Fifty Shades of Snark, Part 1

Okay, here goes.

After the dull-looking cover (hey, you know what makes interesting cover art? A picture of a gray tie. That'll reel 'em in!), we find an "About the Author" page that informs us that EL James is a "TV executive, wife, and mother of two" who "dreamt of writing stories that readers would fall in love with, but put those dreams on hold to focus on her family and her career." Apparently this novel represents her first attempt to "[pluck] up the courage to put pen to paper," which is confusing to me since I didn't think writing stories took a lot of courage. Sharing stories takes courage, of course. Letting other people read what you write can be gut-wrenching. But actually writing stories, ones that you can keep to yourself if they don't turn out well? I don't think that's particularly brave. I'm a writer, and I don't think I have to "pluck up the courage" to write-- I just have to do it. It can be hard work, of course, but it's not really that intimidating to write stuff for your own pleasure.

Anyways.

We meet our narrator and heroine, Ana, a college student who, in the grand tradition of Mary Sues, happens to be pale and have humungous Japanamation eyes and conform to all modern beauty standards and yet simultaneously thinks she's just a mess, a total mess. She's flustered because her roommate Kate is sick and now she has to take over Kate's interview with an "enigmatic CEO" and university donor for the school newspaper. I don't really get why this is her job-- shouldn't, I dunno, another student from the paper be doing this?-- but whatever.

Kate is, of course, "gamine and gorgeous," with strawberry-blonde hair and green eyes. Ooooh, threesome maybe?

Ana muses that Kate will make a wonderful journalist, as she is "articulate, strong, persuasive, argumentative, [and] beautiful." Because physical beauty is the key to being a newspaper reporter, obvs.

Ana "gather[s] her satchel," like a good British--I mean, American--girl, and borrows her roommate's Mercedes for the drive to Portland. (Side note: Why do all trashy romance novels seem to take place in the Pacific Northwest? Seriously.) Here the author actually uses the phrase "floor the pedal to the medal." I just read that phrase in an actual published novel. That just happened. My brain just exploded and I'm only on page 8.

Ana gets to this guy's office, which is made of steel and stone and is imposing and cold and blah blah blah. She's greeted by yet another attractive woman, and thank God, because what would literature be if we started writing about women who weren't attractive?

And OMG, Ana's full name is Anastasia Steele. I think I've just decided that she's Rayford Steele's long-lost sister.

Ana signs in at the front desk, blathers on about how she clearly doesn't belong there in her one brown skirt and messy hair, and refers to herself as looking "smart," which I'm pretty sure American college students wouldn't say. She is whisked upwards in an elevator at "terminal velocity," which makes me think, in an Inigo Montoya voice, "That phrase...I do not think it means what you think it means." She refers to herself as "Steele" in her inner monologue, which makes me wince a bit. Apparently the brilliant journalist roommate is such a brilliant journalist that she didn't even equip her randomly chosen replacement with a brief biography of the interview subject. Ana freaks out a little about her lack of basic preparation, as well she should.

Cue the next series of beautiful blonde women (Ana remarks that it's "like Stepford here," which makes me both laugh and involuntarily gag at the same time), who get her water and usher her in to see Mr. Grey. (Ha ha, get it? Fifty Shades of Grey? The guy's name is Grey? Oh, how very clever.)

Predictably, Mr. Grey is tall and attractive with--guess what?--gray eyes. His office is "way too big for just one man." (That's what she said!) She's awkward, he's handsome. She approves of his art, remarking that the paintings in the office are "raising the ordinary to the extraordinary." This proves that she indeed does not know what many words in the English language mean. Perhaps she should rethink this whole English Lit major thing. Mr. Grey "couldn't agree more" with her statement, which proves that he isn't actually paying attention to a damn thing that comes out of her mouth.

She refers to him as an "Adonis." How very Bella Swan of her.

She's still awkward, he's still cold and handsome and aloof. He uses the word "incentivize," which makes me want to strangle someone. She interviews him about his success, and he starts spouting arrogant bullcrap. She's understandably annoyed, and calls him a control freak, and he's pretty much like, Hellz yeah, bitch! She's disgusted by his arrogance, of course.

She does get him to admit that he invests in farming technologies because he wants to help feed starving people, or something. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless he's investing in farming technologies in East Africa, but okay, I'll just go with it. He goes off on a spiel about wanting to "possess things" and how he's the "ultimate consumer." Gee, can you tell a TV exec wrote this?

He figures out, using his super-duper investigative powers, that Ana is only there because she happens to be friends with the girl who was supposed to do the interview, not because she's an actual journalist or anything. As a result, he decides he gets to ask her questions about her personal life now. Suddenly, and for pretty much no reason at all, he's all offering her an internship at his company and shit. She's incredibly freaked out by this, which makes sense since he's basically offering her a job based on her appearance and not her actual qualifications. She hightails it out of there ASAP.

As soon as she's outside, she tries to figure out why "no man has ever affected [her] the way Christian Grey has." She wonders if it's his wealth, power, or "civility." I think it's probably because she's all of 21 years old, so really, how many men can have "affected" her at this point?

On the drive home, she muses endlessly about why she found him so uber-sexy. She seems to believe that he has a "right" to be arrogant because he's made a lot of money or whatever. Really? Bah.