50 Shades DARKER?…YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?? 🤨 | Book 2 Review & Summary | Bonus Minisode

Guess What? It’s officially grey! We are in it. Oh my!

It’s Fifty shades of May over here on the Besties and the Books podcast. Welcome back to our spring mini episode series all about the extremely popular yet widely discredited book series: Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James. We’re officially into book two and things are not exactly going as planned…

If you’ve been following along and watched our “Dark Romance Enters the Chat” episode then you know, we trace romance novels wayyy back to their origin so we can discuss what societal conditions helped to produce this canon of works mostly written by women, for women, with women’s stories, pleasure, and lived experiences at the center. We examine what influence romance books have had on literature and the publishing world as a whole, and then specifically discuss what impact Fifty Shades had on the genre! It just happens to be a BIG bonus that Ashley and Liz have never read it before. So this is all new information to us.

We think that whether you find these books problematic or not, credit must be given where credit is due. The fact that these books have been stigmatized, criticized, and repeatedly knocked down is indicative (we think) of a larger societal problem: misogyny. Because as a society, it seems we just can’t stand it when women are successful… or when they enjoy something. Whether it’s objectively “good” or “profitable” or not.

Episode 2 covers book 2: Fifty Shades Darker by E. L. James. The first five-ish minutes are spoiler free with our one sentence rapid star and spice ratings. Then we jam pack this mini episode with an entire plot summary in five sentences (with a special classical surprise!), discuss what our faves and fail characters and plot points are, our feelings, notable quotes, red flags, problematic elements, and end with a fun piece of Fifty Shades trivia.

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Check out these author interviews? ⬇️

We interviewed Callie Hart all about her NYT Bestseller Quicksilver! Watch it here! | https://youtu.be/CED5s7qDBdQ?si=8xtIRO1IzX6Rsld4

Check the official Author Interview with Lindsay Straube of Split or Swallow! Now a Barnes & Noble & Amazon best seller titled: Kiss of the Basilisk! | https://youtu.be/fknhocSNIKM

Looking for your next murder mystery Romantasy? Preview This Monster of Mine with our interview with debut author Shalini Abeysekara! | https://youtu.be/dMoOSLW1vTE?si=n6z3RXxSutNXN2o

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Chapters

• 0:00 Spoiler Free Intro
• 5:40 50 Shades Darker Book 2 Review
• 9:50 Shades of Grey Summary and Deep Dive
• 16:20 Favorite and Least Favorite Things book 2
• 28:00 Unanswered Questions
• 29:25 Notable Quotes in 50 Shades of Grey
• 36:00 Did this have a problematic or negative impact in the community?
• 39:20 Red Flags
• 44:19 50 Shades of Grey Fun Fact!

Transcript

0:03

it's gonna be unhinged hey you guys and welcome to the Besties in the Books podcast i'm Ashley and I'm Liz and today is officially the second episode of our newest mini episode series Fifty Shades of Gray or as we like to call it over here Fifty Shades of Gray shades of May cuz it's is May it's going to be May cuz it is May feels weird cuz it's in it now but we're pre-filming so it's not yet you know you know we're just making sure you guys feel all the millennial vibes over here with the Justin Timberlake and then you posted that trifecta what is it i don't remember the other like millennial songs it was so good it was like Lincoln Park um Oh this is going to drive me crazy lincoln Park and No it was definitely Lincoln Park but I don't remember the other one everything you say to me that's what it is take me one step closer to the edge that's great yeah and like everything just like came back to me like when I heard that it cracked me up cuz I loved that CD man yeah it was good but also like Yeah we It's time for us as a millennial society to start like harassing these other bands that sound like they're going to say May millennial society like we're like a a new group that's like living out on our own little millennial island we would have a blast some might call it a cult but we'll just call it fun okay our little millennial compound on an island just having good times and sitting on plastic couches and listening to In Sync and Back Boys Link sounds great watching episodes back toback of Clarissa Explains It All and Ren and Stimpy yes yes yes setting the scene anyways that's a different scene than what we're setting today because like Liz said it's officially 50 Shades of May over here at Bessies in the Books podcast and today is part two of our fivepart 50 Shades of Gray min episode series we did the kickoff obviously with Dark Romance into the chat and like set the scene to kind of introduce Fifty Shades into this miniseries that we're doing so we traced it back to the origins did a little deep dive on what works and authors that we can credit to giving us this amazingly transformative genre that is mostly written by women now for women so that's great with women's pleasure and joy at the center which we need that representation we do paved the way for dark romance to come on to the scene and then we talk about how Dark Romance changed the game and how was this iconic trilogy partially responsible for putting dark romance ideas into the mainstream is it problematic can it both be positive and negative contributions to the canon we touched on that a little bit in the last episode covering the first book Fifty Shades and we're going to continue to talk about it today and then of course today's