Hopefully you’re enjoying our return to the world of Magic Tree House, even though we skipped the forty-five books in between this one and the last one we read. If only we could have done that for Crossfire.

Chapter 4: Willie!

To bring you up to speed, Jack has found himself roped into hiding under a bed by a young boy he just met, who just began attacking the President of the United States, which is certainly one of the more uniquely dire situations I’ve ever had to bring you guys up to speed on.

Jack was horrified. Would the Secret Service arrest him along with Tad? Jack had to stop him!
Suddenly the president burst out laughing. He wrapped his hands around Tad’s fists. “You little tadpole,” he said. “You didn’t scare me one bit!” Then he started to tickle Tad.
“Pa, don’t! Don’t, Pa, don’t!” Tad screamed and giggled and kicked.

Jack connects the dots that Tad is Abraham Lincoln’s son, which makes a strong case for why this kid should maybe read the books that let him travel through time before he just does it.

“Pa, me and Willie found a tree house,” said Tad. “Did you know there was a tree house here? Two kids were in it. Jack and Annie.”

I feel like even in the 19th century, suddenly finding a fully-constructed building of unknown origin in the White House lawn is probably a considerable national security issue. But that’s not the weird part – Abraham Fucking Lincoln totally flips out when he hears the names Jack and Annie.

“Wait— what did you say their names were?” the president asked, sounding serious. “Jack and Annie? […] They came out of nowhere? […] And their names are Jack and Annie? Are you sure?”

I really like how we’ve clearly got an Abraham Lincoln completely down to get wrapped up in whatever bullshit two kids have got going on. It’s like Bill and Ted in here.

Before the apparently deadly-serious matter of Jack and Annie can be resolved, Abraham Lincoln is summoned for his first meeting of the day. Meanwhile, Tad has not had a single line of dialogue that isn’t asking his dad to clarify whether the tree house belongs to him or not. Jesus, pull your shit together, Tad Lincoln.

After they leave, Jack tries to leave (which I would be incredibly remiss to not tell you is outlined with “Then he realized he’d better get out of the president’s bedroom”, which is probably the most quietly hysterical sentence I’m going to read for months), but two more figures enter the room.

“Dust first?” Jack heard a girl say.
“Aye, then shake out the pillows and change the linens,” said another.

Jack figures out that one of the girls is Annie, because she’s been a woman in the 1800s for about ten minutes and has thus already been conscripted into doing housework. Annie brings Jack up to speed, and we learn that she already figured out that Tad and Willie were Lincoln’s kids (come on, Jack – 47 books in and Annie is still trying to get you to chill the fuck out? What are you? Ten?) and also that it’s only their first week in the White House. Jack fills Annie in on what he learned, which she seems completely nonplussed about:

“‘Jack and Annie? Jack and Annie? Are you sure their names are Jack and Annie?’”
“That’s weird,” said Annie. “But I’m glad he wants to meet us. Come on.”

I get that this is a children’s book (drinking game for how many times Ariel or I write that during these two weeks), but shouldn’t she be a bit more interested in, you know, the progress of their mission? This would be like “That’s weird. You’re sure his name is Nemo? I’m glad his name is Nemo.”

Chapter 5: Leave Now!

Despite Abraham Lincoln somehow being completely on guard for the arrival of a Jack and Annie, they find that it’s kind of difficult to just see the President, and are stopped by his secretary, Mr. Nicolay.

Dammit, Nicolay! JACK AND ANNIE NEED A FEATHER.

Annie presses Nicolay for when they might get a chance to talk to the President, bugging him about the President’s itinerary, and also possibly causes a national incident.

“Got it,” said Annie. She took a deep breath. “Well, maybe you can just answer one question for us. Do you know if the president collects feathers?”
Mr. Nicolay threw up his hands. “This is no time for silly questions,” he said. “Our country is divided, young lady. We are on the brink of war.”
“What do you mean, sir?” one of the men in the crowd shouted. “What’s the news from Fort Sumter?”
“Yes! What do you know that we don’t know?” a lady called.
Everyone started shouting at once.

Oh shit, you guys. I think Annie just leaked the Civil War.

Jack wants to go back to the tree house (Which we all know totally won’t be there, right? Like 80% of Tad’s dialogue is a subtle variation on “I am going to take the tree house”) because he wants to read the Lincoln book (which seems like a great thing to have done before you time traveled, man) but Annie instead suggests skipping right ahead to the “hey, uh, we have a magic potion that will let us make a wish for basically whatever” portion of the evening. Annie don’t fuck around.

“Isn’t it too soon to use our only magic?” said Jack.

Come on, Jack, you’re not saving your magic for the final boss or anything. Annie quickly convinces him, and they drink the potion and make the wish. And apparently summon a dark pit hellscape of endless despair.

“We wish to have a meeting with Abraham Lincoln!” he said. “Alone!” There was a deafening WHOOSH and a ROAR. The earth shook, like a speeding train passing by. The ground opened, and Jack felt as if he were falling through space, through a tunnel, down through blackness, into a world of daylight.

Just in case the sudden but oddly muted shift to bleak, nightmare imagery didn’t quite draw you in, here’s the accompanying illustration:

Chapter 6: Trust the Magic

Jack and Annie come to in the countryside. Fortunately, Annie immediately solves the riddle that is their lives.

“Wait, wait,” said Annie. “Mr. Nicolay said if the president had a free moment, he’d take a ride in the country. I’ll bet we’ve come to a spot where we can catch Abraham Lincoln on his ride! Alone!”

At that exact moment, someone who is not Abraham Lincoln approaches them on a horse. Annie reminds a dismayed Jack about Teddy’s note telling them to “trust the magic”. You know, the magic from the guy who accidentally magicked a penguin into a statue and just made this happen:

BUT TRUST THE MAGIC, YOU GUYS

The person on the horse turns out to be a sad-looking boy, Sam, about their age. They ask him if he’s seen the president anywhere nearby (it was a different time) and he says he is in the area, but he has some corn to grind at the mill before he can take them there (it was a different time). We got some subtle hints that they might have also traveled forward in time. Or as subtle as Jack ever makes anything.

Something felt wrong. This weather was different from the weather at the White House.

Sam takes them to the grinder and grinds twenty pounds of corn, which I’m sure you could already guess is driving Jack’s neuroses off the charts.

Jack and Annie stood to the side and watched Sam walk his horse around in a circle. After a while, Jack grew impatient.

Suddenly, tragedy strikes.

a gust of wind came up and the horse reared. […]
“These nice folks are waitin’ on us!” said Sam. He pushed the horse from behind. The wind picked up, tossing dead leaves into the air. The horse neighed again, then kicked out with her hind foot. Her hoof hit Sam in the head! […]
A trickle of blood ran down the side of his head. His eyes were closed. […]
“Is he dead?” whispered Annie.

And that’s our incredibly dark cliffhanger! Come back next week when we inevitably learn that Sam is not dead, despite being a ten-year-old boy who was just kicked in the head by a goddamn horse.

Allegiant Chapter 39: Tris

We open with Matthew (#NotOurMatthew) clarifying this magical serum that magically targets specific memories. Because the more we talk about it, the more I’m going to buy into it.

“No, no, the serum doesn’t erase all of a person’s knowledge,” he says. “Do you think we would design a serum that makes people forget how to speak or walk?” He shakes his head. “It targets explicit memories, like your name, where you grew up, your first teacher’s name, and leaves implicit memories—like how to speak or tie your shoes or ride a bicycle—untouched.”

OH OF COURSE, CHECKS OUT.

“Inevitably, some important memories will be lost,” Matthew says. “But if we have a record of people’s scientific discoveries or histories, they can relearn them in the hazy period after their memories are erased. People are very pliable then.”

What the fuck does any of this even mean? The book is constantly giving itself outs for everything. “This serum only targets specific memories, but some other memories that weren’t supposed to be lost will be. But they can easily relearn big scientific discoveries….and “histories” because it’s easier to write it this way.”

Matthew says that they have to get to this serum within 48 hours, before it’s deployed on Chicago. Then it’s time to further explain this part of the story that no one is getting behind:

“Cara doesn’t appear to hear what I said. “After you erase their memories, won’t you have to program them with new memories? How does that work?”

“We just have to reteach them. As I said, people tend to be disoriented for a few days after being reset, which means they’ll be easier to control.” Matthew sits, and spins in his chair once, “We can just give them a new history class. One that teaches facts rather than propaganda.”

I can’t even begin to imagine how this is a real, workable plan. Men in Black made more sense, and they just were like, “We’re gonna flash this red light in people’s faces.” Job well done.

Everyone decides they’re going to talk to Nita in order to find out where she went wrong breaking into the weapons lab. On the way, Tobias and Tris muse about whether they’re making the right decision to erase the memories of the people at the Bureau. I’ve completely emotionally checked out of everything about this, so, let’s move on. Also, even though it’s not the nicest of plans, they’re not murdering anyone with this serum so it could be worse.

If you thought things were already convoluted, it gets even more fun! Christina shows up and says that Uriah isn’t going to wake up and they all decide they have to get to his parents to “inoculate them” in case they can’t stop the memory serum from being released in Chicago. So they have to sneak into the city, somehow many them immune to it, then sneak them out so they can be there when Uriah is taken off life support. Also, they throw Christina a bone and offer to inoculate her family too.

Where are they going to find the time to do this when they’re meant to be intercepting the serum?

Tobias and Peter head off to ask Amar to help sneak them into the city while Christina and Tris go to sit with Uriah. The girls share a special BFF moment that I know is supposed to bring me to tears, but I’ve never bought into their friendship. They bonded for a week? Two weeks? Then Christina hated Tris, then forgave her, and there hasn’t been very much else between them.

Then Tris goes to see Nita. Here’s how she gets in:

Guard: Hey, you can’t go in there.

Tris: I’m the one that shot her!

Guard: Alright then. Just don’t do it again, and get out in ten minutes.

Fuck’s sake.

Anyway, Tris convinces Nita to help her, and Nita reveals that no one but David and his superiors know the passcode. If Tris blows the doors open, a death serum will kill her! And even if she wears protective gear it will get through! MAGIC! Tris of course thinks she might be able to resist the death serum because she resisted the truth serum before. I wish there was a serum that made me care about any of this. Can we go back to House of Night already? At least that was fun.

Don’t worry. Only 130 pages left. Here are a list of things that are almost as long as how many pages are left of Allegiant, but the entire remainder of Allegiant is actually still longer:

• The Old Man And The Sea
• The Time Machine
• A Christmas Carol
• Of Mice And Men

Not that this necessarily correlates to quality or scope of the story being told, but just think how you could read one of those, start to finish, and you still wouldn’t be done with Allegiant. Anyway!

Chapter 40: Tobias

Tobias explains that they’ve drafted Amar to help them get into the city “without requiring much explanation, eager for an adventure”. You might remember that Amar is 100% into the genetically pure/damaged social construct, and might wonder why on earth it would make sense for these characters to be on the same side. You might wonder. You just might.

Meanwhile, in characters who are just sort of here now, Tobias needs life advice from Cara, who is so desperate for characterization that we get sentences like this:

She is so careful in her movements, so precise— it reminds me of the Amity musicians plucking at banjo strings.

Tobias asks Cara how she was able to forgive Tris for killing her brother, Will, since he’s going to have to say something to Uriah’s family about what happened to him. Cara explains that she isn’t sure if she has forgiven her, but “that’s like asking how you continue on with your life after someone dies. You just do it, and the next day you do it again”. It’s a nice sentiment, although you do have to ignore the fact that someone did die, so that exact scenario is also a real thing that she is going through. She also tells Tobias that what helped the most was that Tris confessed.

“There is a difference between admitting and confessing. Admitting involves softening, making excuses for things that cannot be excused; confessing just names the crime at its full severity.”

I guess we all mourn differently, but I really hope that all future dictionary definitions aren’t written in overdetermined metaphors.

Cara also points out that Tobias didn’t even kill Uriah.

Let’s be real. “You didn’t even kill him!” is the “She doesn’t even go here!” of Divergent-land.

“You didn’t make the plan that led to that explosion.”
“But I did participate in the plan.”
“Oh, shut up, would you?”

Technically the book goes on to describe that Cara says this gently, but fuck that. I wanna savor this moment where someone told Tobias to shut up.

Later, the gang meets up to describe their top secret plan to sneak out to the city, and immunize themselves against the memory serum in case they don’t get out before/the others can’t stop the Bureau’s memory serum virus deployment. A mildly interesting character moment happens.

I notice, however, that Peter only pretends to inject himself […]
I wonder what it feels like to volunteer to forget everything.

Like this book?

Christina points out – which is remarkably easy to do if you stop for like two seconds – how many holes are in their plan:

“You know, the city is still on the verge of revolution,” she says […] “The Bureau’s whole reason for resetting our friends and families is to stop them from killing each other. If we stop the reset, the Allegiant will attack Evelyn, Evelyn will turn the death serum loose, and a lot of people will die.”

Incredibly unsurprisingly, Tobias makes this entirely about himself:

“I don’t think you want that many people in the city to die. Your parents in particular.”
I sigh. “Honestly? I don’t really care about them.”

OH MY GOD. TOBIAS. WE GET IT. You have feelings about your parents. Totally makes sense. A city might die, but, yeah, let’s make this about you.

“It’s basically one of your parents against the other one,” Christina says. “Isn’t there something you can say to them that will stop them from trying to kill each other?”

CHRISTINA, STOP ENCOURAGING HIM.

“Something I can say to them?” I say. “Are you kidding? They don’t listen to anyone.” […] Unfortunately, I do not have different parents.
But I could. I could if I wanted them.

Yes, this is going exactly where you think it’s going.

Just a slip of the memory serum in their morning coffee or their evening water, and they would be new people, clean slates, unblemished by history.

I feel like this is either super troublesome, or was already a Disney Channel original movie.

Christina and Tobias formulate a secret plan to allow Tobias to get away from Amar in the city without raising suspicion so he can go brainwash at least one of his parents.

“So you’re really going to erase one of your parents’ memories?”
“What do you do when your parents are evil?” I say. “Get a new parent.”

No, seriously, I swear I saw this on the Disney Channel like five times.

In what was possibly one of the darkest cliffhangers in Magic Treehouse history, we left off wondering if a child had just died after being kicked in the head by a horse. There was blood trickling down his head. THIS IS A BOOK FOR KIDS.

Chapter 7: Sam’s Farm

The chapter begins immediately in the aftermath, with Jack saying he doesn’t know whether Sam is dead or not, and telling us that “this was one of the worst things that had ever happened.” This is coming from someone that has traveled through time and was literally on the fucking Titanic, so shit is obviously very real. Don’t worry, though, Sam’s just fine somehow.

Sam’s eyes opened. ‘Giddyup,’ he said weakly.

This sounds more like something that would happen in a standard episode of Loony Tunes rather than how this child should be reacting to his near-death experience. Jack’s reaction is also a major under-reaction.

Jack laughed with relief. “Whew, we were afraid you were dead!”

It’s not so much the laughing with relief but the breezy “whew” that really threw me off. Whew is something you say when you thought you were going to miss your bus but you got on just in time, not what you say when you thought someone was dead.

Annie stupidly asks if Sam’s head hurts. No, Annie, he was kicked in the head by a horse but it just tickled. Whew.

Sam says the closest doctor is 35 miles away and that he needs to get back home. Jack reluctantly agrees with Annie that the right thing to do is help Sam get home (mind you, Sam has just fallen over again because he’s so dizzy and in so much pain, so yes, Jack, it’s the right thing to do you heartless bastard.)

He know it was the right thing to do. But as soon as we get him home to his parents, we have to find Abraham Lincoln.

Mind you, the reason they have to find Abraham Lincoln isn’t actually as hugely important as the statement would lead you to believe. They need to help undo a spell accidentally cast on a penguin, so it seems like ensuring Sam’s safety could be pushed to the forefront of priorities. [Matthew says: Not to mention they, you know, have a time machine. Sure, they’re super lost right now, but I feel like time running out is not their biggest problem.]

Jack, being a selfish little shit, has this thought as they start heading to Sam’s farm:

This isn’t the way things are supposed to happen, Jack thought. He knew they were supposed to trust the magic. But now they were helping the person who was supposed to help them. 

For the one who is supposed to be super intelligent, Jack is kind of a moron in addition to being a dick. Because you can never help someone and then have them help you after the fact? “Saaaam, you weren’t supposed to get kicked in the head by a horse and almost die. You were supposed to somehow help us with magic and penguins and tree houses!!!” [Matthew says: Wait a second, why didn’t they travel back in time and tell their dipshit friend not to practice magic on the penguin in the first place? This is a very inefficient use of time travel.]

The kids are travelling on horseback, and after like two seconds they start asking Sam where his farm is, and he’s like, “This is it.”

Sam pointed to the cabin and shed.

That’s it? Jack thought. Sam’s family must be really poor. 

Jack, please keep your thoughts somehow more to yourself, you are terrible. Unfortunately, Jack continues to have incredibly bitchy thoughts like, “Not much of a farm” and “Well at least it didn’t take us long to get here.” As though if the farmhouse had been a palace it would have negated any extra time it took to get them there.

No one is home when they take Sam inside, and he literally crumples to the floor, horrifying Jack and Annie. They then help him to his bed which is just basically some corn husks, and he tells them that the only person who will be home to take care of him later is his sister Sarah and she won’t be home till dark. GOD DAMN IT, ABE LINCOLN NOT FUCKING AT LAST.

They also realize it’s a different time of year than when they were at the White House, so something is amiss. The chapter ends with Jack saying they’re going to stay and make sure Sam’s okay, and that he actually wants to be there. Yeah, sure, Jack.

Chapter 8: Into the Rough

In a turn of events that can only be described as thrilling, Jack and Annie offer to do Sam’s chores for him. [Matthew says: I’m sorry, is this Allegiant day? I thought we weren’t reading an aimlessly meandering narrative today.]

They manage to try and give up on most of Sam’s chores in all of a page – “I can’t pull this axe from the log to split wood. I give up! Let’s go milk the cow. Oh, nah, this looks too hard.”

Anyway, they attempt the next item on the list, which is to head through the rough to get water for the spring. This just leads to more whining from Jack and more upbeat nonsense from Annie.

