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Dear E.L. James:
Ugh, this goddamned book.
I’m sorry I didn’t mean to start with a vulgarity, but I just read the worst 50 pages of sentences you clearly shite directly out of your bottom onto a piece of paper.
This speaks volumes because I read Fifty Shades of Grey in its entirely and the ice-cream-in-the-vag monstrosity in Fifty Shades Darker. I’ve been slogging my way through Fifty Shades Freed, the shittiest of the trilogy, since the beginning of August. Now my grievance is not that you are a terrible writer–you are–but that you have created the two worst fictional people on the planet.
Ana and Christian Grey are just…ugh. They are just ugh. The only way this book can be saved is if they drown in their own bodily fluids. Does that happen? Please say it does.
I understand this began as fan fiction. You were reading Twilight and masturbating with a marbly, sparkling snow globe, and basically created sludge from santorum-like source material. Doesn’t excuse all the butt pluggery behavior of your two protagonists.
So I started pages 301-350, and Ana, Christian and their worshippers are at a club, and this is what I read:
And I just fill up with hate. I feel like there should be some type of reciprocity, like you should be forced to read the play I wrote in German in 12th grade or all my city council meeting newspaper articles.
Mia, Christian’s sister, wants to dance and “throw some shapes.” Yeah, that’s not a saying. Maybe in Britain, but not here, and if it is a saying in Britain, this is why America declared independence. Ana wobbles out onto the dance floor because she’s drunk the equivalent of four bottles of wine and weighs 80 pounds. Ana’s surprised she can suddenly dance since she spent the first 20 years of her life in a dog crate reading books.
Ana dumbthinks she can dance because Christian has stuck numerous objects in down there. Never let Ana be a dance teacher.
She feels hands on her and thinks it’s Christian so she grinds her butt into his groin. Nope, not Christian, just some random meathead. Ana screams and slaps him. The guy backs off and then Christian punches him after the fact. Unfortunately he is not arrested for assault.
Ana dumb wonders why she did it, and we get this chestnut:
Christian’s still mad, but he does some sensual dancing. They do everything, but peen-stick on the dance floor and Christian makes the loving declaration “No one touches what’s mine.”
Awesome.
E.L., you do realize that owning people is not considered cool? Like if any man ever said that to me, I would first laugh because obviously he had to be joking, and then I would leave because…gross.
Ana’s drunk. They leave. He takes off her make-up. They “joke” about watching her pee and I die. She’s mesmerized by his pajama bottoms.
He’s not going to bury himself in her tonight but he orders her to sleep. “‘When I come back to bed, I’ll expect you to be asleep.’ It’s a threat, a command. . . it’s Christian.” Jesus christ. Hate. Hate right now searing in my brain.
He buries himself in her later when they go through a rape fantasy sex game. Really, the worst 50 pages. Afterwards, Christian says something totally normal. “You confound me.” No one talks like this, E.L., no one. It doesn’t make him sound poetic or smart, it makes him sound like you’re a terrible writer.
At breakfast, Ana surreptitiously watches Christian walk outside with the help. He picks up a bamboo stick and swipes it. Oh…she farts out of her brain. Is this anything? Is he going to cane her or are we just wasting my goddamned time? I’m expecting the latter because you write as if you are recording the day to day events of dildos.
Ah wonderful! The motherfracking email exchange! And it’s like we’re actually at work with Ana. We get to experience her assistant coming in. Should we go over your schedule? Yes, cancel my 10:30…oh excuse me the phone is ringing. Hello? Oh hi Roach. Yes I’ll come up to your office in 20 minutes. She farts into a chair. You realize you can condense all this into: Ana goes to work. It doesn’t need to be seven pages.
Then more emails and at first I was really confused–oh excuse me, confounded– because they’re talking about events that I haven’t read about and then I realize this is how you’re showing the passage of time, and it’s just not necessary. No one gives a shit about any of this. He emails about some good time with vaginal balls at some Dipshit Association dinner, and other sexual innuendo that makes me believe you, E.L., do not understand innuendo. Pointless.
Then we get a visit from Leila the ex-sub who tried to kill Ana, and Ana’s like “What’s up dawg?” And Ana’s all confused that Christian has a list of people forbidden to see her. Really? I’m not. I’m just surprised Ana’s not stuck in some cage in his basement. The Leila visit is uninspired, and Ana has immature jealous thoughts through the whole thing and compares herself to Leila, and E.L., I’m sorry your world is so small. Lovely women exist in the world. I’m sorry you can’t see that.
