A lot of that was just in the first 350 pages of the first book. You are wasting your words here. These two ladies love this author/stories.
And one has a Masters degree.
I thought it was boring, she was an idiot and he was an a-hole. But then I don't like romance books so i might have missed the whole "concept".
xD Hah, I noticed. Thanks for reminding me.. again!
But I do so enjoy a healthy debate. :3
No I said "a lot of this stuff" hasn't come up yet. Some of it on the other hand has happened. The Joss stuff was a fraction too controlling and the stalking stuff where he tracks down that she's at the night club etc... is definitely wrong outside of fantasy.
Some?
Jealousy and possessiveness - Chapter 4 and 14 (And pretty much the entirity of the second book)
"I tracked your cell phone Anastasia."
"And this is my brother, Ethan Kavanagh." says Kate to Christian.
Christian turns his arctic glare on Ethan, who still has one arm around me.
"Mr. Kavanagh."
They shake hands. Christian holds his hand out to me.
"Ana, baby," he murmurs, and I nearly expire at the endearment.
I walk out of Ethan's grasp, while Christian smiles icily at him, and I take my place at his side. Kate grins at me. She knows exactly what she's doing, the vixen!
Sexual Violence - Chapter 26
"I am doing this so that you remember not to run from me, and as exciting as it is, I never want you to run from me," he whispers.
And the irony is not lost on me. I was running to avoid this. If he'd opened his arms, I'd run to him, not away from him.
I close my eyes, bracing myself for the blow. It comes hard, snapping across my backside, and the bit of the belt is everything I feared. I cry out involuntarily, and take a huge gulp of air.
"Don't touch me!" I hiss. I straighten and stare at him, and he's watching me as if I might bolt, gray eyes wide, bemused. I dash the tears angrily out of my eyes with the backs of my hands, glaring at him.
"This is what you really like? Me, like this?" I use the sleeve of the bathrobe to wipe my nose.
He gazes at me warily.
"Well, you are one fucked-up son of a bitch."
What was I thinking? Why did I let him do that to me? I wanted the dark, to explore how bad it could be - but it's too dark for me. I cannot do this. Yet, this is what he does, this how he gets his kicks.
What a monumental wake-up call. And to be fair to him, he warned me and warned me, time and again. He's not normal. He has needs that I cannot fulfill. I realize that now.
Verbal abuse and disrespectful behavior in front of others - Chapter 24
"Can I treat you?" I ask Christian.
"Treat me how?"
"Pay for this meal."
Christian snorts.
"I don't think so," he scoffs.
"Please. I want to."
He frowns at me.
"Are you trying to completely emasculate me?"
Not listening or responding when you talk
- He says he'll give her space.. so he flies to Georgia.
- He says he won't interfere with her work, so he buys the company.
- He says he trusts her, so he has her followed around at work.
Unpredictable temper - Chapter 19 and 20
"What are you two whispering about?" Kate interjects.
I flush, and Christian glares at her in a butt-out-of-this-Kavanagh kind of way - even Kate wilts under his stare.
"Just about my trip to Georgia," I say sweetly, hoping to diffuse their mutual hostility.
Kate smiles, a wicked gleam in her eye.
"How was Jose when you went to the bar with him on Friday?" Holy fuck, Kate. I widen my eyes at her. What is she doing? She widens her eyes back at me, and I realize she's trying to make Christian jealous. How little she knows. I thought I'd got away with this.
"He was fine," I murmur.
Christian leans over. "Palm-twitchingly mad," he whispers. "Especially now." His tone is quiet and deadly.
I am mesmerized... watching him like one would watch a rare and dangerous predator, waiting for him to strike. His breathing is harsh but then he's just carried me across the lawn and up a flight of stairs. Gray eyes blaze with anger, need, and pure unadulterated lust. Holy shit. I could spontaneously combust from his look alone..
"Please don't hit me," I whisper, pleading
Book deux said:
Oh, shit. "Don't do anything stupid, please," I beg.
