Review: Fifty Shades Freed by E.L. James

*** Warning: This Review is R Rated. It contains graphic imagery and strong language. Do not continue reading unless you are over 18 or have the permission of your parents to read this***

Title: Fifty Shades Freed
Author: E.L. James
Series: Fifty Shades #3
Pages: 551
Publisher: The Writer's Coffee Shop
Date Published: January 1, 2011
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Genre: Erotic Fiction
Source: The Library

Synopsis:
When unworldly student Ana Steele first encountered the driven, damaged young entrepreneur Christian Grey, it sparked a sensual affair that changed both their lives irrevocably. Shocked, intrigued, and ultimately repelled by Christian's singular sexual tastes, Ana demanded a deeper commitment; determined to keep her, Christian agreed. Now, together, they have more-love, passion, intimacy, wealth, and a world of infinite possibilities. But Ana always knew that loving her Fifty Shades would not be easy and being together poses challenges neither of them ever anticipated. Ana must somehow learn to share Christian's opulent lifestyle without sacrificing her own integrity, identity, or independence; Christian must somehow overcome his compulsion to control and lay to rest the horrors that blighted his past and haunt his present. Just when it seems that together their love can conquer any obstacle, tragedy, malice and fate combine to make Ana's worst nightmares come true.

My Review:
I honestly don't know why I keep putting myself through this series. It's not like I'm gaining anything at all by reading it. It's like a car crash: horrific, disgusting, but entirely impossible to look away from. I also want to be able to crush my friends opinions. At first they were all like "omg, you HAVE to read this series! You will love it! I wish my life was like Ana's!" well...now they just wish they never told me about Fifty Shades of Crap because I point out every single craptastic part of the book and I kind of like showing people that the very thing they obsess about is the reason they don't have a relationship/boyfriend like dear Mr. Christian Grey.

Okay, let's start her up people! Opening scene flashes to (apparently) the most romantic honeymoon ever. (says just about every girl I know) Okay so the private yacht is pretty awesome... But as Ana and Christian are off in the Mediterranean living in wedded bliss full of sex and happiness, they keep encountering one real problem. Christian's misogynistic tendencies to be a total and complete asshole. He's controlling to the point of treating Ana like a 5 year old. Forces her to go shopping with his money to affirm his love as he spends time being the man of the family and makes business calls. But not only MUST she go shopping all the time, she has to take a bodyguard with her...Ana doesn't like this obviously, and she spends an annoying amount of time complaining about it in her head without actually saying anything to Mr. Control-freak OR the bodyguard which makes like an entire chapter completely pointless. THEN when Ana falls asleep with her top off (on a topless beach...) Christians fury is unmatched because heaven forbid someone else sees Ana's precious virgin tits. So he drags her back to the yacht where they have angry sex and he purposely leaves bruises all over Ana's boobs so she won't sunbathe topless ever again...asshole...so back to that sex that happens every 5 pages...

I thought it wouldn't get any worse than the tampon scene in book one. My...oh my...was I wrong. Though the sex scenes have gotten progressively more boring and similar as Ana attempts to change Christian from a sexual sadist to someone who DOESN'T like to beat up their partner during a good love fest. As nice as it is to see Christian stop wanting to cane Ana, the sex has gotten to the point where I can say "insert sex position here" and be right about it. I swear every sex scene is exactly the same. There's a lot of licking (usually Ana has to lick her own body fluids, I can only assume because it's part of Christian's obsession with forcing her to eat), Ana spontaneously explodes with orgasms a few times despite the fact that Christian never seems to do anything that would cause an orgasm, then they cuddle a bit before they start to fight over some stupid meaningless problem. Even Ana, queen of vanilla sex and modesty is longing for a good long session in Christian's red room of pain by the time they are halfway through the book. And guess what this visit has in store! BUTT PLUGS! Now, I don't fault anyone who likes anal sex. It's just that Ana's ridiculous dialogue that went on for pages about butt plugs was laughable. It's like she's a 10 year old discovering sex. She's always asking stupid questions like..."what's a butt-plug? What's he gunna do with THAT (in reference to the butt-plug)...Hmmm...I don't know Ana...what do YOU think he's going to do with a butt-plug?...Oh you poor, poor, girl you...Her complete naivete is what makes it simultaneously gross, awkward, and uncomfortable.