Friday if you're listening to this the day it goes up and we'll be releasing the rest of the series every Friday until we're done so that's right we're going to be giving all of our thoughts on book so we've got 50 Shades Darker right here um for everyone wondering by Eel James also just to take everything full circle um if you guys listen to any of our Hunger Games episodes then you know that we had figured out um that Suzanne Collins actually worked on Clarissa Explains It All writing that show so that explains so much i need to do a deeper dive but apparently Eel James worked in TV for about 20 years before Oh interesting she wrote these books so I'd be curious if um yeah if we know any of the shows that she worked on i need to do more research about that i just very briefly found that out anyways um so we never read these books before okay so that's where we're coming from just in case you didn't already know that this is a first time read for both of us um so this is all brand new information yeah truly um so yeah we just want to talk about you know why these books are loved by some hated by others why they are stigmatized what they did for the genre um and what it did just to make romance more mainstream so we will be getting into that all shortly with the first five minutes being being our spoiler-free star and spice ratings um but before we get into that we just wanted to say thank you for being here yeah thank you guys so much for being here you know we got our Tuesday episodes that are just kind of normies normal episodes that we cover different types of books and stuff little normies and then we got these fun little miniseries that I hope you guys are enjoying we release one a quarter now this is our third miniseries that we've done and we have some really fun ones planned for the rest of the year as well so make sure you're subscribed and following anywhere you like to listen to your favorite podcast including YouTube we are hanging out there just chitchatting chilling liz got her cute little cardigan sweater looking so cozy on this fine afternoon and come hang out you know go also check us out on Instagram Tik Tok we're Besties in the Books podcast everywhere except Fable which we're Besties in the Book Club because that is an antisocial social virtual book club so you can check us out come join us come join us see what we You can literally read all of our unhinged comments about all of these books on Fable right now yeah there was a lot to say in these yeah there was a lot truly if you want to just like listen to us making fun of something for all of the live long day go check it out yeah yep so okay first let's just kick it off with our spoilerfree reviews mhm so do you want to go first you want me to go first today i'll go first today i don't remember what we did last time but um three stars again for me uh spice i think we kicked it up a notch right it all blends together i I would not I would not say that okay you're my spice girl so you take it away oh do I need to leave a sentence hang on okay three stars you know as Liz and I hadn't read this ahead of time preconceived notions take those and kick them right out the door because anything that you thought this book was about probably isn't what it was about at all so um keeping it spoiler-free still 50 Shades Darker well that's debatable uh it's darker in that there is some drama involved there's a bad guy involved and it's not Mr gray so hey it's not I don't I I just Yeah it was fine i read it okay great that's a terrible not biggest one-s sentence review ever but there you go thank you for your pity claps the music starts turning on the Oscars music yeah I needed it i did um okay i rated if you remember I rated the first book a four star i liked that it was a lot like Twilight okay this book I rated three stars it was not like Twilight it was a contemporary romance that was not very dark at all and for those reasons I rated it three i didn't feel like it quite deserved a two but it wasn't I didn't really love it that much at all um I'm like being nice okay so the spice rating I I rated the spice rating in book one a four spice i would rate it consistently across the board a four spice not because it's anything like I don't know really all that i don't really know how to describe it it's like there's a lot there's a lot of spice but it's not that good so take that what you will it's rated a four spice for me because of the frequency alone like as we've talked about previously you know if you're ever curious about how we come up with these arbitrary ratings i mean really really at the end of the day we're just kind of pulling them out of thin air but there is a little broccoli why because I don't know feels good exactly you get a gold star you don't yeah and that's just because I Yep um but no truly the power has gone to my head that's why sorry go ahead the power has gone to my head yeah um you know if you guys have listened to our episode where we explain our spice rating system and our star rating system spice can go up on the scale if I feel like it contains more darker elements or unconventional acts quote unquote yeah um or it could literally just get more peppers for being having more spicy scenes like just the quantity this would be a perfect example of how it's four spicy peppers literally because of the fact that it's just all the time but it ain't nothing special okay yeah yeah which as Ashley said that's not where we thought this was going but yet here we are reading in a contemporary billionaire romance they did it they got us again they tricked us the the whole entire populace media they tricked us good they did they really did so okay do you have any more spoiler-free items to share with the class