Tag Archives: Fifty Shades of Grey

My Love for John Green

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I’m on a high right now.  There’s nothing that I love more than being smitten.  I hope my husband doesn’t get jealous, but even if he doesn’t quite understand, he needs to be aware that there is a man in my life that takes my breath away.  It’s this guy:

Ok, so maybe not that creeper version, but definitely he has my heart.  For those of you who don’t know, this is John Green.  Wait.  THIS is John Green:

I was first introduced to John’s writing during last year’s Christmas break in Michigan.  I saw a display of his novel, The Fault in Our Stars.  Not knowing anything about them, but suffering from the same “affliction” that all bookies carry, I purchased a copy to add to my never ending, always growing, bookshelf of “Things to Read.”  Again, not knowing what I had in my possession, I put it off until May of this year.  Once I opened the cover and spent one mere cancer support group with Hazel and Augustus, I could not put the book down.  In fact, I took it so far as to write down quotes from the pages…quotes and notions, and pages and pages and pages of them!

I could not believe the mastery of the English language.  I could not get beyond the way in which John wove a string of words together that moved me so grandly.  It never occurred to me that a simple story of love and suffering could be told in a new way.  Some might blame the fact that I had JUST completed my Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy and therefore anything would have impressed me at that point.  However, what shocked and grabbed my attention in the brash series was completely absent in The Fault in Our Stars.  The purity and honesty of the connection between the main characters, Hazel and Augustus, was a breath of fresh air.

Here are some of my favorite lines for the novel.  Sorry there are no page numbers because I read it on my Kindle app.

 ”So I wasn’t exactly lying.  I was just choosing among truths”

*

” ‘Some people don’t understand that promises they’re making when they’re making them,’ I said.

‘But you keep the promise anyway.  That’s what love is.  Love is keeping the promise anyway,’ “

*

“The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with.  It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we’d done were less real and important than they had been hours before.”

*

“Hazel has developed an issue with the ghettoization of scrambled eggs…Maybe scrambled eggs are ghettoized, but they’re also special.  They have a place and a time, like church does.”

*

“Easy comfort isn’t comforting.”

*

“I believe humans have souls, and I believe in the conservation of souls.”

*

“I was staring, but I wasn’t yearning, if you know what I mean.”

*

“…no longer suffering from personhood.”

*

” ‘Okay,’ he said after forever.

‘Maybe okay will be our always.’

‘Okay,” I said.

It was Augustus who finally hung up.”

*

“It seemed like forever ago, like we’d had this brief but still infinite forever.  Some infinities are bigger than other infinites.”

*

We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either.”

*

“I love you present tense.”

I quickly moved onto another John Green novel: Looking for Alaska.  I thought maybe it was something about seeking out a new frontier for yourself, hence the Alaska connection.  I was actually not completely wrong, and I was 1,000,000 % right in choosing this to be the follow up novel to The Fault in Our Stars.  I won’t go so far as to say that it is better  but I will say that it did not leave me wanting for more.  Equality in this case is most excellent.  It’s like asking a mother to choose her favorite child.  Wait, that can’t be right because I know that I’m my mother’s favorite.  Ok, so it’s more like which pair of sweatpants from 2007 are your favorite?  Tough call because both are comfy and well-worn in the right places and have been there for you as you SOB through two John Green novels in a row!

Anyways, I so loved Looking for Alaska that I am going to be “teaching” it to my students this year.  I quote-a-size the term teach because it will be teaching us.  True Story.

One of Kurt Vonnegut’s rules of writing a short story is: “be a sadist.  No matter sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.”  And that’s just what John Green has done in his novels, not just TFIOS.

The way I carry on might make you think that John Green is a one-hit-wonder.  FALSE!  I have read every novel that he has been credited with on his Wikipedia page:

The Fault in Our Stars

Looking for Alaska

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

An Abundance of Catherines

Let it Snow: Three Holiday Romances

I’m literally halfway through my last John Green novel, Paper Towns.  I’m fearing that once I turn the last page, I’ll suffer the same literary depression as I did when I finished reading The Hunger Games or Divergent.  When in need of a expert guidance, seek out the leading authority.  What will I do when I am done with Paper Towns?  John?

Want to know more about John Green and his writing?  Check him out here:

John Green’s website

John Green’s Wikipedia page

Become a Nerdfighter

And DON’T FORGET TO BE AWESOME!

Five Things Friday Plus One

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Oh Friday, you stroll back into my life like a smooth operator.

As is my life lately, this post encompasses absolutely no sense of order or reason, so I shall just begin.

1.  With the grace of God, a lot of praying, and a very welcomed offer, Dear Hubby and I have sold our car.  Our little Ford Focus has served us well both on St. Paul Island and in Michigan.  In the land of full-sized, diesel fueled 4X4s, our little car may have developed a slight Napoleon Complex.

The off-roading ability of a compact car certainly did give us a few fits when the harsh winds blew road-blocking snow drifts, but it was a mobile roof over our heads.

2.  Last night I went for a four-mile run.  I was planning on counting Thursday as my Rest Day of the week, but when my legs were itchin’ to be let loose, you gotta give the ladies what they want.