Christian’s all angerball. He angrily murmurs and strokes his face with his slim-jim fingers, and pfftt. And you try to pass it off as him just wanting Ana safe. No, E.L., he’s an abusive prick.
Ugh.
Just ugh to it all.
With searing hatred,
Speaker7
P.S. Why is this book so mutherfracking long? I know it’s neat when you learn how to cut and paste, but that doesn’t mean you should cut and paste huge chunks of paragraphs and try to pass it off as something new. If I have to read one more time how Ana is spent after a bout of boring peen-sticking, I’m going to fly to England and hit you in the head with a sack of vaginal balls.





Can I hold her down while you beat her with the vaginal balls? Please?? Although she deserves much, much worse punishment than that. You hit the nail on the head, speaker7—it’s not JUST that her writing is the worst thing ever, it’s that she’s glamorizing behavior that is by all rights pathological and criminal.
By all means. Maybe I can dislodge whatever’s in her brain that makes her believe Christian is a great man.
I think it’s stink beetles.
I want to say you should stick a stamp on this and mail it, but I very much like the idea of you hitting her in the head with a sack of vaginal balls.
It’s really irritating to think how much money she’s made, and all the stupid people who think that it’s a good idea to take a SHIT book and make a SHIT movie and give her more SHIT money. Just great.
The movie is going to lead to my demise.
“drown in their own bodily fluids.”—That strikes quite the visual.
I haven’t read these books, nor do I intend to, and you’ve given me more justification (in a hilarious way) of why I don’t need to. I imagine, however, that the author is enjoying her newfound millions, so I guess, more power to her. If only I’d have put a little bondage in my own book…
I don’t think it’s the bondage that makes it so successful. It’s the assholery on the part of both characters so I guess more assholery in your book is the key.
Ha ha! Fine advice, indeed.
“You were reading Twilight and masturbating with a marbly, sparkling snow globe, and basically created sludge from santorum-like source material.”
I cannot begin to tell you how loud I laughed at this one sentence.
Thank you. I didn’t know how else to effectively put it.
I have to be fair here, and say that really Vintage is the one who should be publicly called out and lambasted for the glamorizing and promotion of abusive behavior. E.L. James wrote a terrible book, and obviously has an extremely disturbed view on relationships. And maybe there’s a reason for that.
But Vintage saw an opportunity to make money and mass marketed the whole thing, and they’re the ones with whom the blame lies, as far as I’m concerned. Yes, obviously the books were popular when she self-published (or I would assume so, after all, they somehow got someone’s attention), but they have gotten a great deal more attention, and made a lot more money since they have been distributed in print form by a company with a wide reach.
Plus I’m just personally pissed off at them, because I’d never heard of the first book when I picked it up and bought it, and I very stupidly assumed it sounded interesting. Actually, that wasn’t stupid of me, never having heard of it, because if you read just the back it seems like it could.
In any case, Vintage can suck it for bringing this into my life.
Good point. The publisher is a butt plug.
You do make me laugh so hard, Speaker 7. I am so happy I have absolutely NO reason to read this book (as if I’d give E.L. another cent) and I’m just hoping that they make a movie out of it that will be every bit as much of a total bomb and embarrassment as 9 1/2 Weeks. Maybe they can get Micky O’Rourke out of his plastic-surgery coffin to play Christian … wouldn’t that be HOT?
I’m going to pray to all the gods that this comes true.
Thank you for taking one for the team so that I don’t have to read that stuff. I can’t say it enough. THANK YOU!
You’re welcome. Maybe you could send me a little box of donut holes.
What if this isn’t fiction? What is this autobiographical? That means that science has developed a dildo with artificial intelli….oh…nope…a dildo who can hit the keys on a keyboard. Still, way to go science!
Hmm…Maybe I could get a dildo to write these recraps so I don’t have to?
In-and-outsourcing. Good idea.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I think this may be my favorite recap yet!
“You were reading Twilight and masturbating with a marbly, sparkling snow globe”, and then -”If I have to read one more time how Ana is spent after a bout of boring peen-sticking, I’m going to fly to England and hit you in the head with a sack of vaginal balls.” I just can’t take it! You are too funny Speaker 7
Thank you again for putting yourself through the pain!