before we move on to the five sentence no or five sentence summary nothing else to share about that guys we're done bye see you later we're done nothing else to say no there is there's more to say there is there's a lot more to say so spoiler section is coming don't know where I'm going with this sound it was a little bit jawsy but then I was like trying to be a dark dungeon red room that didn't work it was just weird things that reminded me of Law and Order a little bit yeah oh that's a good one i'll save that one for later guys we'll do that one another time uh that means uh spoilers up ahead so go on get get out of here save it to your playlist if you plan on reading 50 Shades Darker and you can come back and listen to it later if you don't plan on reading it though just stay around cuz you know hey why not why not here we are it'll be a good time it's five sentence time time for me to get the violin hey guys we're taking special requests okay we have a summer series coming up in the summer and if you guys have any musical instruments you would like me to purchase or utilize for summertime if it's mobile that will be preferred because I will be visiting Liz I think so um yeah send us your musical instrument request we should have a oddities request folder yeah the random stuff we ask you guys to send us ideas for okay I have the violin here we go good luck good luck to your ears okay don't have your headphones on too loud okay here we go 50 Shades Darker the five sentence summary what is my life okay go ahead christian and Anna almost immediately get back together when she asks him to take her to Jose's art show and Christian buys all the art of her then takes her to dinner where they discuss having more quote unquote traditional sex moving forward after this she basically moves in with him and they admit they love each other that was terrible but your sentence was good my violin was terrible no it was It's kind of funny because it has like this uh like like a mournful quality and I feel like that's very accurate it's almost like makes us sad it's going to be me okay that's what I'm going to go for guys see if you can hear it okay okay continue uh Christian buys the publishing house that Anna works at to keep her from taking work trips with her boss who's been known to sexually harass former assistants and who acts completely inappropriately around Anna often anna thinks he's overreacting and being controlling but eventually he does get sexually assaulty with Anna so Christian fires him and Anna gets his job only you could write it in such a way to make us laugh did you say did you just say sexual assaulty i did okay no that was terrible hang on just everything about this everything about this okay it's going to be unhinged okay if you were having a bad day before you're not anymore okay that's what we can only hope at least this is this is what we try for of us yeah um Anna finds out that Christian co-owns a salon chain with Elellanena his abuser but after Elellanena threatens Anna multiple times and makes a scene at Christian's birthday Christian dissolves their business partnership and appears to cut her out of their lives oh it's better yeah you are getting better i'm just going to be like freaking busting out like you know double went down to Georgia any minute i wish okay that's a fiddle i don't know if that's different i don't know the difference between a fiddle and a violin it sounds different is it a different instrument or is it the way you play a violin that makes it a fiddle is it is a For some reason and this is not real at all but I'm like is a fiddle just an Irish violin it just has accent it's just a violin with an accent maybe why did that pop into my head is that real i don't know okay it makes me think of uh I just watched that movie Sinners in the theater which was excellent by the way was it so scary it wasn't scary you'd like it what okay it looks scary scary no it's not you'd like it it's just a vampire movie pay you to say that cuz he wants to watch it no go see it you'd like it um but there is a a violin portion so it's just bringing me back yeah okay great okay anyway here we go we digress uh Christian's other ex Leela has been stalking them and is mentally unwell after looking for her for nearly the entire book they finally find her and Christian helps to get her into a psychiatric facility yeah i don't know what happened there but I liked that part i did we'll talk about it later yeah we will talk about it good it's uh He did the right thing i didn't like that part i just like that there was something interesting happening in the book well yeah know I like that he helped her like it was weird but I like that he used his his resources to actually help her that Yeah okay uh Christian is on a work trip to Portland when Charlie Tango has severe engine issues how she takes him seriously and doesn't get the ick i don't know yeah okay when Charlie Teango has severe engine issues causing them to almost crash he manages to safely land comes home and proposes to Anna who says yes but we find out her old boss was the one who tried to kill Christian can I make it deeper just a horror movie now yeah hang on that sounded pretty cool in a way yeah it did yeah it did mhm suspense cliffhanger done good job to you negative stars for me but that's all right no I feel like that is a a first place trophy for effort oh great the consolation prize cool you know what you could take that consolation ribbon and put it in the trash okay i had fun though it was fun along the way that's all that matters that's really all that matters okay so let's just talk about Let's get right into it so what were what was our favorite part you know I did I liked the when Leila comes on the