"STUPID!" he explodes. "I told you to use your fucking BlackBerry. Don't talk to me about stupid. Get in the motherfucking car, Anastasia - NOW!" he snarls, and a frisson of fear runs through me. This is Very Angry Christian. I've not seen him this mad before. He's barely holding on to his self-control.
Damaging or destroying your possessions -
She seemingly adored her car, Wanda, and what does he do? He gets rid of that rusty bucket of bolts and buys her something new and shiny. But it's not like this is something special just for her, nah, because he buys all his subs an Audi. So let's destroy precious memories and items you own and assimilate you into the role I want you be.
Controlling where you go and who you see -
Controlling here is probably mirrored with his ability to follow her wherever she goes, and disapproving of who she sees. This also goes hand in hand with his inability to listen.
- The bar where she's out with friends
- Georgia to see her mother (when she needed space to think)
- Jose's art gallery
- Having Ethan or Jose stay at her place with her
- Won't let her go to New York
- Having his personal gynocologist examine her
- When Christian wanted her to work for him and she said no, he solved that problem by buying her now work place
However as I recall when he "hit" her she demanded repeatedly that he show her the worst of BD/SM that he could give to her. She demanded that he give it to her as hard as possible, and then she was horrified when he hit her too hard. So that's not the same as him randomly hitting her as abuse. She agreed to engage in a BD/SM scene with him and urged him to do his worst. (And yes I see how that offends some people in the BD/SM lifestyle but....it's a story. )
Nope. When he 'hit' her, he was chasing her around the kitchen in Chap 26, which she took as a game and she ran.
"I don't. That's the point. I feel about punishment the way you feel about me touching you." His entire demeanor changes in a nanosecond. Gone is playful Christian, and he stands staring at me as if I'd slapped him. He's ashen.
"That's how you feel?" he whispers.
Those four words, and the way he utters them, speaks volumes. Oh no.They tell me so much more about him and how he feels. They tell me about his fear and loathing.
Then this happens:
"I do it for you, Christian, because you need it. I don't. You didn't hurt me last night. That was in a different context, and I can rationalize that internally, and I trust you. But when you want to punish me, I worry that you'll hurt me." His gray eyes blaze like a turbulent storm. Time moves, and expands and slips away before he answers softly.
"I want to hurt you. But not beyond anything that you couldn't take." Fuck!
"Why?"
He runs his hand through his hair, and he shrugs.
"I just need it." He pauses, gazing at me with anguish, and he closes his eyes and shakes his head. "I can't tell you," he whispers.
He doesn't WANT to hurt her beyond anything she can't take, yet he does. As soon as he does, she runs for the hills. It's too much, and a spanking with a belt is no laughing matter, that mother fucking hurts. Ana agrees.
"Five." My voice is more a choked, strangled sob, and in this moment, I think I hate him.
She didn't ask to be spanked, she more or less agreed because his needs are more important than her own (ain't that healthy). She agrees to try it out because he needs it, she didn't full out demand to be shown this. She realizes this is the worst that she cannot endure, but she didn't beg for it.
I don't agree that he constantly dismisses her concerns about engaging in a BD/SM relationship. He repeatedly says to her she doesn't have to do it, and he doesn't want to force her into it, but if she wants to be his girlfriend that's how he is and what he does. He's very clear with her that she can walk away any time and as far as her being weak....you know she does walk away. She gives back all his gifts and walks and she doesn't agree to be part of any kind of relationship again until he agrees to make some changes for her. So people constantly painting her as 100% weak is inaccurate.
She was emotionally and mentally crippled for the week that they broke up.. One week. Bella was a shell of a woman for months, but Ana? No, she can't live on for one week and wants to off herself. That's pretty weak.
Christian's refusing a relationship with a woman unless it's BDSM may not be a very admirable trait in a man, but stories need character conflict and character flaws, and that is his issue in the beginning, and in fact they both do change their mindsets and grow as characters.
The guy has needs (as Ana has told us numerous times), I'm not faulting him for that. Different strokes for different folks.