One of my biggest pet peeves for this series is Ana's insistence on calling every body part by a stupid childish Euphemism. She constantly refers to her nether regions as "down there"...her ass as her...tee-hee... "bottom"...Come on. This is a book about sexual domination. Abuse. FISTING for Christ sakes. Christian literally has a whole room where he engages in depraved sexual activity that he himself calls "kinky fuckery".  In a book where the main love interest is a sadist with an irresistible urge to BEAT UP WOMEN WHO LOOK LIKE HIS CRACK-WHORE MOTHER, The least you can do is call your ass an ass. Or a butt at the bare minimum. But no, Ana gets the tingles "down there" and Christian inserts fingers, beads, butt-plugs, a hamster, etc. (whatever) into Ana's "bottom"

As for the plot, there honestly wasn't much to see. We already delved deep into Christian's psyche in the last installment so now all we have to look forward to is Ana and Christian having sex and misunderstanding each other. As for anything else of interest, you could open the book to the last 40 pages and won't have missed ANY type of plot. I can sum up the first 200 in a few sentences here for you. Ana and Christian have sex. Ana talks to her subconscious, Ana talks to her inner sex goddess, Ana and Christian fight, Ana and Christian have sex again, Ana and Christian fight again,...etc, etc, etc. As for the sex mostly it's disgusting (and I don't mean in the BDSM way...it just usually involves weird food/licking/etc fetishes and it's kind of icky and makes me feel gross).They then fuck with each other in another way by playing with each other's emotions. One is always mad at the other reason for inexplicable reasons, and to be honest, neither of them seem to understand how to have a functional relationship. They can't talk to each other without getting angry and they never agree about anything. Ana actually has the stupidity to think that this is okay in a mature relationship as long as she and Christian continue having mind blowing sex.

WHY do so many women envy this couple? My own best friends have stared longingly into the darkness saying "Oh, I wish I could find a Christian Grey for myself! He's everything I've ever wanted"...And seriously get mad when the guys they are dating/seeing/flirting with don't act like Christian Grey...

Please excuse me while I down several shots of tequila to mourn the loss of any amount of dignity, self respect, and class that women have ever had. A fellow reviewer has said "Why can't every guy in the world love their girl the way that Christian loves Ana." PLEASE, Honey...get yourself some help. If you believe that men should treat you like crap, demand obedience from you, physically marr your skin so that you won't show it off to other guys...then you deserve one. Think about it...Christian Grey is NOT the new prince charming...he's the opposite of it. Stay far...FAR away...

The absolute worst, most creepy, seriously disturbing part of this book was the weirdly bizarre epilogue at the ending. So Ana and Christian have been happily married for a few more years. They have a son who's five and a daughter on the way. Scene: Our least favorite couple of all time are in a meadow outside of their fabulous new home and their son is playing somewhere nearby. So of course they have sex. Because possibly they can't go for more than a few hours without getting it in, even though they actually don't know if their toddler will walk in on them at any moment. After another deliciously similar (to every single other sex scene in the book) sex scene full of licking, and feet, and orgasms (pretty much in that order) Ana feels her daughter move around in her pregnant belly. She decides that this means her fetus already enjoys sex.

What. The. FUCK?...The fact that E.L. James believes that it's cute that an infant should enjoy sex in any capacity, let alone sex with her father is STRAIT UP FUCKING WEIRD and probably the most disturbing thing that I've read in a good long time. Then to add the icing to the top of the icky cake, their son comes along and Christian seductively licks popsicle off of his son's fingers. ewww. But apparently the sight of her husband fellating her son's fingers is a turn on for Miss Ana so: Yay Happy Ending!

I give this book NO Keys...it doesn't deserve a rating and I wish I would have done what my brain was begging me to do and DNF the book after the first ten pages. From what I've seen, the people who enjoy these books are people who don't typically read at all. I guess that's understandable. If  they don't ususally read books, then they don't understand that they are reading an enormous pile of horse shit. It's not their fault. They just haven't read anything since they were forced to read Huckleberry Fin, The Great Gatsby, etc in high school, so of course they think that the crap that E.L.James writes has some kind of worth. Well. I don't agree. Anyone who has any amount of reading comprehension skills should hate this book with a fiery passion for it's ignorance of plot, lack of character development, and pure stupidity. I'd pay someone to go off E.L.James right now, preferrably with a bowl of her own used butt plugs, so that I never EVER have to read one of her books again. All those housewives and fans talking about how amazing and earthshaking it is...honey...just rent a porno if you're in the mood. At least that's over within an hour tops. You don't have to put yourself through hours of agonizing, demoralizing, boring sex scenes to get off. Go buy a vibrator or something.