“It’s weird,” said Annie. “Even though helping Sam isn’t part of our mission, I feel like doing one good thing is somehow connected to doing another good thing. If we’re helping Sam, we’re also helping Penny.”

Penny is the fucking penguin that this whole book series apparently centers around now. And if helping Sam is helping Penny then isn’t that specifically connected to the mission? What kind of logic is this? I feel like even though eating ice cream isn’t part of my diet, I feel like by eating ice cream I’m somehow still on my diet. Like if I’m eating ice cream, I’m still losing weight.

The chapter ends with the kids hearing growling coming from nearby. Uh oh! [Matthew says: Get excited to never fucking learn what’s growling.]

Chapter 9: Corn Bread and Molasses

Jack and Annie run back to the cabin and find Sam splitting a log. Sam is such a badass. He’s like, “Yeah I did all my chores.” And Jack and Annie are like, “We did fuck all.”

Sam promises he’ll be able to introduce them to Abe Lincoln soon, but I’m Skeptical because most of the chapter is just Sam telling them about his life and how they make all of their own food from scratch.

The chapter ends with Sam excited to show Jack and Annie his homework. Jack is like, “Uhhh can’t we just leave at this point.” And for once I’m inclined to agree with him.

Hopefully you enjoyed seeing fuck all of Abraham Lincoln. This time next week we’ll be reading E. L. James’s Gray, which will certainly be an interesting transition from Magic Tree House.

Chapter 10: Readin’ and Writin’

The next step in our story of time traveling to meet Abraham Lincoln is a grammar lesson, because fucking of course it is.

“Okay,” Annie said. “What is a conjunction?”
Sam bit his lip. “Let’s see … a conjunction is a part of speech that joins words and sentences together,” he said. “Some conjunctions are and, but, and because.”

I get that this is a semi-educational children’s book, but there had to be a less contrived way to get some educational content in here.

We interrupt this story about Abraham Lincoln to talk about conjunctions.

I can’t even blame Jack for being his usual smartass self about the whole thing:

“Yes, perfect,” said Jack. “Here’s an example: Jack wants to leave, but Annie is ignoring him.”

After the two-page grammar lesson, Sam goes into a Hamlet-sized speech about his love for writing words. Not “writing”, like Ariel and I and your other annoying writer friends talk about their love for writing. For writing words.

“Neither my pa nor my ma ever learned to write. But I love it. I write words in the dust or the sand, even in the snow. I write them in the dirt floor with a stick.” Sam laughed. Jack couldn’t help smiling. “Why, I write on wooden shovels with charcoal!” Sam leaned forward and said in a hushed voice, “But the best thing in the world to write with is my quill pen and my blackberry ink!” Sam’s face glowed in the firelight.

Why did we need his face glowing in the firelight? That’s the most ominous fucking thing. Are we supposed to infer that when Sam grows up, the police will be taking him away after finding the bodies in the basement, with Sam cackling, “But the bestest thing is writing with HUMAN BLOOD. HAIL SATAN. PEACE.”

Jack explains that he, too, loves writing, and Sam explains that he also loves pranks. And then the weirdest thing happens: his dad shows up out of nowhere with a new fucking family.

Suddenly noises came from outside: rumbling and neighing.
“What’s that?” said Annie.
Sam froze. Then he turned to Jack and Annie, his eyes wide. “A wagon!” he said. […] They watched as Sam ran toward the wagon and the driver pulled the horses to a halt. […]
“Son, I want you to meet my wife and your new ma from Kentucky,” Sam’s pa said. “And these are her children and your new sisters and brother, Elizabeth, Matilda, and John.”
Each kid said “howdy” in turn.

No, it’s really fucking weird.

Across the clearing, a girl came running. She wore a black cape with a hood.
“Sarah! My girl!” Sam and Sarah’s father rushed forward and threw his arms around his daughter.
Sarah started sobbing.
Her father hugged her. “Don’t cry, girl,” he said. “I brought you a whole new family.”

As a parting gift, Jack gives Sam his beloved murder instruments quill and blueberry ink, for “staying by me when I was feeling poorly, and for trying to do my chores”. Jack and Annie point out that they didn’t do a damn thing, but Sam insists, and Jack and Annie are immediately swallowed up by the cursed ground.

“You’re welcome,” said Sam. “And what I was going to tell you is—”
“Yes—” Jack started.
But before Jack could finish, (Uh, what about SAM, who was actually saying something?) a WHOOSH and a ROAR shook the earth, like a speeding train passing by. The ground opened, and Jack felt as if he were falling through space, through a tunnel, down through blackness, into a world of daylight.

Chapter 11: Abe Lincoln At Last!

Guys, we all made fun of the title of this book, thinking “Abe Lincoln at last? What, like all Magic Tree House books were leading up to this moment? Haha”, but, lo, if only we had known.

“Wait, that’s so weird,” said Jack. “We’re looking for a feather, and Sam gives us a pen made out of a feather—”

Just in case you too have completely forgotten what this book was supposed to be about before the kid who learned grammar and then got a new family.

Annie gasped. “Look, Jack!”
She pointed toward the carriageway. A tall man in a dark coat and a high black hat was striding toward the grove of trees. He turned his head, as if he were searching for something.
“At last!” said Jack.

Yes. Yes. We get it.

Abraham Lincoln turned and looked in their direction. He froze and stared at them, as if he were both astonished and afraid.

Do spend a brief moment picturing this scene where Abraham Lincoln is terrified of Jack and Annie, I implore you.

“You don’t know who I am?” he said.
“You’re Abraham Lincoln,” said Annie. “President of the United States.”
“Yes, but I spent the day with you once long ago,” said the president. “And you vanished, right before my eyes.”
“We did?” said Annie.

Oh my f- seriously?

Had to go patriotic with this one.

Jack helpfully articulates the wonder and magnitude of this moment.

Time and magic were confusing things.

Annie gives Abraham the quill and ink bottle, and the meaning of the riddle dawns on Jack. They write Abraham Lincoln a note about hope and peace, assuring him that the nation will reunite one day, with freedom for everyone.

Chapter 12: The Feather of Hope

Jack and Annie return home with their magical artifacts and bask in the happy ending to their mission.

“Before we go, I want to look in our book and see if there’s a picture of Willie and Tad,” said Annie. […] Annie read for a moment, then she whispered a sad “Oh, no.” She closed the book and put it down. She looked terribly sad.
“What’s wrong? What did you read?” said Jack.
“I just read that Willie died of typhoid fever in 1862,” said Annie.

Well, they were close.

Allegiant Chapter 41: Tris

The chapter opens with a really peculiar and nonsensical juxtaposition:

I stand next to a mop in a storage room in the basement; I stand in the wake of what I just told everyone, which is that whoever breaks into the Weapons Lab will be going on a suicide mission. The death serum is unstoppable.

One of those things is significantly more dramatic than the other. WHY DID I NEED TO KNOW SHE IS STANDING NEXT TO A MOP?

The gang wonders if it’s worth sacrificing one person’s life to potentially save thousands as Tris stands next to a mop. I hope that bit of detail is really bringing to life this scene for you.

Tris struggles to come to grips with the fact that one life could be sacrificed and it could be one of theirs, but whose???

“One life against thousands of memories, of course the answer is easy, but does it have to be one of our lives? Do we have to be the ones who act?

But because I know what my answer will be to that question, my thoughts turn to another question. If it has to be one of us, who should it be?

My eyes shift from Matthew and Cara, standing behind the table, to Tobias, to Christina, her arm slung over a broom handle, and land on Caleb.

Him.

Just to throw another obvious choice out there – Peter. Obviously it should be Peter. Because PETER.

Caleb is like, “Obviously you want it to be me, and so does everyone because I suck.” He does not point out that Peter is also pretty bad. For some reason Tris is like, “No, but I had Tobias save you before, so I care.” But she’s still thinking that she kind of wants him to die.

Caleb says he’s going to be the one to do it, and if he does he hopes Tris will finally forgive him. I actually think that’s pretty sweet, but my stands for this series are abysmally low.

Tris grapples some more with this huge decision and wonders if she should let Caleb volunteer for a suicide mission because he feels guilty, just like she had volunteered for a suicide mission when she felt overwhelmed by guilt. Let’s just send Peter and call it a day, everyone!

Tobias comes to talk to Tris and he tries to comfort her with an old Abnegation belief, which makes absolutely no fucking sense when you think about everything we know about Abnegation:

“About when to let others sacrifice themselves for you, even if it’s selfish. They say that if the sacrifice is the ultimate way for that person to show you that they love you, you should let them do it.” He leans one shoulder into the wall. “That, in that situation, it’s the greatest gift you can give them. Just as it was when both of your parents died for you.”

How often does this even come up? Are Abnegations just constantly sacrificing themselves for one another in the name of their home-made muffins?

Tobias and Tris have a sweet moment where he thanks her for never worrying for a second that he was genetically damaged and believing he was whole.

“No one has ever told me that before,” he says softly.

“It’s what you deserve to hear,” I say firmly, my eyes going cloudy with tears. “That you’re whole, that you’re worth loving, that you’re the best person I’ve ever known.”

So of course it’s time for Tobias and Tris to bone. Unlike Fifty Shades, the Divergent series doesn’t contain porn (mercifully.) But it does get kind of weird:

I forget that he is another person; instead it feels like he is another part of me, just as essential as a heart or an eye or an arm. I pull his shirt up and over his head. I run my hands over the skin I expose like it is my own.

…What? Don’t you normally run your fingers over your own skin is like completely non sexual, uninteresting ways? It feels like you’re going about this wrong, Tris.

Tris starts feeling really insecure and ugly, “A moment ago I was convinced that we were perfectly matched, and maybe we still are – but only with our clothes on.” I hate that, in an attempt to embody a realistic person, all of these female protagonists have to be so insecure about their bodies and think the men they’re sleeping with are soooo out of their league. This adds nothing to Tris’ character, she doesn’t have to be vulnerable in this way for us to relate to her. Like, “Oh, even in the midst of all this high-stakes drama she’s still just a teen girl who is like so insecure about her flat-chest and pale skin.” I’m sorry, but I don’t buy that anymore with Tris. In the first book, sure, but surely we’re past that now.

But of course as soon as Tobias is like, “You’re beautiful” she’s like “Omg I believe him.” And teen girls everywhere start to tear up and wish they could find their own Tobias ;_;

The sex is heavily implied, but that’s all as explicit as it gets, and the chapter ends with Tris telling us how strong she is #inspirational.

Allegiant Chapter 42: Tobias

Ah, the morning after. Where Tris tells Tobias they have lots to do, and he’s like MOAR SEX.

The scene jumps ahead pretty abruptly to the gang training Caleb to shoot a gun. I guess just in case he encounters resistance during his suicide mission? IDK.

I have no fucking idea why this scene is so detailed. Like there is excessive detail about them training Caleb. SKIIIIP.

Oh my god seriously, it won’t end. Tobias is just bragging about what a great shot he is and trying to teach Caleb. Then Tris is also super awesome and great at shooting and shows Caleb how she does it. I am sort of sorry if this is important later, but I am not fucking summarising this to a more detailed degree. You’re welcome.

Tris and Tobias also make out because they’re reminiscing about one time that he touched her during gun practice. Woah mama, things are sure heating up in this post today.

Things continue to move at a weirdly quick pace given the book never moves beyond a turtle’s pace:

There isn’t much to do after target practice but wait. Tris and Christina get the explosives from Reggie and teach Caleb how to use them. Then Matthew and Cara pore over a map, examining different routes to get through the compound to the Weapons Lab. Christina and I meet with Amar, George, and Peter to go over the route we’re going to take through the city that evening. Tris is called to a last-minute council meeting. Matthew inoculates people against the memory serum all throughout the day, Cara and Caleb and Tris and Nita and Reggie and himself.

Jesus, imagine if loads of the book had been told that quickly? We could have just had one book!

Tobias goes to see Uriah one last time, but it’s actually just an excuse to get him alone with Matthew, so Matthew can explain his backstory and why he’s helping them on their mission. He’s doing it FOR LOVE. Because there was once a genetically damaged girl who he wasn’t supposed to love, but he did. One day a bunch of genetically pure people beat her up, but they got off easy because they said the attack was provoked. She died a year later undergoing surgery I guess on injuries she sustained when they beat her up.

That is super sad and all, but this seems like a weird time to suddenly be asking Matthew for his stake in all of this. Also like of course it has to be for love because no one has any other motivations ever.

Tobias is like, “Wow, it was surprising to see another side of Matthew.” And the chapter ends with Matthew like whistling as he walks down the hall. The fuck?

So did everyone already read Gray? Is everyone terrified for us to start reading it next week?

Chapter 43: Tris

Tris kicks off the chapter off honestly, at least.

The emergency council meeting is more of the same

I wonder what that would be like.

After the council meeting reconfirming that the plan is still on to drop the memory viruses over the city tonight (so… why did this meeting have to…), Tobias and Tris meet up and make out for a while. Lest we forget this is YA.

He closes his eyes. “I can’t wait until tomorrow, when I’m back and you’ve done what you set out to do and we can decide what comes next.”
“I can tell you it will involve a lot of this,” I say, and I press my lips to his.

Also, this is a Tobias/Tris scene, so…

“I don’t like that I can’t be with you tonight,” he says. “It doesn’t feel right to leave you alone with something this huge.”
“What, you don’t think I can handle it?” I say, a little defensive.

You all assume this is a misunderstand because these two characters aren’t great at communicating with each other and gets resolved without consequence aside from repeated occurrences of similar arguments, right? Yeah? Ok, cool.

The entire chapter is them making out.

Much like this gif, it is also more ominous than it makes sense to be.

Chapter 44: Tobias

Tobias checks the surveillance screens one more time before departing on his mission to Chicago, taking note of Evelyn and Marcus’s locations and hoping they won’t move much by the time he gets to the city. Tobias meets up with Amar, his friend who they’ve asked to help on their mission to rid the world of genetically damaged/pure propaganda who believes in said propaganda, and they meet up with George, their security guard confidant they’ve enlisted in their mission to rid the world of genetically damaged/pure propaganda who believes in said- wait, fucking really? Whose plan is this?

I grab George and hold him back. He gives me a strange look.
“Don’t ask me any questions about this, because I won’t answer them,” I say. “But inoculate yourself against the memory serum, okay? As soon as possible.”

Whose plan is this? How did this not raise every red flag?

I see Peter’s eyes on us as I get in the passenger’s seat. I’m still not sure why he was so eager to come with us, but I know I need to be wary of him.

WHOSE PLAN IS- I fucking give up. I’m calling it right now – this plan enlisting the help of someone who does not believe in the ideals of the mission, which relies on the assistance of someone else who does not believe in the ideals of the mission but was given a super obvious warning that something strange is up with it, that the guy who explicitly said he does not think he owes you any allegiance wanted to accompany you on anyway? This is not a plan that makes sense.

I used this gif a month ago, but this is still what reading this book feels like

Tobias, Christina, Amar (for some reason), and Peter (for some reason) drive to the city. And, like 65% of this book, it devolves into the narrator just thinking about the greater meanings of the goings on around him and their implications in society as a whole. Incidentally, I recently started reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, her 1994 book about the writing process. It contained this part, which immediately made me think of Divergent. See if you can guess why.

Good dialogue is such a pleasure to come across while reading, a complete change of pace from description and exposition and all that writing. Suddenly people are talking, and we find ourselves clipping along. And we have all the pleasures of voyeurism because the characters don’t know we are listening. We get to feel privy to their inner workings without having to spend too much time listening to them think. I don’t want them to think all the time on paper.

And with that in mind, let’s consider…

The distance the Bureau has kept from the rest of the world is an evil separate from the war they intend to wage against our memories— more subtle, but, in its way, just as sinister. They had the capacity to help us, languishing in our factions, but instead they let us fall apart. Let us die. Let us kill one another.

Which would be mostly fine – obviously the entire tale can’t be told in dialogue – if the whole book weren’t like this.

I still don’t know whose memory I’m going to take: Marcus’s, or Evelyn’s?
Usually I would try to decide what the most selfless choice would be, but in this case either choice feels selfish. Resetting Marcus would mean erasing the man I hate and fear from the world. It would mean my freedom from his influence.
Resetting Evelyn would mean making her into a new mother— one who wouldn’t abandon me, or make decisions out of a desire for revenge, or control everyone in an effort not to have to trust them.
Either way, with either parent gone, I am better off. But what would help the city most?
I no longer know.

Yes, I am just copy/pasting entire paragraphs uncut from this book because this is fucking grueling, you guys. Think how much more interesting – nay, actually interesting – this dilemma could have been if we saw Tobias struggling to explain it to someone else. Like Tris, the character he supposedly loves and values so much. Or even Amar, his former mentor he felt compelled to bring on this mission despite their ideological differences that as of yet make no fucking sense because of said ideological differences. Shit, we could have gotten two birds with one stone if all of that thinking were instead a tense, guarded conversation between Tobias and Amar.

We reach the place where the outside world ends and the experiment begins, as abrupt a shift as if someone had drawn a line in the ground.
Amar drives over that line like it isn’t there. For him, I suppose, it has faded with time

Ok. You get that this is mad boring. Which you already knew, but I felt like it was important to remind you of what a slog this is. Because we still have 90 pages left.

They get further into the city (which apparently no longer has factionless guards patrolling all the cars in the road anymore) and Christina enacts her valiant “pretend to pee so I can slash the tires so Tobias can get away to wipe Marcus or Evelyn’s memory” plan. Which, of course, Tobias waxes poetic about.

Sometimes, all it takes to save people from a terrible fate is one person willing to do something about it. Even if that “something” is a fake bathroom break.

Good thing Tobias explained how Christina pretending to go to the bathroom actually played a role in events of much greater magnitude. I might never have otherwise understood how Christina pretending to go to the bathroom actually played a role in events of much greater magnitude if Tobias didn’t explain how Christina pretending to go to the bathroom actually played a role in events of much greater magnitude.

Amar goes through the five stages of grief in two lines of dialogue:

“Shit!” Amar smacks the steering wheel. “We don’t have time for this. We have to make sure Zeke and his mother and Christina’s family are all inoculated before the memory serum is released, or they’ll be useless.”
“Calm down,” I say. “I know where we can find another vehicle. Why don’t you guys keep going on foot and I’ll go find something to drive?”
Amar’s expression brightens. “Good idea.”

