Lorraine: Hello Traumateers!
We decided to pause for a wrap-up post for a couple of reasons: (1) – Have we mentioned we love finishing things? Man, we do. So pausing for a celebratory flail post is necessary.
(2) – We covered the entire book over the span of 22 weeks, which is a fucking lot, now that I think of it. Jesus, that’s a lot of time dedicated to a load of crap. BRB. I didn’t think I would need alcohol for a wrap up post, but alas.
Sweeney: It’s always necessary for anything Fifty Shades related.
Lor: I should’ve known.
What was I saying? Right. It’s very stretched out so we figured that taking a more condensed view of things would help put all the misery into perspective.
On that note, here’s everything you never wanted to know about Fifty Shades Darker at a glance:
Repetition is a Bad Writer’s Best Friend:
Sweeney: The most essential part of this wrap up post is, of course, the final horrifying word counts. Lor nearly broke her Kindle trying to make it search for all of the essential words. Here’s how the numbers break down:
It’s All in the Eyes:
Lor: Grey’s gray eyes are a favorite topic of Ana’s. My Kindle stopped searching for “eyes” as there were over 500 results, but because Grey’s eyes are pretty much the most communicative character in the book, here’s a little taste of what they did:
Burn, glow, blaze, narrow, cloud, glide, soften, darken, be “luminous with desire,” dance, smolder, glitter, hood (?), brighten, shine, widen, glimmer, heat, gleam, frost, glint, mist, harden, storm, flash, sparkle, grow, drink, and finally defy all sense when they became liquid, gray fire.
Sweeney: My favorite is still Jack’s strobe light eyes.
Lor: They were so useful in deducing his evil intentions.
Ana describes people’s (or her own) eyes as “wide” or “widening” a total of 60 times.
Time Fuckery:
Friday June 3rd – Ana and Grey break up.
Monday June 6th – Ana’s first day of work and Grey sends her flowers.
Thursday June 9th – Grey flies Ana to Jose’s gallery show and they have dinner.
Friday June 10th – Ana meets the Ghost of Submissives Past and Grey reveals he bought SIP, Ana’s job.
Saturday June 11th – Grey takes Ana for breakfast and to the salon owned by Mrs. Rape to get the Submissive Special, Ana maps out the no-no zones on Grey’s body using lipstick, Ana goes to Grey’s parent’s masked ball with cooter balls, Ana and Grey have sex in his childhood room, the GSP threw paint on Ana’s Audi, Grey goes in to see if the GSP is still in his apartment.
Sunday June 12th – Sex at “two fifteen” in the morning, the GSP is still in the apartment so they leave to a hotel room, Ana gets a visit from Dr. Best in Seattle, Grey buys Ana a new car, they eat lunch at the marina, they spend the day on Grey’s boat, they play pool, and have sex on the pool table.
Monday June 13th – Ana’s boss invites her to a conference in New York, Grey cockblocks that trip by insta-passing a policy that means he must approve all travel expenses, Jack hits on Ana, Grey and Ana have elevator sex, Ana agrees to move in with Grey, Mrs. Rape pays them a visit because she’s being blackmailed, and Grey and Ana have sex on the piano.
Tuesday June 14th – We find out that Mrs. Rape wasn’t being blackmailed- it was all a JAYKAY, Kate’s brother Ethan comes into town, Ana goes home to find Leila in her apartment with a gun, Ana makes Leila tea, Ana goes for drinks with Ethan while Grey handles the GSP, Ana goes back to Grey’s apartment where he’s instantly turned into a catatonic submissive (?), Grey reveals his BIG SECRET! that he likes to hit girls, Grey asks Ana to marry him, and Grey reveals he took Leila a bath.
Wednesday June 15th – In the wee hours of the morning, Grey wakes up from a nightmare and rapes Ana, Ana is assaulted by Jack, Grey insta-fires Jack, Ana goes exploring in the Red Room and they have sex again.
Thursday June 16th – They wake up and have sex, Ana get’s Jack’s position after 8 days on the job, Ana visits Dr. Flynn to make sure she fixed Grey, Grey shows Ana a house he wants to buy her, they have dinner at a club and Grey fingers Ana in an elevator full of people.
Friday June 17th – Ana goes for drinks with Ethan, Kate and Jose, Grey goes missing, Grey crash lands his helicopter and hitchhikes all the way back to Seattle without calling because he didn’t want to leave Ana alone, Ana accepts Grey’s marriage proposal and Grey dumps Ana in an ice-cold shower.
Saturday June 18th – Jose leaves, Ana and Grey play in the Red Room, Grey asks Ray for Ana’s hand, they go to Grey’s birthday party where Grace finds out that her son was raped by a family friend, Grey proposes again and they book ends with Jack plotting to kill them both.
Since the book starts on Monday the 6th, this mean the entire thing (murder plots, revenge, marriage proposal, house buying, promotions and all) happens across the course of 13 days.
Sweeney: My favorite part is the fact that Ana accepted his proposal about a week after they got back together. I think that’s usually a recipe for a long and healthy, Britney Spears-esque marriage. And, you know, a visual aid if you need it:
The People in Ana’s Head:
Lor: What was probably supposed to be a joke-y character quirk quickly escalated to off the chart levels of “legit mental problems,” as Ana’s Inner Goddess continued to do shit that just made no fucking sense. Just apart from the fact that she even has, and converses with, makes decisions by consulting, and envisions an Inner Goddess. Here’s what that crazy bitch was doing in this book:
– A tripel axel dismount off the high bar. (Yes, that is two different sports.)
– Three black flips over the gym floor.
– Writhes on her chaise lounge. (x3)
– Performs a perfect triple Salchow.
– Bounces about like a five-year old.
– Tackles her subconscious to the floor.
– Performs a quick arabesque.
– Grabs a rose between her teeth and starts to tango.
– Back flips over her chaise lounge.
– Claps her hands with glee like a small child.
– Pouts provocatively.
– Crosses her arms and purses her lips.
– Pops her head out of her bunker
– Pole vaults from her bunker onto her chaise lounge.
– Hugs herself with glee.
– Drapes herself in a pink boa and diamonds.
– Fist pumps the air above her.
– Performs four arabesques and a pas de Basque.
– Somersaults round her chaise.
– Sits in the lotus position.
– Barks, swoons, shouts, purrs, jerks, oogles, limbers up, gapes, kneels naked, and chirps.
Do People Really Like This Shit?
And there you have it friends. Thank you once again for joining us on the expanded journey.
I should confess that there is an additional reason for this wrap-up post: I’M GOING TO SEE SWEENEY. (S: FLAIL.) She’s en route to LA as this is published and I’ll be on a plane tomorrow morning. Bear with us this next week or so, with both of us out of our respective towns and with limited access to Internet/blogging time/etc. We’ll still be getting posts up mostly as scheduled, except for next week’s Game of Thrones which will go up on Friday instead of Tuesday. If we’re a little quieter than usual, you know why.
What I’m really saying is that clearly we weren’t going to start book 3 right before vacation.
Sweeney: And ruin the pre-vacation buzz? No thank you.
Join us next Wednesday as we start reading Fifty Shades Freed and find out exactly how many more times these characters can whisper and murmur. See you then!
Nicole is the co-captain of Snark Squad and these days she spends most of her time editing podcasts. She spends too much time on Twitter and very occasionally vlogs and blogs. In her day job she's a producer, editor, director, and sometimes host of educational YouTube channels. She loves travel, maps, panda gifs, and semicolons. Writing biographies stresses her out; she crowd sourced this one years ago and has been using a version of it ever since. She would like to thank Twitter for their help.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
