies his behaviour with pathetic statements that go somewhere along the lines of, "This is who I am," and "This is the only way I know how to be." And if you've read the series and don't believe me that the relationship is abusive, I suggest you read this: abuse-warning-signs-types.html And once you've finishing reading that article, go out and read The Female Eunuch instead of the next installment in this very silly trilogy.

Anyway, the plot. In this installment, Christian basically opens up about his abusive childhood but actually does fuck all to help himself apart from scribbling on his chest with lipstick. The psychiatrist he's been seeing for years still hasn't made any major breakthroughs, but Ana is sure that she can singlehandedly help him. There are a couple of kinky sex scenes and a wedding proposal. Oh and there are a couple of people out to kill both Christian and Ana. And that's basically it. The intoxicating, exquisite and beguiling text remains annoying and repetitive. Of course, some may argue that Ana's actions are done out of love and that Christian attempts to help himself because he loves Ana and that's all quite romantic, but I'm not really fooled. Just call me the misery chick.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more

Who Else Writes Like V.C. Andrews?

Image
Are there any other authors out there who write similar novels to V.C. Andrews? This is a question I see asked frequently in excellent fan run V.C. Andrews Facebook groups like Attic Secrets and The Dolls Club. In times gone by, The Complete V.C. Andrews webpage (which is no more, but the best bits are archived by Lorraine at the Attic Secrets blog,) had a comprehensive list. Today, I thought I would put forward a few of my own thoughts and recommendations. (Note: This will focus mainly on the series and novels written by the actual V.C. Andrews and not ghostwriter Andrew Neiderman, who has a distinctive writing style of his own.) The Classics This is probably the best place to start, as it is likely that some of these novels influenced V.C. Andrews herself. Andrews was a fan of Charles Dickens, mentioning the author in the prologue of her most famous novel Flowers in the Attic. I have yet to read all of Dickens novels (I've read about half,) but I can feel a slight V.C. Andrews vi
Read more