Amar tells them that they have hour until the scheduled reset of the city. Tobias begins to leave to pretend to find a truck, when Peter reminds us he’s in this book too.

“I’m coming with you,” he says.
“What? Why?” I glare at him.
“You might need help finding a truck,” he says. “It’s a big city.”
I look at Amar, who shrugs. “Man’s got a point.”

It’s almost as if bringing someone who was not sympathetic to your cause was a bad idea. It’s also almost as if it doesn’t even make sense why Peter would do this, since his motivations are so insanely ill-defined that not one of his actions in this book have made sense so it’s impossible to know where he’s going with this, aside from that it will inevitably turn into some kind of unforeseen betrayal, but we’re in too deep to worry about things like “why are characters in this book doing the things they’re doing” by now.

Tobias tells Peter that he’s not really looking for a truck, and will shoot him if he doesn’t help. Now, sure, it makes sense that Tobias won’t tell Peter everything (arguably it makes a lot of sense not to tell Peter things), but just in case the point didn’t stick, here’s this scene without The Thinking:

“I’m not going to look for a truck,” I say. “You might as well know that now. Are you going to help me with what I’m doing, or do I have to shoot you?”
“Depends what you’re doing.” […]
“I’m going to stop a revolution,” I say.

And here it is with The Thinking.

I stand facing the Hancock building. To my right are the factionless, Evelyn, and her collection of death serum. To my left are the Allegiant, Marcus, and the insurrection plan.
Where do I have the greatest influence? Where can I make the biggest difference? Those are the questions I should be asking myself. Instead I am asking myself whose destruction I am more desperate for. […]
I turn right, and Peter follows me.

Tobias’s epiphany comes completely from nowhere. So is Peter even needed in this scene?

Come back to our comedy reading of Allegiant next week, where I ask funny questions like, “Why are any of us here?” and “Why?”

So as you all probably know, Grey isn’t simply a retelling of Fifty Shades of Grey from Christian’s perspective, it’s also a re-imagining of the Terminator franchise in which a concerned robot from the future travels back in time to stop this madness from ever taking place.

What’s really worth noting is that each chapter is a date. So we can definitively prove that this book takes place over a fucking month and mock the timeline more accurately than ever before!

Grey Chapter 1: Monday, May 9, 2011

Because the only way to understand a tortured man is to be privy to his nightmares (we learned that thanks to famous romantic leads like Gideon Cross and Four!), we open with Christian dreaming he couldn’t reach his favourite car under the sofa while his mother stares blankly at a wall and calls him “maggot.” It’s very brief and just serves to remind us that Christian is without a doubt fifty shades of fucked up!

[Matthew says: What’s especially worth mentioning (aside from how the book kicks off by saying “IT IS MAY 9, 2011″ and then very obviously going into a flashback from not-May 9, 2011, which is sort of confusing, is how E L James figured this was the best way to kick off the book that is her highly-awaited opus:

I have three cars. They go fast across the floor. So fast. One is red.

The best part is I totally read through “I have three cars. They go fast” and didn’t realize this was not adult Christian Grey.]

Christian wakes up and shakes off the dream, which he can’t remember. Gosh, he is so tortured and sexy because he can’t confront his issues!

Still channeling its inner Crossfire [Matthew says: And Walking Disaster!], Grey introduces (or re-introduces?) a minor character. Meet Bastille, who Christian talks about for like twenty fucking minutes and yet I have 0 recollection of his name ever cropping up before:

My thoughts stray to the day. I’ve nothing but meetings, though I’m seeing my personal trainer later for a workout at my office— Bastille is always a welcome challenge.

Why do both these series think we want to get to know the characters’ personal trainers so badly? [Matthew says: BECAUSE MEN. MANLY MEN. If they weren’t in the gym with a personal trainer, how we would know where they rank on the manly man scale?]

In the next scene, Christian and “Claude Bastille” are on the phone, and he’s trying to convince Christian to play golf with him. BUT CHRISTIAN GREY HATE GOLF. CHRISTIAN NO WANT TO PLAY GOLF. See, you are getting the full, 360 experience of all the things that annoy or anger Christian. Whereas before you might have mistakenly believed that there were things in life that didn’t make him angry.

Bastille is the only one who can beat me, and now he wants another pound of flesh on the golf course. I detest golf, but so much business is done on the fairways, I have to endure his lessons there, too… and though I hate to admit it, playing against Bastille does improve my game.

I feel like the stakes shouldn’t be this high for your personal workout. If your trainer wants another ‘pound of flesh’ maybe you should re-think your hiring decisions. [Matthew says: If friggin’ golf makes you think of things in terms of “pounds of flesh”… yeah, golf is about that maddening.]

When Ana is being buzzed into Christian’s office, he fills us in on the fact that he’s done business with Kate’s father in the past and this interview was a favour to her dad (again, was this ever mentioned before? I feel like this should have come up when he finally does meet Kate?) He also says he was very interested in meeting her to see if she was like her father. Again, in the other books he seems completely indifferent to Kate/had no idea who she was.

Anyway, Ana comes crashing into his office in that classic scene where she falls right away. Good times!

Clear, embarrassed eyes meet mine and halt me in my tracks. They are the most extraordinary color, powder blue, and guileless, and for one awful moment, I think she can see right through me and I’m left…exposed. The thought is unnerving so I dismiss it immediately.

I just don’t think that’s the kind of look that actually exists, let alone when someone is just embarrassed for falling on the floor. Like she’s just thinking, “Wow, I wish I hadn’t just fallen to the floor”, and he’s like, “Oh my god, she can see into my soul.” 

During the interview, we’re mostly treated to Christian Grey’s inner Johnny Bravo. Though he’s only met Ana 30 seconds ago, he manages to refer to her as “baby” and “sweetheart” every time he thinks of an answer to her questions. It happens eight times during this chapter alone, and from reading ahead it seems that it carries on throughout the book.

Here is a short montage of some of these moments:

• She gapes at me, and I resist rolling my eyes. Yeah, yeah, baby, it’s just a face, and it’s only skin deep. 
• “S-Sorry, I’m not used to this.
  I can tell, baby, but right now I don’t give a damn because I can’t take my eyes off your mouth. 
• “Control” is my middle name, sweetheart. 
• Her mouth pops open at my response. That’s more like it. Suck it up, baby. 

“Suck it up, baby” is to this book what “laters, baby” was to Fifty Shades of Grey. [Matthew says: Until, you know, “laters, baby” shows up. Because it’s the same stupid book.]

One of the things I find really odd about this scene is that it feels like Christian is trying really hard to convince us how attractive Ana is. One second, he’s like, “She’s so bookish and has no sense of style…but she’s kind of pretty.” Then later, “She actually is really attractive in a super boring kind of way that I can’t resist.” [Matthew says: Then later, it’s “I wish I could spank her! Slappity slappity!” More or less.]

I was actually hoping they’d eventually get really fucking weird, and he’d say something like, “She’s so gorgeous in like the way a chicken nugget is gorgeous when you’re drunk and hungry and it’s right in front of you, and also the chicken nugget has no fashion sense. I must have her.” Just because then I’d sort of like Christian for being a weirdo.

Dumb things continue to annoy Christian because that is the most consistent part of his character to the point where it is actually his defining character trait:

“Do you feel that you have immense power?” she asks in a soft, soothing voice, but she arches a delicate brow with a look that conveys her censure. Is she deliberately trying to goad me? Is it her questions, her attitude, or the fact that I find her attractive that’s pissing me off? My annoyance grows.

I feel like he’s reading way to into this. “Attitude” would imply personality, but all that’s ever going on in Ana’s head is her subconscious reading a book while her inner goddess dances around like a moron.

Christian fantasises about fucking/flogging Ana the entire interview. It’s actually so rude! At one point, he basically says, “She can tell I’m pissed at her terrible questions, and it gives me a huge boner that she knows that.” Why does he love when she knows he’s pissed? Why does he love being angry and irritated all the time? THE BOOK IS SUPPOSED TO BE ANSWERING THESE QUESTIONS FOR ME, NOT RAISING MORE.

Even creepier, when she’s fumbling with her recorder at the start he says,

“I could refine her motor skills with the aid of a riding crop.”

And at another point,

Yes, her mouth needs training, and I imagine her on her hands and knees before me.

I don’t even know how he’s hearing any of her questions over the sound of his inner perv.

[Matthew says: And even when he’s not being a total perv, E L James finds other ways for him to sound inexplicably weird:

“I have a love of ships. What can I say?” They transport food around the planet.

And incredibly wooden.]

He also continues to jump to stupid conclusions about Ana based on nothing:

The girl is a mass of contradictions: shy, awkward, obviously bright [Note: He thinks she’s bright because she says that the painting in his office ‘raises the ordinary to extraordinary. Like the most bland observation ever is how he determined her level of intelligence.], and arousing as hell.

In what way are any of those contradictions? It would be like saying “all of these things are food” and then just naming the cast members of It’s Always Sunny.

And then we combine jumping to odd conclusions with his criticism of Ana’s fashion style, thus bringing everything full circle:

“You sound like the ultimate consumer.” Her voice is tinged with disapproval, pissing me off again.

“I am.”

She sounds like a rich kid who’s had all she ever wanted, but as I take a closer look at her clothes— she’s dressed in clothes from some cheap store like Old Navy or H&M – I know that isn’t it. She hasn’t grown up in an affluent household.

1) How does this sound like Ana’s a rich kid? 2) Why is Christian Grey talking about Old Navy and H&M?

[Matthew says: There’s actually one more weird thing that Christian does not once, but TWICE during this scene, and it’s… quoting “my favorite industrialist”, Andrew Carnegie. I shit you not, this happens twice, because the only way we could have understood Christian Grey better is knowing how often he thinks about Andrew Carnegie.]

After Ana finishes asking the bland and/or weird interview questions that we all know so well (like “are you gay?”), this convinces Christian that he simply must have her as his submissive. I guess ’cause she blushes and stutters every three seconds, he think’s it’s basically her destiny.

Speaking of the infamous “are you gay” question, Christian’s inner answer is extreme:

I cannot believe she’s said that out loud! Ironically, the question even my own family will not ask. How dare she! I have a sudden urge to drag her out of her seat, bend her over my knee, spank her, and then fuck her over my desk with her hands tied behind her back. That would answer her ridiculous question.

So would a simple, “No.” [Matthew says: Because a thing that we apparently have to do in best-selling novels in 2015 is not state that the main character isn’t gay, but state that he’s so not gay that he’d sexually assault the first woman who walked into his office who dared to wonder about it. ROMANCE.]

As the interview draws to a close, Christian tells his assistant to cancel his next meeting so he can keep talking to Ana.

I turn my attention back to the intriguing, frustrating creature on my couch.

I still don’t understand what she’s done that’s so intriguing or frustrating? She’s been so bland that if I hadn’t read a book in her point of view, i would have forgotten she was in the room. She just reads Kate’s questions off a piece of paper! And blushes! [Matthew says: The best part is that we can READ literally everything she’s actually doing, and read that the only frustrating parts are fantasies that he’s building entirely in his head. Like, it’s right there.]

So Christian starts asking Ana about herself, and the answers are so basic it hurts to read. All she says is that she’s trying to finish her finals and not sure what she’s doing after graduation. So sexy! So submissive!

Christian is concerned that she’s driving all the way home tonight:

I glance out the window. It’s one hell of a drive, and it’s raining. She shouldn’t be driving in this weather, but I can’t forbid her. The thought irritates me.

Everything irritates Christian. I’m fairly certain he doesn’t know any other feeling in the world. Isn’t it exhausting to be that annoyed all the time? I really hope at one point in this book, EL James just has Christian write down a list of things that don’t annoy him. I dare you to even try to name one thing, because I can’t.

During the whole meeting, Ana is just completely bland. We knew that from the first book, but because we were in her head we were supposed to be rooting for her. In this, it makes even less sense why Christian becomes fucking obsessed with her from this interview. Also, are we worried Ana has a skin condition? How the fuck can she blush so much?

[Matthew says: As Ana leaves his office and he puts her coat on her, we can also see just how incredibly/worryingly he reads into things.

I hold [her jacket] up for her, and as I pull it over her slim shoulders, I touch the skin at the base of her neck. She stills at the contact and pales.
Yes! She is affected by me.

Maybe because a strange, creepy man is touching her skin? Also, if you’re actually reading this book, I suggest you begin a drinking game where you drink every time Christian says “affect”. Or not, because you’ll be dead by the next chapter.]

The chapter ends with Christian ordering a background check on Ana, because he setting the bar extremely high for what romance means is these modern times.

So with our first Grey post being Ariel’s (and also being totally batshit, because this is a real book that exists), I didn’t have a chance to go into some preliminary stuff about Grey that, oh my goodness gracious, we really need to talk about. [Ariel says: I’m so sorry I skipped all that, there was just SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT. Fucking Grey!]

First, we have the copyright page. “Oh my God, Matthew’s really lost his touch,” you might be thinking. “The copyright page?” Oh, yes. I insist:

Portions of this book, including significant parts of the dialogue and e-mail exchanges, have previously appeared in the author’s prior works.

I love this, because E L James was legally required to indicate how little new content she actually wrote for this obvious cash-grab.

Then we have the dedication page, where E L James reminds us how many fucking people love her:

This book is dedicated to those readers who asked… and asked… and asked… and asked for this.

Then there’s the acknowledgments section – nope, we’re not getting to the chapter itself anytime soon – which has a few gems in it, either for being confoundingly weird:

Professor Chris Collins for an education in soil science.

Or for terrifying real-world implications:

Dr. Raina Sluder for her insights into behavioral health.

If this person is in any way, shape, or form a real doctor really involved in a real medical practice, they should really not have had their name mentioned in this book.

And finally that brings us to… the table of contents. Now, E L James attempted to at least sort of not publish the exact same book again, so we see that she tried to make it a little distinct by not going with numbered chapters, but dates:

This has the terrifying side effect of putting front and center how little time passes in this story. [Ariel says: Hey, I did cover this shit! I may not have mentioned how in her acknowledgements she thanks someone for helping her with American slang (even though she still manages to use phrases that are distinctly British. But damn it, I mentioned this.] No, the story isn’t the entire trilogy (just through the very beginning of the second original book), so at least there’s that, but that’s sort of like assuring someone that their house didn’t burn down, only the kitchen was on fire. I guess it’s realistic enough that two people could meet, strike up a relationship-like thing, and then break it off in a mere month. But if there are more books from Christian’s perspective to come, this is going to start looking freaky as hell once the exact same timeframe is used to take them from getting back together to getting married.

And last but not least, something that isn’t necessarily about Grey itself, but rather how writing Bad Books, Good Times has destroyed my Amazon recommendations.

I am probably on some kind of watch list.

And with that all out of the way, we go back into the story of Fifty Shades, as told by someone who has very little to add to the story as a whole. And today, we go to the hardware store.

Chapter 2: Saturday, May 14, 2011

You know the drill. It’s a scene from Fifty Shades you already know inside and out, but from Christian’s perspective, which means you still already know it inside and out, because this man has the emotional complexity of a packet of Splenda. This chapter covers the scene where Christian shows up at the hardware store Ana works at, barely rewritten. You could say the book is hardly trying.

Hahaha, I digress. Let’s go read on about how Ana gets Christian HARD- ok, groan now, but just wait until you see the actual chapter

The chapter kicks off (yes, finally, calm down) with Christian reviewing the background check he had performed on Anasatasia Steele, which is a real thing that really happened. Good times! To do this, E L James repeats her favorite trick of just putting down the document, which speaks for itself in a way James probably didn’t intend.

Social Security No:
987-65-4320
Bank:
Wells Fargo Bank, Vancouver, WA:
Acct. No.: 309361:
$683.16 balance

For a mad billionaire, you’d think Christian could hire somebody that could format a damn document. Why are there nine thousand colons in this thing?

Oh, yeah, also it’s terrifying that he just gets her social security number and bank account information, but, seriously, he could at least have some pride in how his stalkery information is presented.

Being an E L James novel, there are – of course – a lot of unintended gems. Like how Ana’s GPA is included for some reason.

GPA:
4.0

And how Ana’s mother (whom you might remember is this book’s irrefutable best character) looks like a shitshow on paper:

Carla May Wilks Adams,
DOB: July 18, 1970
m. Frank Lambert March 1, 1989,
widowed Sept. 11, 1989
m. Raymond Steele June 6, 1990,
divorced July 12, 2006
m. Stephen M. Morton Aug. 16, 2006,
divorced Jan. 31, 2007
m. Bob Adams April 6, 2009

And the report ends with even more information that I don’t entirely believe would necessarily be on a background check. Especially with the level of research Christian’s crack team was able to get.

Political Affiliations: None Found
Religious Affiliations: None Found
Sexual Orientation: Not Known

So if there’s any actual new angle to glean from reading this from Christian’s perspective it’s that… it’s much sadder. I’m being 100% serious. Not sad as in tragic, but sad like what an overwhelmingly pathetic person he is, which paints a pretty grim portrait of masculinity.

I pore over the executive summary for the hundredth time since I received it two days ago, looking for some insight into the enigmatic Miss Anastasia Rose Steele.

This is a very weird way to do it. Like, even for a psychopath stalker. “I see you have a 4.0 GPA, a few hundred dollars in savings, and your political affiliations are unknown. SPEAK TO ME WOMAN. WHY ARE YOU HIDING FROM ME?” [Ariel says: Christian is really really confused by what it means to be an enigma. Let this book be a lesson to all of you, if you have no personality just use it to your advantage and make people think you’re enigmatic. It’ll land you a billionaire!]

I cannot get the damned woman out of my mind, and it’s seriously beginning to piss me off.

One cool thing about seeing the story from Christian’s point of view is that we only see him think about Ana using words of anger. That’s healthy!

Christian explains that he’s traveled all the way to the mom-and-pop hardware store Ana works at, freaks out a bit that “I’ve never pursued a woman before”, and then continues to be super insecure and detached from reality.

Why no boyfriend, Miss Steele? Sexual orientation unknown— perhaps she’s gay. I snort, thinking that unlikely. I recall the question she asked during the interview, her acute embarrassment, the way her skin flushed a pale rose… I’ve been suffering from these lascivious thoughts since I met her.