scene and like just stands at her all creepy i'm like "Ooh this will be interesting." I don't like that it like took so long for anything else to happen with that i was like "Oh did we just forget about that plot point?" But I did feel like you know I think this book is called Fifty Shades Darker because there's like bad people coming on the scene but I definitely thought it'd be like darker in the way of like BDSM and stuff so that was misleading it was a misleading title and then my other favorite part was I loved when Anastasia did the bidding of $24,000 to get the hospital it was pretty funny and then also telling off Mrs robinson at the party that was a good moment yeah it was good what was your favorite parts uh finding out that Christian wasn't manipulating Anna with a fake helicopter crash i I kept um I am not ever giving Christian the benefit of the doubt because I keep thinking that we're going to find out he's evil that might be my own issues i don't know um but I was like you know what if that dude literally faked this so that she would say yes to his proposal like manipulating her I will hate him for the duration of this the rest of the series and it turns out that's not true it's her crazy ex- boss that sabotage the helicopter so I was like "Okay all right christian is still fine." You know I felt like reading this book I'm like "Am I reading a different version like a different edit?" Because that is 100% what I thought we were going to be getting into is like Christian's like really unhinged so far he hasn't been at all he just has like emotional trauma from his childhood that's literally trying to work it out the guy is trying to give him some slack yeah he goes to therapy once a week good for him um weird what was your least favorite part um I didn't like that he proposes so soon and it's been like five weeks that they've known each other i would have to I'd have to like give myself reality checks like throughout this series cuz I'd have to be like"Wait how much time has gone by?" And I'd be like "Oh a month great." Yeah yeah so that's like the most unhinged part is it's so quick that everything's happening that's crazy but they are young you know and making bad choices so hey okay um my least favorite part was all the drama that ultimately goes nowhere so like there's all this drama that go like happens with uh Elena I think is how they say her name or maybe Elena I can't remember whatever mrs robinson and then there's all the drama that happens with Leela as well and it kind of just like like okay and this ties into another thing leela literally climbed up the freaking fire escape and like broke into his apartment and was like watching Anastasia sleep and she had a gun okay um first of all doesn't Christian live on like the 50th floor penthouse suite of this it's insane building and did she do the fire escape or the the service elevator oh I don't know for some reason I thought it was like fire escape but either way the point is this why does Christian's security team literally suck so bad somebody messed with Charlie Tango like and got into his mechanics for a rich guy yeah like he has all this private security and it's like this literally this young woman who's unwell was able to break in and watch her sleep like no big deal and then just like sneak back out into the night you know what I mean it's like she ended up being harmless but like that could have been anyone at one point I was waiting for the security to be involved in it like to have some kind of thing which maybe in the next book I don't know but like you're cuz you're like huh I don't know it seemed like everything's gets Yeah there's like this it's almost like fake drama and then because it gets resolved so easily so simply he just gives her a bath and everything's better okay that was weird it was weird yeah he didn't need to give her a bath like I said I really Yeah it was weird i liked that um you know Christian obviously is extremely rich and well resourced and so I like that he's using his money to help people like that's really generous of him to put her in a good psychiatric facility to make sure that she's taken care of and doesn't end up homeless or like something horrible you know um so I thought that was really commendable but like he could have gotten one of his many freaking servants housekeepers to like give her a bath like he did not need to do that himself it was some kind of weird like um show of something he said like you know act of service in a way to try to like but I don't see how that would work i feel like that would just make her more obsessed i don't know whatever um there was a part that I needed to clarify to see if you read it the same way so I read Kindle but it was from Libby so I rented it but it downloaded on Kindle fine the last few pages of this book I had to go back and read it like a couple times because there was no transition between the end scene which I think was them at his parents house or something like going into the boat house and then it instantly the next like line it wasn't even a line break or anything was the monologue of her ex- boss or we don't know who it is but some guy watching them you know we assume it's his ex- boss and giving the monologue of like uh if it weren't for that girl I'd have everything I needed right now so did that not read that way to you did you read the paperback or I read the Kindle version um but it didn't seem odd to me i guess like when I was reading it it did seem like an abrupt change but since it was right at the end like to me that's kind of like a you know when you're watching like cuz we know this isn't the end of the series so it's like when you're watching a movie and like you get that last little like snippet