It's not like I don't see where Christian was an asshole, but I haven't finished the three books to see if he redeems himself and there are many places in the story where he checks to make sure she is OK with things and doesn't force things on her so implying that he doesn't is misreading. Also it's not like EL James failed to explain why he behaves the way he does. He has very significant issues in his past that cause him to be "50 shades of fucked up". So the author has not failed to give a reason for her protagonist's unpleasant side. And yet painting the character as being wholly controlling is inaccurate as he repeatedly gives Ana outs if she doesn't want to deal with his neuroses.
That's actually really unfair to both people with messed up pasts and people into BDSM. An assumption that "Oh, my mom's pimp used to beat the shit out of me, so now I like to prey on women who look like her and exact my revenge" is pretty fucked up. But I don't see how that should fit into a BDSM lifestyle, it completely whitewashes the past by attempting to justify that he's into fucked up shit because he himself is fucked up. No, 95% of the population that's fucked up are just fucked up. People who are into BDSM more or less likely have a kink for it. Probably not because their mom's pimp used to put out cigarettes on their chest.
As for when he starts making it so she can't go out alone that is explained by the fact he's protecting her from his violent ex-girlfriend who wants to harm her. So it's not like it is is just in there and not explained and it's a common device in romance novels so the hero and heroine are forced into artificial close proximity to make the romance work.
HAH. They did a pretty good job of protecting her when she walks into the apartment ALONE later on (while everyone conveniently waits outside) before the place had been thoroughly checked, and comes across one sad little girl holding a gun in her room. Yah, that protection thing is working out great for everybody.
lol I wanted to know what the hell happened in Christian's childhood that kept me reading.
I could read the entire book (and arguably it's sequels too) enjoyably, if we had more back story on Christian, his relationship with Mrs Robinson, and his childhood. Instead, we have pages of Ana debating whether or not she loves this man, telling her to eat, constantly reminding us how skinny, strong, beautiful and smart she is (Ana=/=Bella, she became a pile of mush after leaving her boyfriend of 3 weeks, she's the cardboard cut out of a girl with anorexia so yeah, she's beautiful, and I've yet to see her do a single smart thing throughout the series. When there is a motherfucking stalker standing at the edge of her bed ready to kill her, does she call the police or tell Christian? No, she just brushes it off.). But I think her entire terrible character can be summed up in one line:
Fifty Shades Darker: Chap 5 said:
Oh, someone else has problems. I'm not the only one.
Apart from the first paragraph which is amazingly terrible compared to the rest of the novel and apart from the fact that it is ridiculously British in tone for something that is supposed to be set in Washington I really just do not agree that it's that badly written.
It being badly written probably has a lot to do with that it went straight to publishing. It didn't go through a copy editor. If it did, this wouldn't happen in Chapter 25:
He's wearing a gray suit with the jacket undone, and he's running his hand through his hair, he's. H agitated, tense even. Oh no - what's wrong? Agitated or not, he's still beyond beautiful.
or this
"But we won't have any sort of relationship?" I ask.
"No."
"Why?"
"This is the only sort of relationship I'm interesting in."
It's pretty terrible writing all throughout, not just the first paragraph which breaks rule number 1 of writing a novel.
For people used to reading adult books the narration is more like a fun teenager's book so that may be off putting to some people, but like Katie said a lot of the intensity of the criticism may come from the fact this women became a millionaire over night.
My main gripe with it is that she did it with a fanfic. For many years there was an unspoken law about not making a profit by ripping someone else’s work. And there is NO denying that this wasn't Twilight. Kate is just as gorgeous as Rosalie. Mia has two lines of description because that's all you needed when you know she's supposed to be Alice. Christian's hair is the same golden copper as his Edwardian counterpart, and Ana is just as boring, dull, skinny, mousy brown and probably expressionless as Bella.
If she had CREATED her own world and characters for which they exist, not a problem. I never once hated on JK Rowling, Suzanne Collins or even Stephanie Meyer for than matter because they made millions of dollars. I really didn't like Twilight, but I've seen the movies more than a handful of times (moreso for the hottie without his shirt on). But cashing in on a project for your own personal enjoyment, and marketing it as your own... that shit don't fly with me, son.