1) Maybe she was acting that way because of all the unwanted physical contact from a man in a professional setting, and 2) “lascivious” means “offensively sexual”, which seems a bit off the mark for blushing.

[Ariel says: Yes! Why is Christian so suspicious of the fact that she doesn’t have a boyfriend? He immediately jumps to ‘lesbian’ as though ‘girlfriend’ wouldn’t have been listed on this background check if they were digging into personal relationships…somehow.]

GET A ROOM

I haven’t mentioned her to Flynn, and I’m glad because I’m now behaving like a stalker.

Pretty sure that behaving like a stalker and stalking aren’t mutually exclusive things.

I mainly shop online for my needs, but while I’m here, maybe I’ll stock up on a few items: Velcro, split rings— Yeah. I’ll find the delectable Miss Steele and have some fun.

The phrase “the delectable Miss Steele” appears three times in this chapter, because E L James ran out of ideas fast.

Absentmindedly, she wipes a crumb from the corner of her lips and into her mouth and sucks on her finger. My cock twitches in response.
What am I, fourteen?

You said it, book.

Also, this brings us to a super important thing that you should probably start bracing yourself for now. You know how in Fifty Shades, Ana kept referring to “my subconscious” and “my inner goddess” when E L James was trying to delve into her psyche? Guess what Christian’s version of that is in Grey?

Start drinking!

We move on from this incredibly nuanced take on the psyche of the decade’s most recognized romantic male icon (ie, it’s all about his dick), to see what’s going through his mind when he sets eyes upon Anastasia Steele again.

She’s dressed in a tight T-shirt and jeans, not the shapeless shit she was wearing earlier this week. She’s all long legs, narrow waist, and perfect tits.

Yep. It definitely required another 576-page novel to uncover the stunning revelation that when Christian gazes upon his beloved, his thoughts are “perfect tits”. [Ariel says: I was always unsure about the quality of Ana’s tits, but no longer do I have to live in the dark. I’m so glad I asked…and asked…and asked for this book!]

Ana begins taking Christian around the store as he gets some vaguely suggestive items, but only in a BDSM way, rather than in an actually suggestive way.

There was a time New Girl basically did this scene, but better.

But that’s not the weird part – plus we already know this scene from Fifty Shades. No, the weird and unsettling part that Grey brings to the table is, well, Grey, who can’t stop thinking sentences like…

You’d be amazed what I can do with a few cable ties, baby.

However groan-worthy you’re imaging this “baby” routine is right now, I assure you it gets worse:

“What else would you recommend?” I want to see her reaction.
“For a do-it-yourselfer?” she asks, surprised.
I want to hoot with laughter. Oh, baby, DIY is not my thing.

Grey offers us some other insights into Christian Grey that we would totally never have figured out otherwise, like that he’s insecure enough to zero in on the most insignificant attention from a woman:

Her pupils dilate as I stare. Yes!

That he’s casually misognyistic:

Women rarely make me laugh.

And that he’s incredibly possessive, even over this girl he’s known for about fifteen minutes:

We both turn as a young man dressed in casual designer gear appears at the far end of the aisle. […] Who the hell is this prick? […] She walks toward him, and the asshole engulfs her in a gorilla-like hug. […] Get your fucking paws off her.

I’ll admit, though, there is a part where Christian asked Ana about her interests that struck me as genuinely funny.

“What kind of books?”
“Oh, you know. The usual. The classics. British literature, mainly.”
British literature? The Brontës and Austen, I bet. All those romantic hearts-and-flowers types.
That’s not good.

Not his ridiculous leap to conclusions or, worse, the hypersimplification of the canon (English major rage, y’all). But I did get a chuckle out of Christian reacting to what a challenge it would be to bring a Victorian-era romantic into his BDSM lifestyle. But this actual brings up a point about a really weird, but entirely predictable, shortcoming of Grey. E L James doesn’t even try to make this book accessible to newcomers. Up through this point in the book, we haven’t actually had an explicit explanation from Christian about his sexual quirks, yet you might have noticed that all the quotes go a bit beyond implications anyway. As in, he is using actual terminology, but never brought up the topic, like he’s asking you what your favorite Chinese food is without mentioning he’s ordering takeout. Except it’s BDSM. It’s in this weird nether-region between trying to keep the information hidden but also right in the open, which means that this is a book that’s dependent on familiarity with the other books in the series. Not that anyone reading this book wouldn’t have that, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t any less tonally weird.

Christian rings up his purchases, frantically thinking of how to move things along in the limited time he has left. Ana casually mentions that Kate could use an original photo for the article, and Christian offers to do a photo shoot. And then thinks about how he’ll just get a hotel in Portland and work from the hotel in order to accommodate this. Which can only be construed as romantic because he’s rich enough to do this.

Christian decides to be a little less subtle, which he helpfully explains, otherwise we might not know that he’s being a little less subtle.

“Good. Until tomorrow, perhaps.” I can’t just leave. I have to let her know I’m interested. “Oh— and Anastasia, I’m glad Miss Kavanagh couldn’t do the interview.” She looks surprised and flattered.

And to leave you with one last, “But wait! It gets dumber!” quote, we have Christian explaining the depth of the emotions at play here in the driest way possible.

I’m affecting her. Like she’s affecting me.

See you for more Grey next week, because even though we’ve basically read this same story a ton of times on this blog by now, we haven’t read the exact same story yet.

On the days we write about Allegiant, our readership just plummets. All you people want is Grey!

Allegiant Chapter 45: Tris

Caleb is examining serums because when it comes down to it, isn’t this whole series just about serums of one sort or another? Tris reminds us it’s the last day of his life, so I’m going to remind you guys that it’s supposed to be the last day of his life because I’m a responsible blogger.

Right now Cara is spending some time with the people in the control room so she can spike their beverages with peace serum and shut off the lights in the compound while they’re too drunk to notice, just like Nita and Tobias did a few weeks ago.

Fuck’s sake…is the peace serum the one that made Tris really loopy at the Amity compound? I can’t keep these serums straight. And would these people really be so drunk (off the peace serum?) that they don’t notice when they’re suddenly engulfed in darkness?

Tris asks Matthew to leave her and Caleb alone, which is hilarious because this implies Matthew’s presence is actually worth noting. Caleb reminisces about when they used to play ‘Candor’ together:

“I keep thinking about when we were young and we played ‘Candor,’” he says. “How I used to sit you down in a chair in the living room and ask you questions? Remember?”

“Yes,” I say. I lean my hips into the lab table. “You used to find the pulse in my wrist and tell me that if I lied, you would be able to tell, because the Candor can always tell when other people are lying. It wasn’t very nice.”

Abnegation is literally so terrible even the children’s’ games are boring and awful. Do you think they were also playing ‘Amity’ and just discussing how to properly grow wheat and generally being very pleasant to one another?

Caleb laughs. “That one time, you confessed to stealing a book from the school library just as Mom came home—”

“And I had to go to the librarian and apologize!” I laugh too. “That librarian was awful. She always called everyone ‘young lady’ or ‘young man.’”

“Oh, she loved me, though. Did you know that when I was a library volunteer and was supposed to be shelving books during my lunch hour, I was really just standing in the aisles and reading? She caught me a few times and never said anything about it.”

Tris is surprised she never knew this about Caleb, and they agree it’s a shame they weren’t more honest with each other. So they decide to play Candor now, which is just them being honest with each other.

Tris admits that she wants to forgive him/thinks she does and isn’t sure if it’s only because he’s volunteered to die, and Caleb says he’s volunteered to die to redeem himself…which I thought we already were clear on?

Suddenly, an emergency lockdown, uh oh! This means the plan might have to be put into action quicker than planned. Which leads to some foreshadowing:

I cross the room and retrieve our guns from the counter, but itching at the back of my mind is what Tobias said yesterday—that the Abnegation say you should only let someone sacrifice himself for you if it’s the ultimate way for them to show they love you.

And for Caleb, that’s not what this is.

Well, it’s a good thing the factions are completely meaningless, I guess.

Allegiant Chapter 46: Tobias

Tobias confronts Peter about the fact that he didn’t inoculate himself from the truth serum. Tobias says he knows Peter wants the memory serum and that he wants to know why. For some reason, Peter would rather fight Tobias for it. Just why? But that’s basically my only reaction to the book at this point.

Oh, wait, the ‘why’ is just because it leads to a ~dramatic~ revelation that comes as about as much of a surprise as the fact that Caleb volunteered for the suicide mission out of guilt: 

“You are not special,” I say. “I like to hurt people too. I can make the cruelest choice. The difference is, sometimes I don’t, and you always do, and that makes you evil.”

I step over him and start down Michigan Avenue again. But before I take more than a few steps, I hear his voice.

“That’s why I want it,” he says, his voice shaking.”

[…]

“I want the serum because I’m sick of being this way,” he says. “I’m sick of doing bad things and liking it and then wondering what’s wrong with me. I want it to be over. I want to start again.”

YOU MEAN THE BAD CHARACTER THAT SUDDENLY STOPPED BEING BAD BUT WAS STILL MEANT TO BE A JERK WANTS TO FORGET BEING BAD?????? This is crazier than the time the guilty character wanted to do something noble to redeem himself!

This to me reeks of bullshit. Peter’s memories being taken away won’t change *him*, and if he’s aware enough of all of this, I have trouble believing he still enjoys being bad. He’s basically stopped being bad since they took him out of Chicago, so what the fuck is he on about at this point?

Tobias agrees to let Peter “reset” himself and they continue onwards to find Tobias’ mother.

I know, I know, it’s not Grey. We could all use a break from that. Already.

Chapter 47: Tris

Over on Tris’s side of the climax, her plan to sneakily take Caleb on his suicide mission to the weapons lab without anyone picking up on what’s going on hits a snag when someone picks up on what’s going on. Or rather, Matthew and Tris note that there’s a noticeable lack of something going on, and determine that something must have happened to Cara’s plan to shut off the lights. So they create their own mass chaos.

“You have a gun, don’t you?” I say. “Fire into the air.”
He hesitates.
“Do it,” I say through gritted teeth.
Matthew takes his gun out. I grab Caleb’s elbow and steer him down the hallway. Over my shoulder I watch Matthew lift the gun over his head and fire straight up, at one of the glass panels above him.

In the ensuing mayhem, Tris and Caleb run to the weapons lab, but get stopped by security officers, because it turns out it’s harder to break into a secure area when you’ve just fired a gun in a public location, amazingly enough.

I promise I’ll stop using this gif every week, but HONEST TO GOD, TRIS

As Tris and Caleb are stopped in the corridor, Tris realizes her plan to sacrifice her brother’s life might not work out so well. But for a couple different reasons, which we saw coming from like a whole dang book ago:

When I look at him, I don’t see the cowardly young man who sold me out to Jeanine Matthews, and I don’t hear the excuses he gave afterward.
When I look at him […] I see the brother who told me to make my own choices, the night before the Choosing Ceremony.
I don’t belong to Abnegation, or Dauntless, or even the Divergent. I don’t belong to the Bureau or the experiment or the fringe. I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me […]all I can hear in my mind, are the words I said to him a few days ago: I would never deliver you to your own execution.
“Caleb,” I say. “Give me the backpack.”

Tris and Caleb then proceed to have an entire goddamn conversation about this while the guards have their guns drawn on them, somehow.

the guard screams at the end of the hallway. “Put down your weapon or we will fire!”
“I might survive the death serum,” I say. “I’m good at fighting off serums. There’s a chance I’ll survive.”

Tris tricks the guards into thinking that Caleb is her hostage so he can get away.

“Caleb,” I say, “I love you.”
His eyes gleam with tears as he says, “I love you, too, Beatrice.”
“If I don’t survive,” I say, “tell Tobias I didn’t want to leave him.”
I back up, aiming over Caleb’s shoulder at one of the security guards. I inhale and steady my hand. I exhale and fire. I hear a pained yell, and sprint in the other direction with the sound of gunfire in my ears.

The saddest part of this is she definitely just deafened Caleb by firing the gun in his ear, so “Tell my boyfriend I didn’t want to leave him” is 100% the last thing Caleb will ever hear.

Tristhen runs off to blow up the door to the weapons lab (which she somehow has time to set up, run a safe distance from, and then run back to it while being chased by these two guards, who clearly don’t want to be here right now), as well as her heavily-foreshadowed death.

At the end of the hallway, the guards have caught up with me. They fire, and a bullet hits me in the fleshy part of my arm. […] Through the windows in those doors I see the Weapons Lab […] I hear a spraying sound and know that the death serum is floating through the air, but the guards are behind me, and I don’t have time to put on the suit that will delay its effects.
I also know, I just know, that I can survive this.

Chapter 48: Tobias

Meanwhile, on Tobias’s side of the climax, Tobias and Peter have successfully reached their destination by not firing a gun in a crowd of people.

“So what are we going to do, break a window? Look for a back door?”
“I’m just going to walk in,” I say. “I’m her son.”
“You also betrayed her and left the city when she forbade anyone from doing that,” he says, “and she sent people after you to stop you. People with guns.”
“You can stay here if you want,” I say.
“Where the serum goes, I go,” he says. “But if you get shot at, I’m going to grab it and run.”
“I don’t expect anything more.”
He is a strange sort of person.

Sure, Tobias. Nobody else in this book does things with vague motivations that don’t hold up under scrutiny. Only Peter is the weird one.

They enter and are immediately greeted with guns, but once they realize it’s Tobias, they go get Evelyn. Evelyn makes Peter wait outside, which he’s cool with since he doesn’t have any particular reason to be anywhere in this plot anyway.

Tobias fills in his mom on the Bureau’s plan to wipe of the memories of everyone in the city later in the night. Veronica Roth Evelyn has totally given up on any villainy, so she just accepts it immediately. Then things get weird.

I sit down across from her at the table and put the vial of memory serum between us.
“I came to make you drink this,” I say.

This… well, this is a plan. Maybe he’s thought of an insanely convincing reason in the last… not even an hour. Let’s hear him out.

“I thought it was the only way to prevent total destruction,” I say. “I know that Marcus and Johanna and their people are going to attack, and I know that you will dowhatever it takes to stop them, including using that death serum you possess to its best advantage.” I tilt my head. “Am I wrong?”

Ok, sure, but… we’re still going to get to the part where this will somehow also 1) stop Marcus from attacking, and 2) stop the Bureau from wiping everyone’s memory, right?

…right?

“The reason the factions were evil is because there was no way out of them,” I say. “They gave us the illusion of choice without actually giving us a choice.”

Oh, fuck, we’re talking about the meaning of the factions again.

To be fair, the conversation does mainly just cover Tobia’s and Evelyn’s fraught mother-son relationship, and the emotion in here is more real than anything we’ve read in actual hundreds of pages.

“If you thought that, why didn’t you tell me?” she says, her voice louder and her eyes avoiding mine, avoiding me. “Tell me, instead of betraying me?”
“Because I’m afraid of you!” […] “You . . . you remind me of him!”
“Don’t you dare.” She clenches her hands into fists and almost spits at me, “Don’t you dare.”

Of course, none of their conversation has anything to do with why it actually makes any sense for Evelyn to willingly wipe her memory forever, but you weren’t expecting reasons by this point, were you?

Anyway, Tobias has like nineteenth epiphany about the meaning of using this one memory wipe, so hopefully you weren’t too caught up on whatever the greater reason was for doing it last time.

But she is more than my mother. She is a person in her own right, and she does not belong to me.
I do not get to choose what she becomes just because I can’t deal with who she is.
“No,” I say. “No, I came to give you a choice.”

But hopefully you didn’t think this one would make sense either.

“I thought about going to see Marcus tonight, but I didn’t.” I swallow hard. “I came to see you instead because . . . because I think there’s a hope of reconciliation between us. Not now, not soon, but someday.”

As in after she’s permanently wiped her memory. So Tobias’s pitch her is that she can do something that won’t stop her husband’s violent coup against her rule, nor will prevent the Bureau from wiping everyone’s memory, but will offer the chance of reconciliation with her, after she has permanently forgotten who he is.

she reaches across the table and pulls me fiercely into her arms, which form a wire cage around me, surprisingly strong.
“Let them have the city and everything in it,”

Of course she does.

Oh my goodness, this is the best review of Grey. I mean, it’s not chapter by chapter or anything awesome like that, but is it a scathing and nasty review of this book? HELL YEAH. Apologies if any of you have already linked to this in the comments – I’m a bit behind on them, but am trying to catch up as quickly as possible!

Grey: Sunday, May 15, 2011

Ah, Sunday, May 15, 2011. An historic day, remembered for Christian’s photoshoot and Ana and Christian’s first date.

While on his morning jog, “blasting Moby” (HIS TASTE IS JUST SO ECLECTIC), Christian muses on the impact Ana has already had on him:

Since I’ve met her, my dreams have been a welcome change from the occasional nightmare. I wonder what Flynn would make of that. The thought is disconcerting, so I ignore it and concentrate on pushing my body to its limits along the bank of the Willamette.

I’m truly having trouble understanding which part of his thought process is disconcerting. Like 99% of Christian’s thoughts are actually disconcerting, and this is what he chooses to be alarmed by? It’s like going to McDonalds and only being concerned about what’s in the french fries.

After getting ready, Christian heads downstairs in his hotel to the room Kate and Ana have booked for the photoshoot. Where is this budget for the photoshoot coming from? I know that Jose is probably doing this pro bono for his friends, but Christian says, “Room 601 is crowded with people,” so who are all these other people? How did Kate set this all up with like no notice whatsoever?

Twice this chapter, Christian expresses his distaste for when a woman wears jeans because of their lack of convenience. Here’s the first instance:

She’s wearing tight jeans and chucks with a short-sleeved navy jacket and a white T-shirt beneath. Are jeans and chucks her signature look? While not very convenient, they do flatter her shapely legs.

Can you imagine how irritating it would be to have to wear skirts all the time just so Christian Grey wouldn’t have to waste his precious time taking your jeans off and instead could just lift up your skirt and dive right in? I know Christian is getting erections constantly when Ana’s around, but this makes it sound like he’ll just casually lift her skirt while they’re in public to satisfy himself.