on a Marvel movie or something that's kind of how I read that i was like okay they're just kind of like trying to suck us in for book three or whatever yeah which like I get that that's fine but there was no signifier i didn't have like a page break or anything so I don't know if it was a formatting issue or what but Oh you mean like literally it wasn't even like a different paragraph no no it was a different paragraph so like Oh and then we did it in the boat house if it weren't for that girl so I was like is like is Anna having some weird psychiatric break like what's happening like right now is is this Gray's point of view like I didn't know who I didn't know there was a changeover and who was speaking it was very weird yeah i think it was supposed to be ambiguous but like then you know you put two and two together after you think about it for a little bit it was very strange no did you have a favorite character you know no uh everybody was kind of whatever i put Mia gray sister who we get to see for like two sentences she's cute she's fun i'll give it to her sure what about you i said Mrs jones and Taylor i like them they're cool yeah I do they're just kind of like they're there for like all of the books or whatever and they're just kind of I don't know they seem nice taylor's not that good at his job but that's okay he seems nice you know but that's it what What about your least favorite character is it still Mrs robinson yeah Mrs robinson definitely hated that he works with her still hated that and the boss dude obviously what a creep yeah i mean I really dislike Mrs robinson more than Jack because I feel like at least Jack is like openly evil she is just like a evil person like to her core but like goes around acting like everything's fine yeah mhm more insidious than someone who's just like I'm clearly insane and evil agreed yeah agreed cuz at least you see them coming like at least you know the the boss is a creep you know where Mrs robinson can just run around town being Miss Millionaire and people don't realize how bad she is so yeah yeah I agree with that statement for sure mhm how did this book make you feel uh bored yeah I put underwhelmed yeah I think Well I think that's the thing is we were both expecting we were expecting something and that's the thing we went into it with preconceived notions just based on the what little we knew about like the popular conversation around these books and um you know and I think that we bought into it to a degree believed it to a degree like even though we're going into it with an open mind but still you know you can't help but be influenced by that and then this completely was different than I mean really you you got very I mean it was frequent spicy scenes but very quote unquote as they would even a vanilla yeah kind of monotonous you know very monotonous very monotonous it was like the same well yes i I It's good for Anna that it's like that I think you know cuz it warms her up to the situation it shows that they can have um different types of relations together and he's good with that you know it's kind of him seeing cuz I think he even says it in this book that it's like oh he didn't know that like quote normal experiences can be good too and he doesn't have to do the extreme you know um so that was healthy but as a reader yeah it was kind of boring especially because it was hyped up so much well and because of the fact that they're just together like there's no slow burn there's no buildup up they're It's like they're just doing it cuz okay you know what I mean they're just doing it all the time and it's very like like normal quote unquote stuff you know so very run-of-the-mill stuff so the spice is definitely not something that I would like seek out this book for nor the plot so take with that what you will yeah uh so I mean going into book three then because we decided we weren't going to read um any of Gay's perspective which I'm happy with that decision um so we're just doing the original trilogy how do you feel going into the final Fifty Shades Free book are you excited or are you like me what do you How do you feel i mean honestly if if I can be honest here this is a safe space um I have not cared for any of these books so far so I'm just getting through them i'm having a good time because we do it as a buddy right we're all doing this together we're all in this toilet together and I'm glad that we did we've done it so far and that we're reading them because it it is very interesting that these books are so different than what I thought that was presented to us in the media so I I'm like I want to finish a series like so I'm cool with that i wouldn't say I'm excited but I'm not like um I'm not It's not going to be the worst thing but it's like whatever you know if I wasn't re Okay this is a long way to say if we weren't reading it for the podcast I wouldn't be continuing mhm that is that cuz it's nothing there's unanswered questions but it's like do I care they're going to wrap it up in 5 seconds whenever it comes back on screen they're going to find out who's after Gray obviously super fast i don't know i mean I already kind of figure it out right we all have our suspicions right now yeah i mean there's only so many characters you know there's like it's pretty simple simplistic plot for sure yeah i think I probably would have stopped reading after book two for sure if I even made it through book I expected this book to be like the crazy you know second the second book in Twilight where Bella is just like literally going insane because of this breakup and doing crazy stuff and um yeah none of that happened cuz they got back together within the first like two chapters so it would have been nice to have him drag it out a