We should really send her a care package. They’ve got lots of new 50 Shades of Grey products coming out! Etsy has bondage crafts! I want to cry!
REALLY? Bondage crafts at Etsy? Where I buy some of my best indie nail polishes? What is wrong with people?????
Lesbiannextdoor – you were wise to stop at the first book.
Alice – Holy christ.
MinasAunt – ditto.
Slim jim fingers!! Oh my word, I’m laughing so hard.
I just can’t understand why longish fingers is a turn on or why E.L. James made it one of his distinguishing character traits. It makes me think of Nosferatu.
Yeah, she missed that whole part where characters grow and change in a story. If anything, Ana and Christian just get WORSE as the books go on, from what I can tell. Which is scary considering I’m still covering book two. And the only thing that grows is Christian’s peen. Repeatedly. How do people not notice his constant trouser tents? Really? How?
Also – and I hate to add to your grief – but there are well over 4,000 positive reviews on Amazon. Why, women, WHYYYYYYY? I think these positive reviewers need to leave the female sex. They just do.
Poor Hugo and Goofy. Are they still in Bellevue?
I think E.L. James is trying to make it seem like Christian and Ana are growing by having the characters say “You’re so different. You’ve changed”, but then they’re behavior is exactly the same butt pluggery.
I am thrilled beyond words that you are giving me a glimpse into the absurdity of these books. All of my dumbass friends are talking about them (in whispers of course). I read the first three pages and lost brain cells. So thank you for saving my brain cells. I owe you one.
I just don’t get its popularity. I could see if the sex scenes were thrilling, but they are as sexy as a trip to the gynecologist.
Also, I think this is the only “romance” book that features a trip to the gynecologist. At least I hope it is.
The terrible thing is the gynecological visit is the most romantic part.
Someone should really rewrite these books as a choose-your-own-adventure series:
Christian assaults a guy on the dance floor and murmurs “No one touches what’s mine.” In response, do you…
a) Tell him, “That’s right, and I’m never touching anything of yours again,” hand him your divorce lawyer’s business card, and leave, or
b) Have 50 pages worth of repetitive degrading sex with him, or
c) Fly into a jealous rage because Miss Police Uniform Number Three is getting out her handcuffs?
I vote for you to do it. And it will be brilliant.
How about d) Jump into a vat of hot acid
Also I would totally read that.
I think for EL, an ‘arc’ is a place where you place two of every sexual device found in the RRoP, just in case there is a flood and they are all lost, and not a journey taken by a character.
Another great re-cap, Speaker. Brava.
Hahahahaha!!
Oh for you to meet E. L. James on a street somewhere. I’d pay for that.
She’d be in for a whole lot of red room of pain. Do you see what I did there? Yeah, I don’t either.
I would like to throw some pointy shapes at E.L. James’ exposed eyeballs.
I like your style.
Sadly there are people in Britain who ‘throw some shapes’ on the dance floor.
I knew that had to be a British-ism. It appeared a couple of times and I was like, what the fuck is she talking about…granted I say that a lot, but these sentences just seemed too weird.
Like the green man. I still can’t get over the green man from book one.
I used to throw some shapes, and then I graduated from kindergarten.
Ha-ha! Now it makes more sense since all the characters have the emotional maturity of kindergarteners.
It just… gets… worse. It’s like someone (ie. E.L. James) put a lot of effort into researching the most douche-tastic, abusive, degrading behaviour possible, mixed it up with some cheesy, co-dependent faux-romance lines, threw in a bucktload of bad porn and tried to pretend it was “True Love”.
Comment of the year.
Wow. A whole bag of vajayjay balls? Hmmm….I’m thinking hog tie her in the middle of the road and spill an entire dump truck load of those things on her. A small bag is just….small. (That last sentence was my impression of E.L. James. Nailed it, didn’t I?)
Perfection. Really…just perfection.
Speaker 7,
Your writing is brilliant as usual, which is getting tiresome… but… while I was mentally reading the excerpts of the book, my wife became agitated and angry, and was compelled to punch me.
Le Clown
Me write more stoopid next time.
Sorry about the wife-punchin’
“Can you all please just choke on pubic hair and die” is my new mantra. Thanks Speaker7, I owe you!
It will look good on a T-shirt and bumper sticker. It’s also fitting for tomorrow’s Republican convention.
Should we wish this on Romney or Ryan. At the moment, I’m hoping it’s Ann Romney who goes down, so to speak.