Ana introduces Kate and Christian, and again he says nothing at all about knowing her father and just asks how she’s feeling. There’s also this,

She has a firm, confident handshake, and I doubt she’s ever faced a day of hardship in her privileged life. I wonder why these women are friends. They have nothing in common.

How would you be able to tell that from her hand/handshake? I’m sure Christian’s hands aren’t exactly calloused and representative of any hardships of his life. It’s not like he grew up a farmer, he was adopted into a wealthy family and has amassed an incredible fortune of his own. I’m also certain Ana hasn’t faced any real hardship in her life either come to think of it. Why would Christian assume he knows anything about Kate’s life let alone think he knows enough about her or Ana to cast judgement on their friendship.

Christian is then introduced to Jose, which sends him spiraling into a pit of insecurity and idiocy:

“This is José Rodriguez, our photographer,” Anastasia says, and her face lights up as she introduces him.

Shit. Is this the boyfriend?

Rodriguez blooms under Ana’s sweet smile.

Are they fucking?

I completely get that when you meet someone you’re interested in, and you don’t know whether or not they’re single, it’s going to be something you’re curious about. However, the question ‘are they fucking’ that’s prompted simply by the fact that Jose like returns Ana’s smile is absurd. In the words of Christian himself – steady, Grey. I don’t know why it cracks me up so much when Christian admonishes himself that way.

Christian and Jose exchange looks and introductions that are full of challenge and machismo! Then the photoshoot actually starts, and Christian makes more unfounded assumptions about Ana and Kate’s friendship:

Does she always shy away like this? Maybe that’s why she and Kavanagh are friends; she’s content to be in the background and let Katherine take center stage.

Or maybe they make each other laugh and support one another in all their endeavours? IDK seems possible. It’s also absolutely hilarious that Christian would be concerned about Ana and Kate having nothing in common when one could very easily point the same question at him and Ana.

As the photoshoot comes to an end, Christian thinks, “Seize the day, Grey,” and goes to ask Ana to walk him out. Christian thinks Ana is trying to turn him down when he invites her out for coffee and she says that she has to drive everyone home. STEADY, GREY!!!! She actually just offers to switch cars with Kate, which makes me wonder why she had to drive everyone home if they could all fit into one car anyway and Kate had driven as well?

What the hell am I going to say to her?

“How would you like to be my submissive?”

No. Steady, Grey. Let’s take this one stage at a time. 

Christian also frets when Ana takes more than thirty seconds to swap cars with Kate:

How long is Anastasia going to be? I check my watch. She must be negotiating the car swap with Katherine. Or she’s talking to Rodriguez, explaining that she’s just going for coffee to placate me and keep me sweet for the article. My thoughts darken. Maybe she’s kissing him good-bye.

Damn.

She emerges a moment later, and I’m pleased. She doesn’t look like she’s just been kissed.

Oh my god, she was gone for two full minutes, maybe she was being impregnated by Jose! Maybe they closed on a property together! No, steady, Grey.

Christian, still concerned about Ana’s friendship with Kate for some reason (“specifically their compatibility”) asks Ana about their friendship. Ana just says they’ve known each other since their freshman year and they’re good friends, and that seems to be enough to satisfy Christian for some reason. He didn’t even ask if they get their periods together! He’s more concerned about the fact that when he takes Ana’s hand it’s “cool and not clammy as expected” so she must not be into him if her hands aren’t clammy!

At the cafe, Christian continues his quest to be the most miserable human on the planet.

I have to wait in line while the two matronly women behind the counter exchange inane pleasantries with all their customers. It’s frustrating and keeping me from my objective: Anastasia.

HOW DARE THOSE TWO UGLY, MATRONLY WOMEN EXIST IN THIS WORLD WITH THEIR UGLINESS AND TRY TO MAKE THEIR CUSTOMERS HAPPY!!!!

“You visiting Portland?”

“Yes.”

“The weekend?”

“Yes.”

“The weather sure has picked up today.”

“Yes.”

“I hope you get out to enjoy some sunshine.”

Please stop talking to me and hurry the fuck up.

“Yes,” I hiss through my teeth and glance over at Ana, who quickly looks away.

Is this scene meant to play for laughs? It totally does, but I don’t think for the intended reasons. I’m not like, “Oh ho ho, that Christian is so grumpy and loveable with his hatred of inane pleasantries.” I’m more on the side of laughing at what a douchebag he really and truly is.

“Pay at the register, honey, and you have a nice day, now.”

I manage a cordial response. “Thank you.”

Oh, yeah, what a real struggle to respond kindly to someone that had a brief and very nice encounter with you.

If you were thinking to you yourself, for some reason, that Christian’s innermost thoughts couldn’t get any weirder, think again.

“This is my favorite tea,” she says, and I revise my mental note that it’s Twinings English Breakfast tea she likes. I watch her dunk the teabag in the teapot. It’s an elaborate and messy spectacle.

She fishes it out almost immediately and places the used teabag on her saucer. My mouth is twitching with my amusement.

As she tells me she likes her tea weak and black, for a moment I think she’s describing what she likes in a man.

Let’s set aside the fact that Ana’s weird way of preparing tea doesn’t seem at all messy or elaborate. Instead, let’s focus on Christian’s…attempt at a joke? Racist outburst? Desperate cry for help? How to we even find the words to talk about what has just happened here today. 1) Why would he even for a second think that Ana is talking about what she likes in a man when she has fucking said, “I like my tea weak and black.” 2) If that is meant to be a joke, a terrible, lazy attempt at a joke, it’s not even delivered correctly. It would have to be, “Is that also how she likes her men?” If you’re going to fall back on this kind of thing, at least do it in a way that makes sense. 3) Why would Ana out of nowhere be like, “I like my men weak and black. Just like my tea.”

Get a grip, Grey. She’s talking about tea.

Okay, so Christian’s inner…Christian doesn’t even get this line of thought. Which means that a part of Christian, for a moment, was actually terrified that he wasn’t Ana’s type because she likes weak, black men? Again, there was no ambiguity whatsoever in what Ana was referring to when she said, “I like my tea weak and black.”

Christian prods Ana about whether she’s dating Jose or Paul (which he’d already asked her at the hardware store) and about her family. Even though he had the background check done, he has to pretend he doesn’t know anything about her family like all good stalkers know!

Ana continues to frustrate and annoy Christian by doing things like making it hard for him to know if she’s interested and laughing (IS IT AT ME OR WITH ME? GET A GRIP, GREY!)

What I’ve come to quickly realize, is that Christian is just every awful contestant from the Bachelorette rolled into one, ginormous douche machine. He’s obsessed with Ana one second, but that as soon as he isn’t confident about her interest in him, he starts finding ridiculous reasons to put the kibosh on this.

Seriously, if you’re not watching this season of the Bachelorette, you’re missing out on so much laughter. It brings me endless joy.

“Do you always wear jeans?” I ask.

“Mostly,” she says, and it’s two strikes against her: incurable romantic who only wears jeans… I like my women in skirts. I like them accessible.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asks out of the blue, and it’s the third strike. I’m out of this fledgling deal. She wants romance, and I can’t offer her that.

“No, Anastasia. I don’t do the girlfriend thing.” Stricken with a frown, she turns abruptly and stumbles into the road.

First of all, there’s the second reference to Christian hating when women wear jeans because of a lack of accessibility. Still ew.

Second, why is it okay that Christian keeps asking Ana if every guy that smiles in her general direction is her boyfriend but when she asks if he has a girlfriend his reaction is to say it’s a deal breaker. I know Christian is famous for his overreactions, but this one seemed particularly absurd.

Ana, stricken at Christian’s shocking revelation, falls into oncoming traffic. Luckily, Christian saves her just in time to tell her he’s not the man for her. Man, I wonder if these two crazy kids will ever make it work.

I end this post with another ridiculous gif from this season of The Bachelorette that I couldn’t find another place for:

You guys gotta check out #AskELJames hashtag on twitter. It is gloriously on point. Mara Wilson retweed some good ones.
In other news, I’ve been traveling the last couple days and only have my tablet with me, which I haven’t figured out how to include gifs in posts from yet. So every couple paragraphs, just imagine there’s a gif of someone going “What the fuck?” or “Really?” or looking utterly and unyieldingly despondent. That should complete the experience that is reading E L James’s Grey.

Grey: Thursday, May 19, 2011

Christian wakes up from a nightmare, the contents of which we aren’t given, because nothing says “parallel novel that gets you in the other main character’s head” like “except for things that take place in his head”.

No! My scream bounces off the bedroom walls and wakes me from my nightmare. I’m smothered in sweat, with the stench of stale beer, cigarettes, and poverty in my nostrils and a lingering dread of drunken violence.

Yep, I definitely understand Christian better now with this secondhand account of something he experienced. Definitely couldn’t have gotten that out of the three other books of secondhand accounts of what Christian’s experienced. For instance, now I know that he can wake up from dreams spelling abstract concepts.

[I] catch sight of myself, dressed only in pajama pants, reflected in the glass wall at the other side of the room. I turn away in disgust.

Oh no! POOR CHRISTIAN! If he only didn’t struggle so with his FEELINGS.
As a reminder, that’s how we’re probably supposed to be reacting to this book, because otherwise it literally wouldn’t exist.

She wanted you.
And you turned her down.
It was for her own good. […]
If my shrink was back from his vacation in England I could call him. His psychobabble shit would stop me feeling this lousy.

I hate to sound like a broken record here (although this clearly isn’t a concern of the Fifty Shades series, so whatever), but these are definitely things that Christian has said outright in the other books. By and large, we’re simply not seeing any new sides of his character. Even worse, his already shallow character is severely undercut when we do:

I contemplate calling Elena in the morning. She always finds suitable candidates for me.

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. So you’re telling me that Christian Grey, the womanizing BDSM fetishist hunk, doesn’t even get his own sexual partners? Even if we ignore how fucking weird it is that he has to get his ex to find women willing to sleep with him on his behalf (which is so fucking weird it doesn’t even require further analysis), are we supposed to conclude that Christian Grey has NEVER talked to a woman in pursuit of a sexual relationship? I’m pretty sure we are… which means that this decade’s most infamous literary romantic male figure has only ever slept with women because he got someone to pimp him out.
Let that sink in for a second, because this is astoundingly sad.
Keep in mind this type of failure of E L James to recognize when she’s fleshing out Christian as either romantically determined or pathetically desperate, because we’re about to hit a big (for this uneventful series) “romantic” moment that looks very different from Christian’s point of view.

The program on the radio [is] about the sale of a rare manuscript: and unfinished novel by Jane Austen called The Watsons […]
“Books,” she said […] She’s an incurable romantic who loves the English classics. But then so do I, but for different reasons.

“Different reasons” means “written by men” in five… four… three…

I don’t have any Jane Austen first editions, or Brontes, for that matter… but I do have two Thomas Hardys.
Of course! This is it!

As we know from Fifty Shades of Grey, Christian prepares an insanely privileged, over-the-top gift of a first edition book to wow Ana with the size of his penis bank account. As we also know from Fifty Shades of Grey, E L James has no flair for subtlety.

I’m in my library with Jude the Obscure and a boxed set of Tess of the d’Urbervilles […] Both are bleak books, with tragic themes. Hardy had a dark, twisted soul.
Like me.

Christian opts for Tess even though “it’s not the most romantic book” because “she has a brief taste of romantic love in the bucolic idyll that is the English countryside”, which are certainly rather fancy words for Fifty Shades. He picks out a quote on the way to the office, where we get one of our constant reminders that Christian treats women like shit:

The young receptionist greets me with a flirtatious wave.
Every day… Like a cheesy tune on repeat.
Ignoring her, I make my way to the elevator that will take me straight to my floor.
“Good morning, Mr. Grey,” Barry on security greets me as he presses the button to summon the elevator.
“How’s your son, Barry?”
“Better, sir.”

So not only is this primarily insanely boring and it’s not clear why any of this seriously needs to be in the story, but the only thing it does add to the story is another reminder that Christian Grey is deeply misogynistic. What exactly is the difference between these two male and female employees greeting him? Both are just greeting him, and the woman gets nothing but derision while the man gets concern for his son. Are we supposed to find Christian Grey… more attractive? What are we supposed to get out of this?
And of course, it doesn’t end.

I notice that Olivia is absent. It’s a relief. The girl is always mooning over me and it’s fucking irritating.
“Would you like milk, sir?” Andrea asks.
Good girl. I give her a smile.

HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT? Again, how are any of Christian’s employees actually behaving differently? They’re all just saying hi or getting Christian coffee.

“Not today.” I do like to keep them guessing how I take my coffee.

Well, now this just sounds inefficient.
Now, to be reasonable, I’m sure that a lot of this exists to see how Christian runs his super successful business, which I guess could be a serious draw to fans of the series who want to know more about Christian. That makes sense (at least as much as it’s going to). But, like most of Fifty Shades, it doesn’t work so well once it’s on paper.

“We’re getting clearance from the Sudanese authorities to put the shipments into Port Sudan. But our contacts on the ground are hesitant about the road journey to Darfur. They’re doing a risk assessment to see how viable it is.” Logistics must be tough; her normal sunny disposition is absent.
“We could always air-drop.”
“Christian, the expense of an airdrop-”
“I know. Let’s see what our NGO friends come back with.”
“Okay,” she says and sighs. “I’m also waiting for the all-clear from the State Department.”
I roll my eyes. Fucking red tape. “If we have to grease some palms – or get Senator Blandino to intervene – let me know.”

What are we supposed to get from this scene? Are we supposed to think that he’s a better… person? Businessman? Are we supposed to be charmed by this revelation that his business practices involve bribing politicians – when the corrupt ones already on his payroll aren’t sufficient? Sure, it’s nice that he’s doing so to support impoverished countries and apparently thinking of the bottom line second, but this seems like a road to hell paved with good intentions kind of thing. I wonder how many other meetings he has today.
During the meeting, Christian gets a call about Ana’s schedule from his enabler private detective. He learns that Ana’s last exam is tomorrow, so he prepares his decreasingly romantic gift.

I slip the card into the envelope provided and on it write Ana’s sentence, which is ingrained in my memory from Welch’s background check.

So, sure, from Christian’s side of the story, it’s kind of nice learning that this is a more personal gift than we originally thought – these are books from his own collection. Right?
Nooooope.

“They have to arrive by tomorrow at the latest.”
“Yes, sir. Will that be all?”
“No. Find me a set of replacements.”
“For these books?”
“Yes. First editions.”

Oh, okay, cool. The very existence of Grey promises that it will manage to find ways to make the source material even less romantic, and showing Christian selflessly give these books to Ana and then immediately work on replacing his copies of them sort of undercuts any romance. Or significance of what the gift means to him. Or just any kind of meaning whatsoever, really.

Can I just leave it at the title of this post?

Allegiant Chapter 49: Tris

The death serum smells like smoke and spice.

What kind of death serum even is this, it sounds like a burnt curry serum. Did a chef design it? Also, I love how ‘spice’ is just the most generic thing I’ve ever read. It could literally smell like any fucking spice, right?

Tris is about to die, but she thinks about everyone she has to live for, and fights against the death serum like she’s fought against no serum before. She survives and makes her way into the weapons room only to find David waiting for her there.

Allegiant Chapter 50: TRIS’ LAST CHAPTER

Tris enlightens us about the capabilities of people in wheelchairs:

“How did you inoculate yourself against the death serum?” he asks me. He’s still sitting in his wheelchair, but you don’t need to be able to walk to fire a gun.

Thank you for that, Tris. I’ll always remember you as the person that informed me that even if you can’t walk, you can still fire a gun with your hands.

David says Tris had to have inoculated herself against the death serum, and he’s the only one who has access to that. Tris is like, “Haven’t you been reading this series like every other person who wanted to fill the void The Hunger Games left? I can resist all serums. It’s my one thing.”

David tells Tris that he figured out something was going on because “[she’s] been running around with genetically damaged people all week.” Um, she’s been with these people since she fucking arrived, dude. He also says Cara was caught trying to manipulate the lights but knocked herself out before she could reveal anything.

Being a practical person, David for some reason inoculated himself against the death serum and waiting inside the weapons room with a…spare gun? Why not just send loads of guards OUTSIDE the room? Like why bother inoculating yourself against the death serum especially if you thought it was impossible for anyone else to survive it?

David finishes his contractually obligated villain speech by saying he has to kill Tris. Bet she’s feeling sad about the time she saved his life, huh?

Tris also realizes that David doesn’t quite understand what Tris wants to do.

He thinks I’m here to steal the weapons that will reset the experiments, not deploy one of them. Of course he does.

I understand David’s perceived motivation about as much as I understand Tris’ real motive.

Tris takes the time to accuse David of being the reason her mother died…and also accuse him of being in love with her mother.

“Did you love her?” I say. “All those years she was sending you correspondence . . . the reason you never wanted her to stay there . . . the reason you told her you couldn’t read her updates anymore, after she married my father . . .”

David sits still, like a statue, like a man of stone.

“I did,” he says. “But that time is past.”

That must be why he welcomed me into his circle of trust, why he gave me so many opportunities. Because I am a piece of her, wearing her hair and speaking with her voice. Because he has spent his life grasping at her and coming up with nothing.

I can’t wait till you die and stop explaining every god damn thing to me.

Also, can we just talk about how THIS ADDS NOTHING TO THE STORY. It’s just an excuse for Tris to start her contractually obligated hero’s speech:

“My mother wasn’t a fool,” I say. “She just understood something you didn’t. That it’s not sacrifice if it’s someone else’s life you’re giving away, it’s just evil.”

I back up another step and say, “She taught me all about real sacrifice. That it should be done from love, not misplaced disgust for another person’s genetics. That it should be done from necessity, not without exhausting all other options. That it should be done for people who need your strength because they don’t have enough of their own. That’s why I need to stop you from ‘sacrificing’ all those people and their memories. Why I need to rid the world of you once and for all.”

Tris lunges towards the device with the memory serum. Somehow, even though he is in a wheelchair, David starts shooting Tris. Holy shit, I almost forgot he could do that! Anyway, Tris manages to punch the code in and unleash the serum…and then her mother steps out from behind David. I guess we’re meant to think for a second her mother has been alive this whole time, but the truth quickly comes out:

“Am I done yet?” I say, and I’m not sure if I actually say it or if I just think it and she hears it.