little bit i think Yeah it was Yeah it felt again it felt like that superficial like manufactured drama that's the word absolutely so hey yeah so I'd say the same thing i'm not particularly excited to read book three aside from like the fact that we get to talk about it and enjoy the fable chat together and then talk to you guys about it like outside of that yeah if I was just reading this on my own behalf I'd be like "No like I don't need to continue on i could just Google how this ends and be good with it." You know what I mean um so what about quotes notable quotes do you have any you know I went um cuz I already returned my Libby book so I don't remember if I highlighted anything uh so I Googled some quotes and I'm like"These are all so freaking cringy you know i can't like I'm not they're not like their love story doesn't speak to me no their their moments together don't speak to me there's not anything really particularly funny the only one that I put that I was like "Okay I can speak on this for a second." Is uh they were having a discussion about something that Gray didn't like and he said she says "I wasn't aware we were fighting i thought we were just communicating." M so that stuck out to me because my husband when I first got with him back when we were just dating he would say that sometimes when we were just like having a discussion about stuff cuz he came from a lot of relationships where they would fight a lot so and with me I'm just like no I don't fight so get out of here you know and not that he would try to fight with me but we' just be having a discussion be like you know I don't want to fight about this i'm like we're not fighting we're talking like what you know yeah about like what we're going to eat or whatever so I was like "Oh that's that's healthy for her to real make him realize hello this isn't we're just we're hashing this out it doesn't mean you run away we're not fighting you know?" Yeah yeah well and I just think that goes to show that like she's immature but as immature as she is he's way more emotionally immature than her yeah that's very evident yeah very evident it just becomes more and more obvious the farther along we get into it just Yeah it feels like he is almost cosplaying as an adult like as a billionaire oh my god it's like Christina Applegate and Don't Tell Mom the babysitter's dead yeah like he and he's figured it out like obviously he's a smart businessman and everything but he's still like a little kid you know in that way he's emotionally stunted so she helps him along in that way even though she's kind of not street smart I feel you know inexperienced I guess is the best way to sheltered a little bit sheltered she's book smart but then and then she's emotionally mature in a way but then also not in some way so very 22year-old I feel i think that's the thing she's a typical 22-year-old gray is not he is not a typical 28-year-old in any way shape or form his eons beyond his years business-wise and then way behind emotionally yeah like 16 emotionally so yeah and I I actually like highlighted some quotes about that because I feel like that to me is one of the most important parts of this book is the fact that we're finding out that Christian is not emotionally mature to a degree that is fairly extreme so um one of the quotes is she describes him or she sees him in her mind as the image of a powerful man who's still a little boy yeah um she says that she talks to him like he's a little boy and emotionally Christian is an adolescent so these are all quotes that are like coming like right out of the book so she even knows it's like I have to talk to him like he's literally a little boy otherwise he'll have these emotional outbursts yeah so yeah so that definitely stood out to me um he also I think this is another important thing to bring up about Christian's personality is that the only way that he knows to resolve conflict is through sexual acts so he says "I need to know we're okay this is the only way that I know how." And so he doesn't know how to communicate in any other way than to show her that he loves her like through them having sex basically um and that obviously comes a lot from his past as well um so I thought those were more of the like important quotes to pull out um oh she does say that he's like several different people in one body so that could be confusing also um and then just a couple of the quotes that I highlighted just as being kind of funny the I cannot stop laughing and other people might not find this as hilarious as I do but every time he refers to his mom as the quote unquote crack whor I laugh out loud cuz they're so casual about it yes so casual but it's such like not a casual thing to just be saying in your vernacular and then his mom the crack[ __ ] like she's just like not she can't just say his mom like she has to say the crack and him too he has to say his mom the crack [ __ ] i want to know how many times that comes up in the book or like the crack [ __ ] and the pimp like I lose it it's so funny it's like so extreme yeah it's like I get it like if that is actually like not that you should call anyone that name but like if that's how you want to describe her but every single time like you're saying it's like it's her name um so that cracked me up uh also when uh Anastasia puts on her red lipstick she calls it harlot red and that bothered me so I highlighted it because I do feel like there are some subtle moments in these books where there's internalized uh misogyny happening and I feel like that was one of the examples for sure um where she describes it as harlot red she doesn't necessarily say that's a bad thing or a good thing she just describes it that way but obviously describing something as a harlot