Warnings: The Fifty Shades series is extremely sexually explicit and involves BDSM. Because of that, and because they are not exactly well-researched or high-quality literature, I will mention things such as abuse, rape, rape culture, male dominance, sexism, relationship violence, and consensual BDSM. Also, the books began as Twilight fanfic, so I will be mentioning Twilight (which is a major squick for a lot of people just by itself).
One minute we’re joking and the next…I fan my heated face. He’s just sex on legs, and now I have to recover my equilibrium and eat something. The aria is still playing in the background.
Yeah.
I think one of the things I hate about this book is that the humor just doesn’t work given the context of abuse. The above line would be hilarious if we hadn’t spent the previous seventeen chapters watching Ana fall into this sick relationship.
The same thing is true for Christian’s man Taylor. His random appearances and the things he does for Christian would be hilarious in another story. He kind of reminds me of P. D. Wodehouse’s Jeeves, and I don’t think that’s accidental. It’s sad that this is the one decent bit of writing in the book and a lovely subtle literary allusion that is probably lost on the majority of Fifty Shades readers.
Anyway, Chapter 18 opens with Ana’s gynecological exam. Thankfully, E. L. James spares us the details. I don’t think she knows how American pharmacies work, though. The doctor writes Ana a script for birth control but tells her to pick it up the next day–which makes no sense. Ana should be able to go to her local Walgreen’s (or whatever) and get what she needs.
After the appointment, Ana makes a rough attempt at humor by telling Christian the doctor has said she has to abstain for a month. Here, again, we have this interaction that should be funny, but isn’t. Christian reacts to her joke and her laughter with “narrowed eyes,” and Ana thinks he looks “forbidding.” She is afraid that she’s made him angry. By cracking a joke. Even less funny is when Christian says, “Gotcha.” Yes, you read that right–he derived pleasure and amusement from scaring her into believing he was angry enough about her joke to “punish” her.
After that, I think we time-travel to the Victorian Era. After revealing his own “joke,” Christian says,
You are incorrigible, Miss Steele.
Blech. I am imagining her in a long, high-collar dress with a corset underneath. Er…actually, scratch that, it might be a bad idea, given the subtext here. But doesn’t that line just sound like something out of one of those old-fashioned romances? Oh, dear–the Little Woman isn’t sticking to her proper place. I’m sure she’ll learn, though. The women in those stories always end up figuring out how to keep their men happy.
After all the jokey nonsense is cleared up and Ana declares her man “sex on legs,” she inexplicably asks about the music. Christian’s attempt at pretentiousness is hindered by the fact that E. L. James has the name of the aria wrong. There is no aria called “Villa Lobos.” Villa-Lobos is the composer. Just so you know. Also, I realize I’m being picky here, but details do matter, and this is just another way in which we can see the poor quality of writing. I didn’t actually know the music, so I wanted to listen to it. A five-second Google search revealed the author’s mistake. Couldn’t she have bothered to fix that when she wrote this thing?
I will end with Ana’s lunch with Christian, which follows the usual steps: Ana hasn’t eaten properly, she stresses about the food, Christian orders her to eat, they have an awkward conversation, and somehow the whole thing turns into sex. This is the story of every. single. meal they share. We’re going to learn more of Christian’s history that led to his need to dominate and control; are we going to learn what kind of trauma Ana suffered that led to her disordered eating? Though in fairness, she seems to be fine when she’s with other people, eating and drinking normally–this is apparently an effect Christian has on her.
We’ll leave it there for this week, as I think that’s about all I can handle. It’s Monday morning and I’m still recovering from the switch to Daylight Savings Time.