“Yes,” she says, her eyes bright with tears. “My dear child, you’ve done so well.”

“What about the others?” I choke on a sob as the image of Tobias comes into my mind, of how dark and how still his eyes were, how strong and warm his hand was, when we first stood face-to-face. “Tobias, Caleb, my friends?”

“They’ll care for each other,” she says. “That’s what people do.”

Tris hugs her mom, and, uh, I guess they go to heaven together? Farewell, Tris, you died as you lived, fucking around with serums.

How do you all feel about Tris’ death? I’m personally so checked out of these books that I’m just happy to have ticked off two more chapters.

So now we can all speculate wildly over whether the only reason this is the only book in the series to be told from Tris and Tobias’s perspective is because there needed to be a way to tell the denouement after Tris died.
Fun fact: I’m actually writing this post in O’Hare! Where most of this book took place. My flight has been delayed two hours. I’m already feeling more emotions than this book gave me.

Allegiant: Chapter 51

Tobias and Evelyn walk to a rendezvous point to meet Marcus and Johanna and negotiate peace, while Tobias reflects on the events about to transpire.

I guess Tris was right – when you have to choose between two bad options, you pick the one that saves the people you love.

Funny you should say that, Tobias.
But first Tobias meets with Peter, who is still in this novel expressely so that he can forget about being in this novel, which I can only knock so much.

[I] hold up the vial of memory serum. “Are you still set on this?”
He nods.
“You could just do the work, you know,” I say. “You could make better decisions, make a better life.”
“Yeah, I could,” he says. “But I won’t. We both know that.”

This also works as a metaphor for how this book’s plot could have been better.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, not that this is close to a concern of the book’s, Tobias takes a moment to explain what this means, as though it’s that fucking complicated.

I know that change is difficult. […] He is afraid that he will not be able to put in that work

We know! Know how we know? Because we just fucking read that. Allegiant isn’t even overexplaining anymore – it’s doubting its audience has any reading comprehension.
Peter wipes his mind, asking Tobias to remind him of nothing of his past life, and the moment happens with an immense lack of meaning.

“Okay. Well… here goes.” He lifts the vial up to the light like he is toasting me.
When he touches it to his mouth, I say, “Be brave.”
Then he swallows.
And I watch Peter disappear.

This feels like a “if a tree fell in a forest, but hasn’t played a substantial role in the plot since the middle of the previous book, does it make a sound” kind of thing.

“Hey! Peter!” I shout […]
Peter stands by the doorway to Erudite headquarters, looking clueless. At the sound of his name – which I have told him at least ten times since he drank the serum – he raises his eyebrows, pointing to his chest.

This is a pretty satisfying conclusion to the character so fucked up he stabbed someone in the eye with a butter knife, then arbitrarily decided to save Tris’s life, then puttered around O’Hare for a while.
Evelyn proposes that she’ll step down, surrender the city and her weapons, and leave the city forever, and in return the city will vote on a new leader and a new social system, and Marcus is ineligible.

Marcus laughs. I’m not sure if it’s a mocking laugh or a disbelieving one. He’s equally capable of either sentiment

Well, they’re completely different things, so that’s kind of like saying “I’m equally capable of eating ice cream or eating asparagus. AREN’T I A MERCURIAL BEING?”

“No deal,” Marcus says. “I am the leader of these people.”

Then Johanna points out that he isn’t and agrees to the treaty, and… that’s it. This part of the story, which was the entirety of the first two books, is apparently over. I’ve had subway rides that had a more satisfying climax than this.
Tobias then meets up with Uriah’s family, and explain what happened to their son, as well as his tenuous role in it. They say they need some time to think about it. So, yeah, this is also a really exciting and totally thought-through part of the conclusion.
Tobias and the others then return to the Bureau. Tobias briefly feels relief that the plan worked, “because there is no one in sight”, although presumably the lack of airplanes gassing the entirety of Chicago might also have been something of a giveaway. Cara then meets them to tell them the bad news.

I realize: Of course Tris would go into the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb.

The chapter doesn’t quite end with “And then I… have… flashbacks…”, but it’s pretty close to it.

Chapter 52

When her body first hit the net, all that registered was a gray blur. I pulled her across it and her hand was small, but warm, and then she stood before me, short and thin and plain and in all ways unremarkable – except that she had jumped first. The Stiff had jumped first.
Even I didn’t jump first.

This is the entire chapter, save for another two sentences, because I guess everything in the book requires an unending analysis of the events going on, save for the narrator’s girlfriend’s death.

Her eyes were so stern, so insistent.
Beautiful.

This is just to say
I have eaten
The plums
That were in
The icebox

Chapter 53

This is followed by another tiny, tiny, tiny chapter, for some reason.

But that wasn’t the first time I ever saw her. I saw her in the hallways at school, and at my mother’s false funeral, and walking the sidewalks in the Abnegation sector. I saw her, but I didn’t see her; no one saw her the way she truly was until she jumped.
I suppose a fire that burns that bright is not meant to last.

That’s the chapter in its entirety. I’m not saying it’s inherently stupid to suddenly do a series of super short chapters – I almost like these two chapters, if only the prose in this book were any more bearable – but I’m not sure what we got out of these? Tobias thought Tris was cool, but didn’t notice her at first? This is the sort of revelation he has about his time with her in the immediate wake of her death?

Chapter 54

Tobias and the others go see Tris’s body, and Tobias narrates something actually relevant to how she just died, which technically only took three chapters.

I don’t know how long it takes for me to realize that [she] isn’t going to [wake up], that she is gone. But when I do I feel all the strength go out of me, and I fall to my knees beside the table and I think I cry, then, or at least I want to, and everything inside me screams for just one more kiss, one more word, one more glance, one more.

Honestly, I kinda liked this one. There’s some actual emotion in this one, unlike the other two chapters. Although I guess we all grieve in different ways, so maybe I’m being harsh? I don’t know. Maybe the problem is that Tris’s death was so insanely overshadowed over the last two books that I feel like I already had to process any emotions I had over it?
Or maybe the fact that next week is finally our last week of Divergent is completely overshadowing my feelings at the moment, which are something like, “Thank God, finally.“

Grey: Friday, May 20, 2011

Christian explains that the over-the-top gift he sent Ana was meant to be a way to achieve closure. Why you need closure for a flirtation that totalled about an hour’s worth of time is beyond me. Why you would send your brief flirting friend rare and expensive first-edition copies of her favourite books as a way to achieve the unnecessary closure is even farther beyond me.

Christian’s inner fucktard picks up the slack for me, though:

Maybe I’m feeling the closure I had hoped for, now that I’ve sent those books to Anastasia. As I shave, the asshole in the mirror stares back at me with cool, gray eyes.

Christian, stop doing my job for me and quit calling yourself an asshole.

Liar.

Fuck.

Okay. Okay. I’m hoping she’ll call. She has my number.

You mean the gift wasn’t really about achieving closure! Did not see that coming.

Elliot makes his first appearance in the book, and we get to experience him through Christian’s eyes this time. What new insights –

“Dude. I need to get out of Seattle this weekend. This chick is all over my junk and I need to get away.”

“Your junk?”

“Yeah. You would know if you had any.”

For a second there I thought he was going to go all Maddox bro on us and start talking about ‘bagging’ chicks. I think writers like EL James and Jamie McGuire do a disservice to bros by making them so interchangeable, without an ounce of nuance. It’s like they’re not even trying to write insightful, thoughtful bros. Which is why today I’m taking a stand against this kind of shameful stereotyping.

Now, these authors are only focussed on bros from America, so I believe it is my duty to start the fight in that great nation before this cause can spread its wings and fly around the world, helping bros everywhere fight against these harmful and embarrassing depictions. Will you join me to fight to write better bros for a better America?

Christian continues the conversation in a way that can easily be interpreted as malicious:

I ignore his jibe, and then a devious thought occurs to me. “How about hiking around Portland. We could go this afternoon. Stay down there. Come home Sunday.”

This sounds like Christian is plotting to murder his brother on a hiking trip. The fact that Christian never follows up and explains exactly why this thought is devious only furthers my suspicions. This goes against everything that Writing Better Bros for a Better America stands for. You can’t just try to kill these guys off to avoid writing about them.

That does give me an idea, though, maybe I should just go all Pride and Prejudice and Zombies all over this mother and just insert Christian’s various plots to murder Elliot into the mix.

Christian calls people and bosses them around, telling them to deliver mountain bikes, his helicopter, and cars to the hotel.

I end the call and turn up the music. Let’s see if Elliot can sleep through The Verve.

You should let him sleep. It’s one of his last peaceful moments. 

Fuck! Steady, Grey. 

This seems like it has more to do with the volume than what music they’re listening to. I’m pretty sure you would wake someone up even if you put Enya on at full blast, which I do. There’s nothing wrong with that. [Matthew says: I also love that in E L James-land, the band that wrote “Bittersweet Symphony” is the hardcore one.]

“Hey, man, where we at?” Elliot blurts.

Shit. He’s awake. He better not make references to my junk again. At least I won’t have to put up with it much longer.

“Behold, he wakes,” I mutter.

“We’re nearly there. We’re going mountain biking.”

“We are?”

“Yes.”

“Cool. Remember when Dad used to take us?”

“Yep.” I shake my head at the memory, knowing that with Elliot out of the picture, I’ll be free to go mountain biking with our father in peace. Laters, baby. 

As Christian continues to plot Elliot’s demise, he also checks in on both his dick and his business, which I guess could easily serve as stand-ins for one another?

“Man, I’m a love-’ em-and-leave-’ em type. You know that. No strings. I don’t know, chicks find out you run your own business and they start getting crazy ideas.” He gives me a sideways look. “You’ve got the right idea keeping your dick to yourself.”

[…]

Beneath his somewhat casual exterior my brother is an eco-warrior. His passion for sustainable living makes for some heated Sunday dinner conversations with the family, and his latest project is an eco-friendly development of low-cost housing north of Seattle.

“I’m hoping to install that new gray-water system I was telling you about. It will mean all the homes will reduce their water usage and their bills by twenty-five percent.”

From this juxtaposition, are we meant to glean that Elliot is more than just a bro – he’s a bro that cares about the environment? Nice try, but you’ll have to do better than that, James. [Matthew says: Things this book is about 1) dudes’ junk and 2) environmental sustainability]

Despite his best efforts, Christian is unable to finish off Elliot:

Keeping up with Elliot is a challenge. He tears down the trail with the same devil-may-fucking-care attitude he applies to most situations. Elliot knows no fear— it’s why I admire him.

It’s also why I need to kill him.

But Elliot’s speedy biking skills save his life in the end. So they celebrate that night by watching the Mariners game [Matthew says: Which Christian’s inner dialogue provides us with a helpful “Go Mariners!”, in case you couldn’t piece together why he might be watching a Mariners game.]…when Christian gets a familiar call from Ana. A drunken Ana asks why Christian sent her those books, and instead of answering her reasonable question, he frantically tries to find out where she is BECAUSE SHE MUST BE IN DANGER.

Which bar? Tell me. Anxiety blooms in my gut. Shes a young woman, drunk, somewhere in Portland. She’s not safe.

Like Ana specifically isn’t safe, or each and every drunk woman in a bar out there in the world? Or is the issue with Portland?

Christian calls one of his guys to track Ana’s phone, even though he’s very clear on the fact that this is completely illegal. In fact, he’s so clear on this that he decides to call one of his guys who is unconnected to his business.

I decide if I should call Barney or Welch. Barney is the most senior engineer in the telecommunications division of my company. He’s a tech genius. But what I want is not strictly legal.

Best to keep this away from my company.

I speed-dial Welch and within seconds his rasping voice answers.

“Mr. Grey?”

“I’d really like to know where Anastasia Steele is right now.”

“I see.” He pauses for a moment. “Leave it to me, Mr. Grey.”

I know this is outside the law, but she could be getting herself into trouble.

Literally nothing about his conversation with Ana gave the impression that danger was lurking around every corner. There are very few situations in which I’d want someone I just met to break the law to track me down. One of the only situations would be if I’d called them about some sort of Texas Chainsaw Massacre situation and as soon as the call ended I was captured by psychos again and in breaking the law and tracking me down, this person was actually a hero and not just another psycho.

And what about that Welch guy, huh? I know that money can allegedly buy you anything, but when Christian calls to make creepy requests like this, do you think he’s just like, “Yup, sounds legit. He’s being a hero!” Or if he’s like us and is immediately concerned for Ana’s safety. I seriously question your moral compass, Welch!

As soon as Christian finds out where Ana is, he and Elliot rush to the bar in question. There, Christian finds Kate and continues to be a dick about their friendship. He can’t seem to fathom that Kate is talking to other friends and says Ana went out to get some fresh air. WHAT A BITCH YOU ARE, KATE. To make matters worse, she SMILES at Elliot. Can you believe that? They smile at each other!

Christian heads outside to find Ana:

Hell! She’s with the photographer, I think, though it’s difficult to tell in the dim light. She’s in his arms, but she seems to be twisting away from him. He mutters something to her, which I don’t hear, and kisses her, along her jaw.

I guess Hell! Is Christian’s manlier version of Holy crap! 

This of course leads to one of everyone’s favourite scenes, this time, from Christian’s creepy perspective!

“Grey,” [Jose] says, his voice terse, and it takes every ounce of my self-control not to smash the disappointment off his face.

Ana heaves, then buckles over and vomits on the ground.

Oh, shit!

“Ugh— Dios mío, Ana!” José leaps out of the way in disgust.

Fucking idiot.

To be fair, Christian’s got a point here. This one line just paints Jose in the worst light possible. [Matthew says: Just ignore the light that everything previously printed in this chapter paints Christian in.]

Ignoring him, I grab her hair and hold it out of the way as she continues to throw up everything she’s had this evening. It’s with some annoyance that I note she doesn’t appear to have eaten.

Oh my god…is he actually inspecting her vomit to see what she’s eaten and then getting annoyed when it’s not full of nasty food-chunks? Is that what is happening in this moment? I have to say, to the critics out there who said Grey added nothing to this series, we have this moment. Cherish it.

The rest of the chapter proceeds in equally creepy fashion. Christian keeps telling us how Ana is starting to smell worse and worse as he takes her back to the hotel. Even though he was frightened for her safety, he doesn’t ask her friend to get her home safe and sound to their shared apartment. Instead, Christian, barely Ana’s acquaintance, takes her back to his hotel and undresses her to put her to bed. I always found it weird in the other book, but because it was Ana’s point of view and she was into it, I was like, uh okay. BUT IT IS SO MUCH WORSE FROM CHRISTIAN’S PERSPECTIVE.

She mumbles something incoherent and I know she’s still conscious. I know I should take her home, but it’s a long drive to Vancouver, and I don’t know if she’ll be sick again. I don’t relish the idea of my Audi reeking of vomit. The smell emanating from her clothes is already noticeable.

I head to The Heathman, telling myself that I’m doing this for her sake.

Yeah, tell yourself that, Grey.

Not even Christian believes his own bullshit.

While Ana is asleep, Christian texts Taylor each piece of clothing he needs for Ana, sizes and all. Down to her bra size. Yikes. [Matthew says: Technically he sends Taylor an “estimated bra size”, which I think was supposed to make us feel a little better about this, but kind of is a lot worse when you think about it, since he had to spend a fair amount of time just staring at her chest to make that estimate.]

Christian texts Elliot to see if he’s still with Kate and to let her know Ana’s with him. I guess we’re supposed to be like, “Oh, so thoughtful.” But if Elliot wasn’t with Kate, I feel like Christian would have been like, “Whatever, she’s a bitch anyway.”

Guess who’s moved to a new apartment and has internet again! Guess whose roommates let him name the wireless network!

It was me!

Grey: Saturday, May 21, 2011

Previously, Christian Grey kidnapped a drunk Ana, took her to his hotel room, and stripped her clothing while she was passed out. I’m not even exaggerating to make this sound bad; this is literally what happens in this story that has spawned a half-billion dollar movie franchise.

I strip, pull on my PJ pants and a T-shirt, and climb in beside her. She’s comatose

I’m sure you don’t need the reminder by now, but somehow this is not a treatment for a horror movie. Or an episode of Law and Order: SVU.

She mutters something unintelligible and her tongue darts out and licks her lips. It’s arousing, very arousing.

Speaking of reminders, you might recall what happens in the next few chapters of Fifty Shades of Grey, since this is the exact same story with the tiniest of tiny changes. When Ana wakes up, Christian makes another warning about how bad he is for her, she insists on learning anyway, they schedule a date, make out in an elevator, fly in a helicopter, he shows her the playroom and discusses the BDSM contract, Ana reveals she’s actually been a virgin (this whole time!), and then they fuck.

All of that takes place in this chapter.

So brace yourself. Or, as our favorite psychopath would apparently say, “STEADY, GREY”, because we’re in for a long haul of essentially-identical content to the first book, all clumped together into one chapter, possibly because even E L James just wants to get this over and done with.

So the good news is that just because a lot of this is content we’ve literally read before (even by Grey standards), what new content there is makes for unintentionally hilarious batshit inanity:

I’ve fucked many [women], but to wake up beside an alluring young woman is a new and stimulating experience. My cock agrees.

Man, I can’t wait to reread the exact same book, but pause periodically so Christian Grey can consult his cock.

Like this, but you know

In the morning, Christian gets up early, does some work on his laptop, and lays out some orange juice (Christian makes no comment on its divinity) and aspirin on the bedside table.

I have to get out of here before I do something I’ll regret.

Because neither abducting a drunk, nonconsenting woman, taking her to your hotel room without telling anybody, stripping her of her outer clothing, nor sleeping in the same bed as her constitute “something I’ll regret”, because these books take place in a strange world where regret has some strange, unknown meaning.

Christian doesn’t know what Ana likes for breakfast, so orders as assortment of room service “in a rare moment of indulgence”, which are the words he uses to describe his behavior on the same page as when he receives the all-new change of clothes he got his personal assistant to purchase for Ana. When Ana wakes up, the book almost writes its own jokes about how absurd and terrible it is.

Keep it casual, Grey. You don’t want to be charged with kidnapping.

