I was in a taxi yesterday. Every time we were stopped at a red light, the driver started playing Candy Crush on his cell phone. It was terrifying.
Chapter 4
The chapter opens with Eva having a violent nightmare about Nathan, her step brother who sexually abused her, and it’s actually weirdly well-written for Sylvia Day, who has previously demonstrated her complete inability to write such material appropriately. It’s properly horrifying without pulling any cheap shots, which I would not have expected at all. And as this is a literary criticism/comedy blog, there’s really nothing I can do with this, so here’s a totally unrelated poll.
When she wakes up she’s comforted by Gideon and Cary, who have apparently been hanging out.
Instead [Gideon] was in jeans and a black T-shirt.
Disoriented by their appearances, I glanced at my watch and saw it was just after midnight. “What are you guys doing?”
It this was a much better book, this would be when we learn that Gideon and Cary are having a secret affair.
“I was just coming in,” Cary said. “And caught up with Cross on his way up.”
Somehow this seems like an even less plausible explanation than my “secret affair” joke. Gideon and Cary have literally always hated each other. What were they catching up about?
I still like this explanation a lot more.
Eva wants to take a shower to feel better before she goes back to sleep. Let’s see how well you’ve been paying attention.
HE FUCKING GETS IN THE SHOWER WITH HER. Because literally every problem in this book is solved with sex.
Gideon turned on the water, then started stripping, blessedly distracting me with the sight of his gloriously tight body. His muscles were hard and well defined, his build lean yet powerful and elegant.
Remember how this chapter started with me complimenting Sylvia Day for being able to write a tasteful nightmare/flashback scene about Eva’s sexually abusive past?
I could’ve sworn I felt it between my legs. I knew that look so well… knew what came after it… knew how ferocious he could be when he wanted me that badly.
Well, that’s not a quote from the nightmare about Nathan. That’s from this scene that is happening right now, where Eva is talking about Gideon. Doesn’t this read kind of like it could be the former more than it should be the latter? This book is fucking horrible.
It was a look that screamed SEX.
Yep. That’s in all-caps in the book. In this same scene as the previous quote. It’s awkward, very uncomfortable, and feels incredibly disingenuous.
Like this gif, but as a book.
Eva can’t have sex right now for lots of very good reasons, but still has needs that she articulates with this line of actual dialogue:
“Oh my God,” I breathed, riveted. “You are so fucking hot.”
So Gideon suggests that they solve the problem by watching each other masturbate. It’s entirely possible you can still see that gif of George W Bush dancing above the sentence you just read about fictional characters masturbating together. How was that experience?
“Look at me, Eva.” He cupped his balls in one hand and his cock in the other. Shameless, which was such a turn-on. “I don’t want to come without you. I need you with me.” [...]
With my eyes locked with his, my hands glided over my body. I watched his movements … listened for the catch of his breath … used his clues to know what drove him wild.
Although by “clues”, it means “the man explicitly tells the woman what to do and she obeys without hesitation like in every other sex scene in these fucking awful Fifty Shades mommy pornos”, because two sentences later:
He started telling me what he wanted in that raspy sex god voice: Tug your nipples, angel … Touch yourself – are you wet?
Also, congratulations, you just read the sentence: “Tug your nipples, angel”. Hopefully this is the last time any of us have to read the words “nipples” and “angel” in the same sentence ever again.
It was somehow as intimate as when he was inside me, maybe more so because we were wide open and on display. Totally bared. Our pleasure reflected in each other.
Just so we’re all on the same page here, the title of this book is officially actually about mutual masturbation.
Sylvia Day subtly implies that, yeah, Nathan’s totally going to show up in this book, as if there was any doubt of that.
“Listen to me, Eva. No one can touch you,” he said fiercely. [...] “They’d have to get through me, Eva. And that will never happen.”
Sylvia Day’s writing flirts with self-awareness.
It was ridiculous that Cary and I lived on the Upper West Side in an apartment large enough for a family,
…but doesn’t
but I’d long ago learned to pick my battles when it came to arguing with my mother and stepfather over my safety.
Eva and Cary are up early before Gideon, and start talking about the plot, specifically with what the hell has Cary been up to during the first three chapters. Turns out Cary has realized that his orgy wasn’t such a good idea.
“Cross broke Ian’s nose and split his lip,” he said, reminding me of how violently Gideon had responded to Cary’s… friend rudely propositioning me to join them. “I saw Ian yesterday and he looks like he was hit in the face with a brick. He was asking who clocked him, so he could press charges.”
Hey, remember two chapters ago when I made a joke about how this book is trying too hard to bring back long-neglected characters of no significance into the story? And I jokingly included this guy, because that shit (like the rest of the shit) would have been stupid? Well, if you’re one of the five people (as of writing this) who voted for him, it turns out you were right. Congratulations?
Cary explains that things are over with Trey, apparently not because Trey is angry at him for cheating on him and the, you know, orgy, but because he’s upset that Cary is bi and not gay. So… huh. Wasn’t expecting that one. If it weren’t for how disgusting Cary is, that would actually suck quite a lot.
“Did you talk to Tatiana, too?” [...]
“I’m actually okay with her, and not just because she could suck chrome off a bumper.”
No, seriously, Cary is disgusting.