Should we wish this on Romney or Ryan. At the moment, I’m hoping it’s Ann Romney who goes down, so to speak.
Oh, and I found some wonderful bumperstickers today while ahem, researching a post. zappa.com
I told my boyfriend I would only read out the funniest lines of this recrap, and I ended up reading the whole thing. Having read all three steaming piles of shite, I know your pain, I really do, but I have to say – the angrier you are at this goddamn book, the funnier your recraps are. At least to me. I like the creativity that anger brings out in people.
Then the next three recraps will be stellar. Oh my vaginal ball, I hate this fracking book.
I’m with limr…it’s funnier when you get pissed. This book series is total garbage and you are either really dedicated to your blog followers by reading it in it’s entirety, or are a closet masochist.
I think it’s a little of both.
The fact that this book has anything at all to do with Twilight is enough for me to hate it. The fact that it made a whole generation of women horny with it’s misogyny and terrible writing makes me want to be a hermit forever. The fact that you are recrapping it makes my life worthwhile though, even if your life suffers for it. Christian would want it that way.
I am my generation’s Christian martyr. Do you see what I did there? Yeah, I don’t either.
The only time I put an iota of thought into this series is when I read your inspired recraps. The only person I know, aside from you (and your readers) that has read this trilogy in its entirety, is my boss. She read it on her Kindle. She told me that she was unimpressed but she kept slogging through it. Periodically she’d call me into her office to gasbag at me about it even though she’s known forever that I’m gay and this type of story has less appeal to me than why bats are blind. When she reached the third volume she complained to me about the lack of sex, the characters all had completely different names and how it had taken on a spy novel element that just seemed like an entirely altogether different storyline.
It was.
She had downloaded an entirely different book that she was three quarters through reading before she realized that it was not written by E.L. James. Talk about being a submissive.
That’s hilarious.
Damn, I wish I had thought to do that. I have the hard copy, but maybe I could just start reading the third Game of Thrones book and pretends it’s Fifty Shades Fuckadoodle.
hahaha omg O_o. Submissive ? I’d call it stupid…
That works too.
I’m impressed I didn’t/couldn’t/won’t ever make it past the first book. She’s painful, he’s a prick. The end!
Oh I love it. I can feel your hatred from all the way over here in London and it’s mixing with my hatred to form a huge boiling mega hatred of everything to do with this godawful trilogy and things have actually exploded over here and a couple of houses have burned down because our hatred is so intense.
And yes ‘throwing some shapes’ is an English phrase but it is a phrase that LITERALLY NO ONE uses seriously. So if EL James has a character using it in a genuine serious manner then she has obviously heard a youth say it and added it to the giant list on her bedroom wall of Things Fun Young People Say.
You are a comic genius, however, so it’s not all bad.
It was used seriously…and it was stupid. Like everything in this book. Just stoopid and more stewpid.
My favorite line from today’s phenomenal rant: “you write as if you are recording the day to day events of dildos.” I’m sorry you’re suffering, but damn, girl, you’re hilarious.
Thanks. My suffering is as immense as a giant dildo.
OMG, This–this is brilliant! Still laughing.
Thanks. I’m glad my post is readable although the book is not.
Can’t say I have gotten anywhere near those books, and don’t plan to.
You are wise.
I will stick with your spoofs
Addicted to them now. I had a solid good 2 hours last night laughing my ass off, reading them.
I hate to say it, but perhaps Nazi Germany was onto something… Some books really do need to be burned. And public bonfires are far more fun than choking to death on public hairs.
I hope for your sake that you’re done soon. Also, I’m going to start using the word confound as often as possible. (Sorry, but I’m confused a lot, and need to spice up my confusion.)
I think I shall never be rid of it. It’s part of my life now. Confounded dogs!
Is this going to be made into a movie? Because I would like E.L. James cast as Ana. I’d love to see her be put through the Double Dare physical challenges of her own making. Well, I wouldn’t want to see it. But I’d like to hear about it later. Maybe in a recrap?
I originally wanted to check out this series because of all the hype but reading your recaps on it is much more entertaining. Thank you from saving my money from this
I hear they’re making it into a movie… named Secretary… and released 15 years ago
You seem to have reached anger. How many more stages of grief, I mean pages, are left?
Asking questions are genuinely fastidious thing if you are not understanding anything fully,
but this piece of writing offers fastidious understanding yet.