Ana asks how she got there. Possibly knowing how seriously awful this is, the book tries to make this scene come across as Ana worrying she did something regrettable while drunk last night, which doesn’t really make this any easy to take because we, um, just read a very not-inebriated Christian actually do way, way worse things.

“We didn’t-?” She whispers, staring at her hands.
Christ, what kind of animal does she think I am?

The lack of self-awareness in this book is stupefying.

“Anastasia, you were comatose. Necrophilia is not my thing. […] I like my women sentient and receptive.”

STUPEFYING.

As it might have occurred to you, the dialogue is the same as in Fifty Shades, which it has to be. So the real draw continues to be Christian’s thoughts in these already-familiar scenes. This draw, apparently, includes victim blaming:

[I] wonder if this has happened to her before, that she’s passed out and woken up in a stranger’s bed and found out that he’s fucked her without her consent. Maybe that’s the photographer’s modus operandi.

And that he thinks of the female body as his own personal property:

She really has great legs. She shouldn’t hide them in pants.

And, again, a completely hypocritical lack of self-awareness:

“You didn’t have to track me down with whatever James Bond gadgetry you’re developing for the highest bidder.”
Whoa! Now she’s pissed. Why?

Christian pretty explicitly states that “if you were mine”, he would physically punish her for what she did last night. We also get some brand new BDSM-esque batshit that E L James briefly googled since writing her last book.

An image of her shackled to my bench, peeled gingerroot inserted in her ass so she can’t clench her buttocks, comes to mind

Honestly, it doesn’t even matter if this is a real BDSM thing or not, because it’s so obvious by this point what a distorted portrayal of BDSM this book has to offer that anything new James throws at us just sounds poisonous. We all know that someone, somewhere, is gonna ask to have gingerroot shoved up their ass for not one reason other than that it was mentioned in this book.

Also I’m writing this post in a coffeeshop, so, uh, I’m not gonna google it, if you don’t mind.

Elliot texts Christian that, “Kate wants to know if Ana is still alive”, to which Christian responds with “alive and kicking”, with a winky face, just in case it didn’t sound murdery enough quite yet. He also briefly reflects on how at least now Ana’s “so-called friend” is thinking about her, because Christian is now responsible for all the people in Ana’s life, and this is a real recurring theme we’re going to have to deal with.

“Thank you for the clothes,” she adds. […]
“That color suits you.”
She stares down at her fingers.
“You know, you really should learn how to take a compliment.

“I mean, I forcibly abducted you and stripped you and didn’t tell anyone who knows you where you were going. Would it kill you to say ‘thank you’, bitch?”

Much like in Fifty Shades, this all continues to be a real turn-on for Anastasia Steele for some godforsaken reason. Also, Christian gives us a penis update.

“Enlighten me, then.”
Her words travel straight to my cock.

I had to at least once.

They agree to meet up for dinner and to talk that evening. E L James completely stops trying to make Christian seem like a likeable character.

“We’ll go by helicopter to Seattle?” She whispers. […] “Why?”
“Because I can.” I grin. Sometimes it’s just fucking great to be me.

On the way out, Christian texts an employee of his company to send him a nondisclosure agreement via email, because that seems like a great way to keep your deep personal life secrets a secret. They also have their infamous “Fuck the paperwork!” elevator makeout, which gains nothing from Christian’s point of view. Get ready to read the last half of that sentence a lot in the next few weeks.

Christian drives Ana back to the apartment she shares with Kate, and E L James continues to fail to make him sound like a decent person, even in subtle ways, because she has never learned how to be a better writer.

we fall into an easy conversation about my taste in music.

Just his. God forbid Christian express any actual interest in the woman he’s supposed to be fucking crazy about. And much like in the last chapter, where E L James doubted someone could possibly sleep through a band best known for a song consisting mainly of violins, it’s kind of unclear she’s hearing the same music the rest of us are.

We both listen, now lost in the raw sound of the Kings of Leon.

In much the same way that celery is served raw, I imagine.

Christian and E L James continue to confuse “love” with “desire to control every part of a person’s life”, as Christian outright ignores Ana’s preference to not be called “Anastasia”.

“Ana” is too everyday and ordinary for her. And too familiar. Those three letters have the power to wound…

…also how exactly does the word “Ana” have the power to wound? What the even fuck does this mean?

Christian and Ana get to Kate’s apartment, where Christian/James continue to have a worrying lack of understanding the significance of kidnapping an inebriated woman.

Kavanagh jumps up and gives me a critical once-over as she hugs Ana.
What did she think I was going to do to the girl?

The infamous “laters, baby” scene happens again, with no change from the original, aside from being in Christian’s head, where he muses about how “I don’t do romance, sweetheart”, and then does the opposite and copies his brother’s romantic (?) exchange anyway, which he then strangely does not reflect on. Because even when all James has to do is add Christian’s thoughts about a scene that’s already mostly written, writing new material is hard.

My thumb strays to her soft bottom lip, which I’d like to kiss again. But I can’t. Not until I have her consent.

Just so we’re totally sure we’re all on the same page here, here is a list of things Christian Grey thinks are fine to do without consent:

• Track someone’s location via their cell phone
• Take someone to an unknown hotel room, while drunk
• Remove their clothing
• Sleep in the same bed as them

In comparison to where he draws the line:

• Kissing

If you’re already nauseous (or reading this at work and having an increasingly difficult time hiding how angry you are for no particular reason), you might want to take a break before reading on, because Christian harps on how important consent is to him (so long as it’s not the aforementioned removal of clothing and sharing a bed, of goddamned course) a friggin’ crapton for the rest of the chapter.

We skip ahead to Christian’s afternoon, where he’s decided to perform a background check on José.

José Luis Rodriguez’s background check reveals a ticket for possession of marijuana. There is nothing in his police records for sexual harassment. Maybe last night would have been a first if I hadn’t intervened. And the little prick smokes weed? I hope he doesn’t smoke around Ana – and I hope she doesn’t smoke, period.

Wow wow wow wow wow. I don’t know where to start with this. Maybe with the careless racism (José is the only non-white character thus far, and, of course, has a shady history with illegal drugs! Happy microaggression!), the baseless smugness of Christian Grey (“Good thing I took the law into my own hands and prevented something that I had no way of knowing could maybe have happened before I decided to do so!”), or the “I hope she doesn’t smoke, period” part. I mean, if you’re romantically pursuing someone you’re interested in, it’s totally fine to have concerns about aspects of their life that you might not personally agree with but you have no way of finding out for a little while yet, such as drug use. But it’s another thing entirely to do it in this “I AM THE ARBITER OF MORAL DECORUM” way that Christian does everything.

Christian goes for a hike with Elliot, because obviously this chapter was missing something.

Christian’s cock doesn’t even have anything to say about the great outdoors. WHY ARE WE BOTHERING.

Later that evening, Christian picks Ana up for their date.

She’s dressed in black jeans… Jeans again.

Christian takes Ana in his helicopter, so once again it’s the exact same scene we’ve experienced once before from Ana’s point of view, but now with deep new insights from what’s going on in Christian’s mind.

“How do you know you’re going the right way?” Ana asks. “Here.” I point to the panel. I don’t want to bore her talking about instrument flight rules, but the fact is it’s all the equipment in front of me that guides us to our destination

OH MY GOD, THIS COULDN’T BE MORE BORING.

Even when something slightly more actually-relevant-to-a-goddamn-thing happens in Christian’s head, it’s an insanely tenuous connection to the very notion of “relevant”.

“I’m awed, Christian,” she whispers.
“Awed?” My smile is spontaneous. And I remember Grace, my mother, stroking my hair as I read out loud from The Once and Future King.
“Christian, that was wonderful. I’m awed, darling boy.”

…well, I guess it’s time for:

• “You’re a wizard, Harry,” Hagrid whispered.
  “A wizard?” Harry’s smile was spontaneous. And he remembered a movie he saw this one time a few years again, in which someone said the word “Wizard” once.
  “Look at all these great Halloween costumes! A vampire! A wizard! Doctor Who! Take some candy!”
• “But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun,” Romeo whispered.
  “Sun?” Juliet’s smile was spontaneous. And she remembered a time she saw the sun in the sky once.
  “See that bright thing, baby Juliet? It’s the sun. And that’s a tree.”
• “So it goes,” the Tralfamadorian whispered.
  “Goes?” Billy’s smile was spontaneous. And he remembered a time a stranger asked him for directions.
  “Excuse me, do you know if this road goes to the post office?”

They get to Christian’s apartment, and – yet again – we have a lengthy scene that we have already seen verbatim in a previous book. Which means that the only thing breaking up the tedium is… more tedium.

A sauvignon blanc would be a good icebreaker.

When Christian isn’t being a nightmare-inducing predator, of course.

I pour two glasses and walk to where she stands in the middle of my living room, looking every bit the sacrificial lamb.

But for the most part, it’s dialogue unchanged from what we’ve read before. And in the 4 years since Fifty Shades of Grey first found infamy, no, it does not hold up.

“I could hold you to some impossibly high ideal like Angel Clare or debase you completely like Alec d’Urberville.” […]
“If there are only two choices, I’ll take the debasement,” she whispers.

And then Christian makes it even worse.

There she is: disarming once more, surprising me at every turn. My cock concurs.

It almost makes you miss all the “holy cow!”s

So once again, Ana signs the NDA without reading it, asks Christian if “you’re going to make love to me tonight”, and – seriously, I’m so sorry you have to keep reading me saying this – Christian’s perspective adds as much weight as a grain of rice.

What?
Me?
Make love?
Oh, Grey, let’s disabuse her of this straightaway.
“No, Anastasia, it doesn’t. First, I don’t make love. I fuck, hard.”
She gasps. That’s made her think.

Grey alternates being the exact same, boring dialogue and being Christian constantly thinking “OMG this is it! She could say yes! Or she could say no! THIS IS IT! I don’t know what will happen, but it’s going to happen so soon!” It’s basically all summed up with a single line of dialogue:

“Just open the damn door, Christian,”

PRO WRITER TIP: If even your characters are frustrated with how slow the narrative is progressing, maybe consider whether your readers will particularly appreciate it as well.

Christian shows Ana the playroom, which is somehow the most sterile, lifeless scene in this chapter so far, even by the standards of “all the equipment in the helicopter helps me fly the helicopter”. Even Christian’s reactions aren’t worth noting here. Just take a look:

“It’s about gaining your trust and your respect, so you’ll let me exert my will over you.” I need your permission, baby. “I will gain a great deal of pleasure, joy even, in your submission. The more you submit, the greater my joy— it’s a very simple equation.”
“Okay, and what do I get out of this?”
“Me.” I shrug. That’s it, baby. Just me. All of me. And you’ll find pleasure, too…

The only thing E L James can do to make this scene seem interesting from Christian’s perspective (and worth buying another new book for…) is to interject Christian repeating what the dialogue is already saying.

“Is it easy to find women who want to do this?”
Oh, if you only knew. “You’d be amazed.” My tone is wry.

Didn’t we learn two chapters ago that Christian is incapable of finding these women himself?

Eventually, we get to the part where Ana admits she’s never had sex before. I bet seeing this from Christian’s perspective will shed an entirely new light on the story!

“Well, I’ve not had sex before, so I don’t know,” she whispers.
The earth stops spinning.
I don’t fucking believe it.
How?
Why?
Fuck!
“Never?” I’m incredulous.

Oh, haha, silly me. It absolutely does not. Because we could infer what he was thinking from the sentences we’ve already read because he’s been speaking his mind out loud the whole time.

To a fault, as we know.

“And a nice young man hasn’t swept you off your feet? I just don’t understand. You’re twenty-one, nearly twenty-two. You’re beautiful.” Why hasn’t some guy taken her to bed?

Interesting. Now we know that when Christian asked why Ana hasn’t been with a man before, he was really wondering why Ana hasn’t been with a man before. Fascinating.

Also, let it be noted (again) how the line “Why hasn’t some guy taken her to bed” demonstrates that Christian literally does not think of a woman’s consent or interest in a man as a relevant factor in having sex.

Think about it.

To be fair (and I haven’t had to say this a lot yet, which is almost more worrying), one part of this scene does actually manage to reveal a bit more of Christian’s psyche.

“How have you avoided sex? Tell me, please.” Because I don’t get it. She’s in college— and from what I remember of college all the kids were fucking like rabbits.
All of them. Except me.

Although like most of E L James’ writing, it’s simultaneously offensive and – and I’m struggling for the right word for this but I think I got it – doofy.

All of them. Except me :(

Nevertheless, Christian is smitten with the the fairly characterless Ana in a way that words fail to describe. Literally.

She’s so… different. And I want to fuck her

Nooooooo. I had no idea.

E L James’s frankly embarrassing writing fails to capture people that could remotely seem real, much less even interested in the story they’re in.

“We’re going to rectify the situation right now.”
“What do you mean? What situation?”
“Your situation. Ana, I’m going to make love to you, now.”
“Oh.”

Although I guess if I were in Ana’s shoes and someone tried to initiate sex with “we’re going to rectify the situation”, I’d have a hard time summoning up more interest than could be conveyed with “Oh” either. Does this make this romance novel better? This is apparently what E L James thought.

Because this chapter won’t just end already, we have to cram in not one, but two sex scenes. And rereading these sex scenes – which were only Christian talking the entire time even from Ana’s point of view – somehow aren’t further fleshed out now from Christian’s point of view.

She’s probably never had an orgasm— though I find this hard to believe. Whoa.

Some of Christian’s inner dialogue is even lifted from Ana’s inner dialogue, which is just embarrassing.

I’m going to make you come like a freight train, baby.

And, lo, we relieve this nightmare all over again. Like the time Ana had her first-ever orgasm from Christian merely fondling her nipples.

“Let go, baby,” I murmur, and pull her nipple with my teeth. She cries out as she climaxes.

And Christian’s insanely cringe-worthy “you expand too”, which has managed to find a new way to be weird (oddly, inept?) from Christian’s perspective

Anastasia watches me with— what? Trepidation? She’s probably never seen an erect penis before.
“Don’t worry. You expand, too,” I mutter.

And, last but not least, E L James’s resounding inability to find creative ways to describe sex, which would seemingly be rather important for a professional erotica author.

One thrust and I’m inside her.
F. U. C. K.

And even when she does bother to find a metaphor, it’s the same. Metaphor. We have seen. In every. Single Sex Scene.

It’s another fucking explosion, you guys.

I explode in her

AND I THOUGHT WE WERE DONE FOREVER

They have sex, which at one point E L James describes as so:

In. Out. In. Out.

Which, amazingly enough, is not the first time E L James has used this to describe sex. She has sold a gazillion books.

And – and this is the last thing, I swear – the chapter finally ends with the return of an old, old friend.

Voice-activated orgasms.

on command she shudders around me as her orgasm rips through her and she screams my name into the mattress.

You’re free now. Go about the rest of your day.

Allegiant Chapter 55: Tobias (Because Tris is Dead)

Tobias is, unsurprisingly, still sad about Tris’ death.

Those lost in the memory serum haze are gathered into groups and given the truth: that human nature is complex, that all our genes are different, but neither damaged nor pure. They are also given the lie: that their memories were erased because of a freak accident, and that they were on the verge of lobbying the government for equality for GDs.

Wait, why the fuck did they even use the words “genetically damaged” if they’re trying to show that that was complete bullshit. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just be like, “People are all created differently, but we’re all special in our own way!” Rather than invent a story about how they were “lobbying the government for equality for GDs.” Surely, some asshole might use this as a way to start the whole problem over again by claiming that the genetically pure are better. Like why give them this arbitrary distinction if you’ve realized how meaningless it is? I really don’t get it. They might as well have just told people they were on the verge of lobbying the government for more chocolate cake.

Tobias also informs us that Johanna is arranging transport for anyone in the Chicago experiment that wants to leave, and he tells us he doesn’t care what happens to any of them. Except the whole reason they went through with this fucking plan was because they cared enough to save their memories, so now seems like a stupid time to give up caring what happens to them now.

Caleb approaches Tobias and delivers Tris’ final message.

“She told me that if she didn’t survive, I should tell you . . .” Caleb chokes, then pulls himself up straight, fighting off tears. “That she didn’t want to leave you.”

I should feel something, hearing her last words to me, shouldn’t I? I feel nothing. I feel farther away than ever.”

“Yeah?” I say harshly. “Then why did she? Why didn’t she let you die?”

NONE OF US FUCKING KNOW, DUDE. Even Caleb is just like, “Idk. That’s just the way it is.” Which seems like the most appropriate way this book can explain Tris’ death.

I know why she wanted to tell me that she didn’t want to leave me. She wanted me to know that this was not another Erudite headquarters, not a lie told to make me sleep while she went to die, not an act of unnecessary self-sacrifice.

This whole idea that Tris was finally able to die because this was the right time to sacrifice herself seems really poorly executed here to me. Like the message is that all the times before she wanted to die for the wrong reasons but this time it was meaningful? Because Caleb was going to die for the wrong reason, so Tris had to step in and sacrifice herself in the correct manner?

Mourning!Tobias sadly wanders around until he finds Cara talking to a bland, memory-less Peter about…how to get back to the dormitory basically. What a thrilling and fulfilling conclusion for this character who hung around the books with no purpose whatsoever.

Cara and Tobias sit in sad silence until Christina comes over. We sure can count on Christina to bring something interesting to the table!

“There you are,” Christina says, jogging toward us. Her face is swollen and her voice is listless, like a heavy sigh. “Come on, it’s time. They’re unplugging him.”

So now it’s time for Uriah to also die, because you should always follow a major character death with a minor character death to try to maximize the characters’ suffering without maximizing the reader’s suffering or something.

For some reason Tobias’ mom is in the hospital when they show up because this was an appropriate time to remind us that she’s around.

We make it to the observation window outside Uriah’s room, and Evelyn is there—Amar picked her up in my stead, a few days ago. She tries to touch my shoulder and I yank it away, not wanting to be comforted.

For a second I thought the point was going to subtly show us that they were making steps forward to heal their relationship, but I guess she really is just mentioned to remind us of her existence.

Also in the hospital is David.

“What is he doing there?” I feel like all my muscles and bones and nerves are on fire.