it has a negative connotation to it yeah um then on the flip side I did like this quote that I highlighted from um the therapist where he says "Of course there's such a thing as sexual sadism but it's not a disease it's a lifestyle choice and if it's practiced in a safe sane relationship between consenting adults then it's a non-issue." So I think that that was smart of her to use the therapist to explain that to Anastasia but to also make sure that that was explicitly stated in these books yeah totally in general yes I definitely appreciated that so you know these are the things that we're going to ask ourselves every time um that we read one of these books do you feel like this book in particular so Fifty Shades Darker has had a positive and is having a positive or a negative um you know impact on the romance genre in general you know how do you feel about it h I mean it's hard for me to separate at this point each individual book to the fandom and the and media because I definitely think they were all clumped together and then when you title these books in such a way as darker as freed like outside spectators are going to speculate spectators be speculating you know and me being one of them so you assume oh it gets darker in the bedroom and everything like that but this is really just about unpacking trauma yeah yep you know 100% it's really what it's all about so I feel like we've talked about it at length now at this point i think 50 Shades coming onto the scene made a positive impact even through all the parodies and the jokes and the stuff because it normalized some things and it made especially because Kindle first came on the scene right when this happened so it was able to get into so many hands and help normalize things for people and make things less taboo but then yeah it kind of took on a beast of its own and it's when you actually read it it has some problematic elements that we've also talked about that it's like well you if you like this you have to have had some terrible trauma happen to you so it's problematic in those regards but well that's why that they address that it's quote unquote not a disease it's a lifestyle choice that you know between two consenting adults is a quote unquote non-issue it's like that's why I think that it's really important you know cuz obviously a lot of people were upset that this didn't represent the BDSM community very well well it doesn't because they're not in a BDSM relationship that would be my my argument it's kind of like the Harry Potter thing that happened with the the BDSM Harry Potter oh no just like our parents like it's a witch like yeah you're going to have witchcraft and it's like you read these books and they're like not anything you know like our you know if you missed our Satanic Panic episode that was all gone over last fall when we kicked off our Harry Potter episode it's kind of the the critique of all these books are written it feels like from people that didn't even read these books you know mhm yeah so I would say I agree yeah it's like this is fiction this is a fake relationship it yeah you know it's like why do we feel the need to categorize and put them into a box that I would argue they're not in in general yeah they're not even in they're they're not saying like this is the they're not even categorizing their relationship as a BDSM relationship so no it's not going to represent it well because that's not what it is um that would be my argument i'm sure people will disagree with me on that hey that's fine we can you know agree to disagree but I would say that This book this is what I put in my notes is about as neutral as you can get i said that I don't think that I would consider this any more dark than a regular run-of-the-mill thriller um it just is what it is it's positive in the way that it made romance more mainstream i don't think that it's necessarily has a negative impact because again it's very benign what about red flags and and critiques either from you or just from people of of the world in general i stopped writing down red flags because I think that Christian is gonna be a murderer or a serial killer or even a stalker at this point i think he's just a Yeah troubled little boy in a 28-year-old's body yeah so hey yeah how about you i just put Christian is obviously emotionally stunted his therapist even says he's emotionally quote unquote a child so that would be like if you were looking to date him a red flag for sure um and then I put you know something that we've already talked about i don't like the assumption that to participate in this lifestyle you must be broken and that marriage vanilla sex quote unquote etc is in indicative of being mentally and emotionally well because I think that that's the flip side to that coin is if um you know quoteunquote unconventional sexual relationships are going to be considered um you know a symptom of an unwell mind then a quote unquote well mind would mean you know that yeah you engage in things like marriage having kids like you know whatever is societally quote unquote normalized and I feel like that is problematic for Mhm um and then I put other than that and it being boring I don't really have anything else to say about it it's not like Twilight and that is sad that's what I put yeah yeah i think it's it's unfortunate that at this time of the book release there weren't maybe it's unfortunate that book talk didn't exist so that we couldn't have these open conversations about it because it was taken by the media and ran with where like it's a sticky situation and that yeah you don't need to have had trauma to have these things but for Christian it was really healing for him to find somebody like Anna who wasn't able to have ever a quote normal vanilla relationship and to find out he does also enjoy that you know to kind of deconstruct those things and it can be fulfilling so it's like on one hand yeah we don't want to demonize that community but on the other hand you don't want to demonize the other community either right totally so it's uh it's unfortunately it unfortunately happened where that discussion never really seemed like it got to ever happen in popular culture about any of those themes that happen in the book yeah you know I don't know yeah i think that you know the combination of purity culture mixed with uh mainstream media wanting to knock women's entertainment down as many pegs as possible it just Yeah you're right this conversation didn't get to happen and that is unfortunate because I feel like it would have I don't know helped these books maybe be portrayed a little bit more accurately yes yeah yes exactly that it was because we both went into it thinking it was going to be one thing that we were fed essentially and because it's so different then it makes us feel all weird I think reading it at least for me it's like I wasn't you know and it's not necessarily even good but I guess if I went into it purely not knowing anything I'd be looking at it maybe with a different lens you know not like okay where's the spicy stuff coming you know where's the playful things happening and then you're like "Oh we're decongesting these not decongesting but deconstructing these traumas i wasn't ready for that i was ready for a silly fun good time you know." Yeah yeah yeah yeah basically it's like at this stage in the game it's like we do have kind of like those side plots with you know Elena and Leela and Jack or whatever but for the most part this is about Christian healing his trauma and Anna helping him to do so and growing up in the process and that's basically what it is it's a coming of age tale if you will exactly no for real who would have thought who would have thought it coming look me neither so um at this stage in the game because we must ask are you team Christian or team Anna ah um team get it over with yeah I put on team neither at this point i'm like I don't care about you guys go do your thing who cares yeah i'm not particularly drawn to either of them sorry but hey like I hope you guys get your stuff together have a good life yeah exactly figure it out good for you do you have any bonus questions for me today i can't think of any bonus questions sorry okay okay do you have any for me i don't do you have any fun facts i do have a fun fact allegedly Eel James wrote 50 Shades Darker in six weeks oh so look at that wow clarissa explains it all okay no I mean I don't I'm not an author i'm not a writer i don't know if that is uh good or bad six weeks seems fast but it does seem fast i don't know i don't know if that includes all the edits and everything and I don't even know if this is true this is just what Google told me i found a lot of typos uh they uh the page break like I said the page break was weird it didn't exist so I mean I found a lot of uh just grammatical errors so you know with the budget that this book must have had after book one it's like I don't know man like hire yourself a better editor sorry that might be mean but I I feel like for a book of this level I shouldn't have found so many typos so then I think I put it in the fable chat that I felt like it was gaslighting me cuz it would be one thing if it was like you know we have more grace for indie authors people with lesser budgets etc not going publishing you know it's like this is literally like a major release like maybe book one we could have had a little bit more leeway but like come on with book like it's the bestselling romance book of all time book one okay so okay so book two it feels it feels like it was written fast it feels like it was written fast but I felt like it was gaslighting me because I'd be like maybe this is correct and I just am thinking it's not you know what I mean maybe this is the correct spelling of that and I just don't know you know so uh yeah that definitely disappointed me a little bit cuz that definitely pulls me out and this book already didn't particularly capture my attention so that made it harder yeah okay well on that note I feel like we've probably covered everything that we need to say about book two 50 Shades Darker i think so all right all right okay all right guys thank you so much for joining us today and hearing what we have to say in this great gray month of May make sure to like It is gray that's why I'm wearing this cardigan cuz it's literally like maybe 50° outside right now where I live uh it's way too sunny here but hey uh it was it was rainy this weekend and I put I I did a darker shirt a darker gray for a darker so my shirt praise me cuz I figured I should wear one of my fun Dark and Disturbed shirts that goes with the theme check out Dark and Disturb that's a good shop it is it's a good one anyways make sure to like follow and subscribe anywhere you like to listen your favorite podcast including YouTube we are bringing you episode 3 next Friday so make sure your notifications are turned on and hey you guys you can now comment on Spotify podcast so cool thank you guys for taking time out of your day to leave a comment there when you're listening i don't know if it's on Apple yet comment if I'm wrong if you're listening on Apple i'll investigate that but thank you guys so much for joining us in this series and then we'll of course see you next Tuesday before next Friday and you can also check us out on Instagram and Tik Tok we're everywhere you want a little dose of little Besties Books you can find us besties and Books podcast everywhere okay all right thanks that's all we got bye bye