“He’s still technically the leader of the Bureau, at least until they replace him,” Cara says from behind me. “Tobias, he doesn’t remember anything. The man you knew doesn’t exist anymore; he’s as good as dead. That man doesn’t remember kill—”

“Shut up!” I snap. David signs the clipboard and turns around, pushing himself toward the door. It opens, and I can’t stop myself—I lunge toward him, and only Evelyn’s wiry frame stops me from wrapping my hands around his throat. He gives me a strange look and pushes himself down the hallway as I press against my mother’s arm, which feels like a bar across my shoulders.

“Tobias,” Evelyn says. “Calm. Down.”

“Why didn’t someone lock him up?” I demand, and my eyes are too blurry to see out of.

“Because he still works for the government,” Cara says. “Just because they’ve declared it an unfortunate accident doesn’t mean they’ve fired everyone. And the government isn’t going to lock him up just because he killed a rebel under duress.”

Um given no one fucking remembers anything, why not just make up a story in which David deserves to be in jail? Or just be like, ‘He doesn’t remember anything that happened. We’re not going to hold him accountable.” Even that would be slightly more interesting than, “He still works for the government!” HE DOESN’T REALLY KNOW THAT. You could have told him he was literally anything and he would have believed you. I guess maybe she means the part of the government that didn’t lose their memory? But then if that part of the government is still operating under the guise that genetically damaged/genetically pure are different…won’t everything stay the same?

It’s also really weird how David just looks at Tobias like, “What is this guy on about?” And isn’t at all like alarmed or curious why this random dude is attacking him.

Anyway, Uriah dies.

Allegiant Chapter 56: STILL FUCKING TOBIAS

Tobias returns to Chicago and his old house…to shave his head. Why is this book still going on? I know I’ve said that since like page 2, but I really am at a loss.

Holding a vial of the memory serum, Tobias first explains to us again how it works (I can’t wait to never have to read anyone in this series explain a fucking serum to me for the millionth time) and then starts telling us what’s going on with Johanna. I guess these things are related somehow:

The experiment is over. Johanna successfully negotiated with the government—David’s superiors—to allow the former faction members to stay in the city, provided they are self-sufficient, submit to the government’s authority, and allow outsiders to come in and join them, making Chicago just another metropolitan area, like Milwaukee. The Bureau, once in charge of the experiment, will now keep order in Chicago’s city limits.

Again, why are David’s superiors suddenly willing to change their whole system now if they retained all their memories? What has actually been achieved here?

It will be the only metropolitan area in the country governed by people who don’t believe in genetic damage. A kind of paradise. Matthew told me he hopes people from the fringe will trickle in to fill all the empty spaces, and find there a life more prosperous than the one they left.

I give up.

Apparently, so does Tobias who just wants to forget about all this nonsense and be someone else. But Christina shows up and tells him he’s a coward. They argue, but Christina makes valid points about not erasing Tris from his life and how she would never want to forget Will.

Tobias breaks down, and it’s actually very sad and not stupid until this bit:

Eventually I pull away, but her hands stay on my shoulders, warm and rough with calluses. Maybe just as skin on a hand grows tougher after pain in repetition, a person does too. But I don’t want to become a calloused man.

Allegiant… you were so close to just have a nice, sad scene without any heavy-handed metaphors. Just shhhh.

I’m not saying that metaphor couldn’t have been written really well, the heart of it is good, it’s just the fact that he was like, “Christina’s hands have callouses…WHAT IF MY EMOTIONS ARE LIKE THIS.”

The chapter ends with Tobias telling us he needs to be brave by continuing on with his life even though he’s in pain. This is true, but we already got this lesson hammered home when Tris lost her family and overcame her suicidal feelings. I didn’t need that moral repackaged and delivered through Tobias.

My deepest apologies, but there’s still a god damn epilogue, so stay tuned for that tomorrow.

Guess what? We’re finally done with Divergent! Or at least we will be, once we learn what everyone’s doing two and a half years after the story ended, which is the obligatory move for all fiction series since Moses descended from the mountain with the stone tablets inscribed with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Thou shalt giveth children unto thy characters, who are now adults, and they shall have dumb names.

Well, at least we don’t have to worry about learning that Tris and Four have children named, like, Thirteen and Sassafras or whatever, like how Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and even fucking Fifty Shades of Grey ended in their completely necessary epilogues. Because Tris died.

Epilogue: Two and a Half Years Later

Ugh, seriously, fuck you, J K Rowling.

This could all have been avoided across so many subsequent, completely unrelated books, but NOOO we had to learn that Harry has three kids and Neville’s a plant professor.

We open with a scene where Tobias picks up Evelyn to take her back to Chicago, which has changed so much in the past two years that “I don’t see the harm in her coming back, and neither does she”. Tobias explains that people frequently come and go from Chicago, including people from the fringe. Tobias does not explain how the economy recovered enough to allow for social mobility from such rampant poverty, but I’m sure it had something to do with serums.

“How are you?” she says.
“I’m . . . okay,” I say. “We’re scattering her ashes today.”
I glance at the urn perched on the backseat like another passenger. For a long time I left Tris’s ashes in the Bureau morgue, not sure what kind of funeral she would want, and not sure I could make it through one. But today would be Choosing Day, if we still had factions, and it’s time to take a step forward, even if it’s a small one.

Jesus, remember when these books were about factions? They’ve been irrelevant in the plot for so long, this is less symbolic and more #throwbackthursday, which I assume is an awkward tone to set for scattering ashes.

Evelyn asks what living without factions is like and Tobias replies that it’s “very ordinary”, which I’m sure will be a meaningful explanation to a middle-aged woman who lived her entire life not doing that. Tobias also explains that some scientists are trying to restore the Chicago river and Lake Michigan, which you might recall were partially drained, on purpose, for reasons. Probably serums.

“Hey, let’s partially drain one of these.” “What purpose does that even-” “SERUMS. FACTIONS. GENETICS. JESUS, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?”

Anyway, I bet you’re curious what all our favorite characters have been up to for the last two and a half years! Right? Well, remember that almost all of them died, so, we’re left with, uh…

“George says he needs some help training a police force,” Evelyn says.

[Shauna] has a better wheelchair now, one without handles on the back, so she can maneuver it more easily.

Zeke and Amar are policemen

There are, of course, plenty of familiar names left. Although a lot of them are either still so relatively new to the story (replacing those that didn’t make it) that I never had time to care about what they were involved with then, much less now:

Cara [works] in the laboratories [in] a small segment of the Department of Agriculture

Continuing Neville’s proud tradition of “friend who gets a line in the flashforward to make sure we all know they work with plants”

And sometimes not even Tobias seems to be able to care about them.

Matthew works in psychiatric research somewhere in the city— the last time I asked him, he was studying something about memory.

As for characters we actually care about (editor’s note: ????), we learn that:

• Tobias is an assistant to Johanna Reyes, who is now a politician, and he hopes to be one too, someday
• Christina works with a company that relocates people from the fringe to the city
• Caleb works in the Department of Agriculture with Cara. Tobias says he made his peace with Caleb, but his similarities to Tris are “not enough of her, but [are] also far too much”, which is fair
• Nobody knows where Marcus is. Tobias says that someone told him he left, and he didn’t care to ask where. Much like Allegiant did with any of the plots that Marcus was relevant in.
• Peter went to Milwaukee and nobody cares

But none of those are even the most shocking change that’s taken place in the last two and a half years, and I know you’re all dying to learn what happened to…

The trains.

the train is coming. It charges toward us on the polished rails, then squeals as it slows to a stop in front of the platform.

THE TRAINS STOP NOW.

After learning that the flipping trains have experienced more development than most of the characters in this series, the group goes to the top of the John Hancock building, where they will spread Tris’s ashes by zipline, which even the black hole in my brain that is supposed to have feelings about Divergent has to admit is pretty fucking badass.

Although, like all of Divergent, it’s about 10% things happening and 90% people narrating what the things mean. Sometimes to the point where they forget to pay any attention to the things themselves.

I understand why she did it this way, face-first— it was because it made her feel like she was flying, like she was a bird.
I can still feel the emptiness beneath me, and it is like the emptiness inside me, like a mouth about to swallow me.
I realize, then, that I have stopped moving. The last bits of ash float on the wind like gray snowflakes, and then disappear.

Yeah, that seems about par for the course.

Since I was young, I have always known this:Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that damage.
But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other.

You know who else mends stuff? Editors.

Grey: Sunday, May 22, 2011

Christian and his cock have a much-needed regroup after their “first vanilla fuck” with Ana.

There are definitely some advantages to having her in my bed.

Grey. Stop this nonsense.

Fucking her was merely a means to an end and a pleasant diversion.

I imagine Christian’s inner penis is the one chiding him to “stop this nonsense” and I have to say I’m enjoying him a lot more than I ever enjoyed Ana’s stupid inner goddess.

Christian and Inner Penis struggle with their guilt over having sex with a virgin and their desire to wake her up and do it all over again because of how “incredible” it was. It’s this kind of riveting conflict that has really made this series a cultural phenomenon.

Miss Steele is a carnal creature.

She will be a joy to train.

My cock twitches in agreement.

Shit.

Unable to sleep, Christian heads to the kitchen and then to his study to answer emails. Oh my gosh, you guys, this scene is totally headed towards the infamous piano playing in the moonlight. I’m just giddy with anticipation of what Christian and Inner Penis think of this event!

Back in the living room I sit down at my piano. This is my solace, where I can lose myself for hours. I’ve been able to play well since I was nine, but it wasn’t until I had my own piano, in my own place, that it really became a passion. When I want to forget everything, this is what I do. And right now I don’t want to think about having propositioned a virgin, fucked her, or revealed my lifestyle to someone with no experience. With my hands on the keys, I begin to play and lose myself in the solitude of Bach.

[Matthew says: Zero out of ten. This tells us nothing about what Christian Grey’s penis thinks of Bach. I didn’t pick up this book to NOT read the sentence, “I began to play Bach, and my cock nodded in agreement.”]

Ana shows up and she tells Christian the song was melancholy, which triggers the start of a memory of when Leila was his sub and apparently a time traveller from medieval times.

“May I speak freely? Sir.”

Leila is kneeling beside me while I work.

“You may.”

“Sir, you are most melancholy today.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, Sir. Is there something that you would like me to do…?”

Christian snaps out of it, and insists Ana go back to bed! But that damn woman just keeps asking probing questions like, “How long have you been playing piano for?” So Christian has no choice but to spoon her so she’ll go back to sleep and leave him the fuck alone. Their epic true love really is just built on the fact that Christian rebuffs any attempt Ana makes to actually get to know him in favour of just ordering her around and/or fucking her.

In bed, Ana is embarrassed that there is blood on the sheets:

“Well, that’s going to give Mrs. Jones something to think about.”

She looks mortified.

It’s just your body, sweetheart.

I grasp her chin and tip her head back so I can see her expression. I’m about to give her a short lecture on how not to be ashamed of her body, when she reaches out to touch my chest.

Just when you thought Christian should start teaching sex-ed classes to teenage girls everywhere, we’re reminded that he has body issues of his own.

[Matthew says: Even when this book AVOIDS a scene where Christian Grey mansplains something as thoroughly not-manly as the female body, it finds a way to annoy me about it.]

Christian smells Ana’s hair and thinks about his mother. I forgot that the whole Christian-loves-Ana-because-she’s-like-his-birth-mother storyline was going to be SO MUCH CREEPIER from Christian’s perspective.

“Sleep, sweet Anastasia.” I kiss her hair and close my eyes. Her scent fills my nostrils, reminding me of a happy time and leaving me replete… content, even…

Mommy is happy today.

She is singing.

Singing about what love has to do with it.

And cooking. And singing.

My tummy gurgles. She is cooking bacon and waffles. They smell good. My tummy likes bacon and waffles.

They smell so good.

Christian wakes to the smell of Ana cooking bacon and we’re treated to the longest scene of them in the kitchen. I don’t need to know Ana is reaching for maple syrup, I really don’t. Christian continues to be in awe of how different Ana is because when he tells her to do things like finish her food, she reacts with annoyance. Such uniqueness!

Also, this scene does absolutely nothing to explain what Christian meant by this:

Sidling up to her, I gently tug one of her braids. “I love these. They won’t protect you.”

Not from me. Not now that I’ve had you. 

WHAT DOES IT EVEN MEAN?

Nor do I get Christian’s jokes:

“How would you like your eggs?” Her tone is unexpectedly haughty. And I want to laugh out loud, but I resist.

“Thoroughly whisked and beaten,” I reply, trying and failing to sound deadpan. She attempts to hide her amusement, too, and continues her task.

EL James continues to have no idea how real people actually use words these days:

I take a bite of my breakfast and close my eyes in appreciation. It tastes mighty fine.

All American men must still think like they’re in the Old West, right guys? Right?

They go have a bath together, and Christian tells Ana off for biting her lip because it makes him want to fuck her and she’s too sore to go again. It’s for her own good! He’s so selfless.

Lifting my hips, I grab my cock. “I want you to become well acquainted, on first-name terms, if you will, with my favorite and most cherished part of my body. I’m very attached to this.”

If you ever doubted this while reading the books from Ana’s point of view, now you understand the true gravitas of this moment because Christian’s penis actually speaks to him and really is an important part of who he is.

Ana goes down on Christian, and we’re treated to erotic moments like, “Oh. Baby. That. Feels. Good.” When people speak in full stops, you know shit is hot. [Matthew says: We also get to re-experience the scene where Ana “bares her teeth, gently squeezing” right before Christian cums. And no, reading a scene where a man gets off on having his penis nibbled on does not fare better the second time around.]

Now it’s Ana’s turn for an orgasm, so they head to the bedroom. Christian again focuses on Ana’s braids, but this time he makes it clearer what he means. He tells her they make her look young, and then thinks to himself that it’s not going to stop him. Let’s just take a moment to reflect on how creepy all of this is, especially when you remember that he usually braids her hair for him in the Red Room of Pain.

Christian ties Ana up for the first time and “pay[s] homage to each of her nipples” before going down on her and having sex with her. All is well and good until they hear Christian’s mother outside the door! What a wacky situation we’re experiencing for the second time.

Christian chats to his mother while Ana gets dressed:

“Thank you, Taylor,” Grace calls after him, then turns her full attention to me. “Deal with me?” she says in rebuke. “I was shopping downtown and I thought I might pop in for coffee.” She stops. “If I’d known you weren’t alone…” She shrugs in an awkward, girlish way. [Matthew says: Speaking of awkward, using “girlish” to describe your stepmom.]

She has often stopped by for coffee and there was a woman here… she just never knew.

So why is he so keen to have Ana meet his mother? It really is starting to piss me off that the few things that actually could have been better explained from Christian’s perspective are just completely ignored.

[Matthew says: Seriously, every other paragraph is like “ANA IS MEETING MY MOM. MY MOM IS MEETING ANA.” There’s even a “My mother is going to be thrilled”. There is never an explanation for WHY Christian would think this, since his constant disdain for all things (which we definitely are getting…) would seemingly make this totally out of character for him.

Although where Christian’s own goddamn narration fails, we have uncomfortable implications. This time, it’s homophobia:

“She?”
“Yes, Mother. She.” My tone is dry as I try not to laugh.

So either Christian is thrilled Ana and his mom are meeting for no particular, but very out-of-character reason, or it’s because he’s thrilled his mom won’t wonder if he’s gay anymore. Because if there’s something you want to leave as an undeveloped implication in your work of fiction, “thank goodness people don’t think I’m a GAY! Bullet DODGED.” is probably not one of the better ones.]

Grace is just inviting Christian to church with her that evening when Ana joins them. They all chit-chat about nothing, and at one point Ana gets a phone call from Jose, so Christian is completely distracted by his jealousy. Grace heads off and acts like it was so fabulous to meet Ana even though Ana rudely took a phone call after saying two things to her.

For some reason, the next scene is Christian getting a phone call from Ros (the woman who works for him that Ana isn’t jealous of because she’s a lesbian) and discussing business matters. We don’t find out why Christian introduced Ana to his mother, but we have to read this shit?

Anyway, Christian gives Ana the contract and tells her to do research. This is EL James’ chance to redeem herself from the whole Ana doesn’t have an email/doesn’t have a computer/doesn’t know how to internet.

“Research?”

“You’ll be amazed what you can find on the Internet.”

She frowns.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I don’t have a computer. I usually use the computers at school. I’ll see if I can use Kate’s laptop.”

No computer? How can a student not have a computer? Is she that broke? I hand her the envelope. “I’m sure I can, um— lend you one. Get your things, we’ll drive back to Portland and grab some lunch on the way. I need to dress.”

Look, see Ana’s just weird because Christian is acknowledging how weird the whole situation is! It’s not that James is a terrible writer! [Matthew says: Nor that she forgot what decade her book takes place in.]

Then Christian worries when Ana says she needs to call Jose back:

Is she hung up on him?

Was she just using me to break her in?

Ew. Then he wonders if she’s a gold digger when she’s done absolutely nothing to imply this! He’s the one that sent her gifts, stalked her, brought her back to his house when she was drunk!

After worrying Ana’s a gold digger, he immediately gets her lots of new shit, like a laptop:

“Do you have any new laptops?”

“I have two right here from Apple.”

“Great. I need one.”

“Sure thing.”

“Can you set it up with an e-mail account for Anastasia Steele? She’ll be the owner.”

“How are you spelling ‘Steal’?”

“S.T.E.E.L.E.”

“Cool.”

Oh my god it’s so so sad to see how hard James is trying to add new content to this. It’s kind of endearing because of how pathetic it is.

Christian drives Ana back home, but they stop for lunch first and he tells her about Elena and tries to convince her to sign the contract. He also obsessed over how Ana never eats enough. [Matthew says: One actual line of narration is “Her eating issues will be something to work on”, which is great because any normal person reading this book can see Ana’s “issues” are entirely in Christian’s head.] Throughout the chapter he tells us how slim she is and how it’s so sexy, but then now he’s like, “Oh, no wonder she’s so slim, she never eats, we have to fix that.” But I bet if she gained a bunch of weight he’d be like, “Hell. She’s not slim and sexy anymore.”

Christian drives Ana home, and she reveals she’s wearing his underwear. I’m talking ’bout some hot stuff baby this evening.

The chapter ends with Christian emailing Ana and hoping she’ll agree to be his submissive.