3.  I updated my Netflix DVD catalog, and changed over our mailing address from Alaska to Michigan.  I didn’t realize until after I was done and preparing this blog entry that I might be slightly preoccupied with handsome leading men.

 4.  Speaking of making cinematheque choices based exclusively on eye candy, I also added the first season of “the Vampire Diaries” to our Netflix list.

I have no idea what this show is about: reflective vampires?!?!

Since so much hype has been surrounding the potential actors who would play Christian Grey in a movie version of The Fifty Shades of Grey, and Ian Somerhalder’s name keeps popping up, I found it to be my responsibility and civic duty to be as knowledgeable of the candidates as possible.

Hair worthy of running an exasperated hand through? CHECK!

Piercing eyes? CHECK!

Twitchy palm? CHECK!

5.  May Reading Challenge Update!

I have set a goal for myself to read at least five novels in the month of May, and like my running mileage goal, I don’t think I’ll have any problem reaching it.  So far I have read the final two installments in the Fifty Shades series, Insurgent, and as of yesterday, The Fault in Our Stars.  I have two titles left to read, The Hate List and I,Iago, and because I was so moved by the writing style of John Green in The Fault in Our Stars, I decided to break out of my challenge boundaries and begin another Green title, Looking for Alaska.

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up – Sixteen-year-old Miles Halter’s adolescence has been one long nonevent – no challenge, no girls, no mischief, and no real friends. Seeking what Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps,” he leaves Florida for a boarding school in Birmingham, AL. His roommate, Chip, is a dirt-poor genius scholarship student with a Napoleon complex who lives to one-up the school’s rich preppies. Chip’s best friend is Alaska Young, with whom Miles and every other male in her orbit falls instantly in love. She is literate, articulate, and beautiful, and she exhibits a reckless combination of adventurous and self-destructive behavior. She and Chip teach Miles to drink, smoke, and plot elaborate pranks. Alaska’s story unfolds in all-night bull sessions, and the depth of her unhappiness becomes obvious. Green’s dialogue is crisp, especially between Miles and Chip. His descriptions and Miles’s inner monologues can be philosophically dense, but are well within the comprehension of sensitive teen readers. The chapters of the novel are headed by a number of days “before” and “after” what readers surmise is Alaska’s suicide. These placeholders sustain the mood of possibility and foreboding, and the story moves methodically to its ambiguous climax. The language and sexual situations are aptly and realistically drawn, but sophisticated in nature. Miles’s narration is alive with sweet, self-deprecating humor, and his obvious struggle to tell the story truthfully adds to his believability. Like Phineas in John Knowles’s A Separate Peace(S & S, 1960), Green draws Alaska so lovingly, in self-loathing darkness as well as energetic light, that readers mourn her loss along with her friends. - Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library

While I was looking for a photo of the cover of the novel, I came across a link that indicated that there is a film version of Miles Halter’s story.  It won’t be out until 2013, but I’m always excited when I’m on the bandwagon for a book-turned-movie LONG before the film is released.  One of the few times I feel part of the popular crowd.

Whatever.

6.  A bonus for us all!

Without going into any detail whatsoever, I just wanted to let you all know that I have my first in-person job interview in over four years scheduled.  Based upon on my present People Skills, I need to practice making appropriate, at-work small talk.

Fifty Shades Darker – A Review

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**SPOILER ALERT**

This is my official review of the sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker by E. L. James in this post.  If you haven’t read the novels yet,  I highly recommend doing so first(it should take you a day) and come back to read my review after.

Trust me, they ARE both that good =)

*             *             *             *             *            *

Operation Liquidate Lover Boy

In a dark, underground lair a meeting is being held; a coup is being plotted and it all centers around the take-down of the world’s most dangerous man.  He wields more power with a few spoken words and strokes of his pen.  He builds up and tears down with the tilt of his head, the peak of an eyebrow.  And just when reinforcements have been collected and defense strategies have been implemented, he changes the game and all advancements have been lost.  Yes, he must be stopped.

Around a rickety, makeshift table sit the #2, 3, and 4 to his #1.  They huddle around a muted beam of artificial light that throws shade on their vexed and exasperated faces.  First to speak is the elder in the group.

“Welcome, Gentlemen.  I feared this day would come, but not so soon and not in such an illusive form.  How can we combat what we cannot catch?” questioned Rhett.

“If I knew, we wouldn’t be here, would we?  It seems as if the game has been elevated, Gentlemen.  It’s not enough to just be “Out of My League” handsome, and making a living on a dream of something more doesn’t cut it any longer.   It costs alotta dough to be a Panty Dropper these days,” observed Jack.

“There’s only one solution.  We have to take him out.  He’s an anthology of all our charming chick magnetizing attributes. Like the Allied Powers, Bill Gates, and a basket of Teacup Piglets and Basset Hounds had a baby.  There’s no competing with that,” declares Matthew McConnaughey’s Shirtless Abs.

“And if there’s no competing with him, then we’ll have to take him out.  We’ve worked too long, and have been the fictional character that women compare their men to for decades for this up-and-comer to end our streak now,” complained Jack.

“Hee hee.  Up and comer.  I get it,” snorted McConaughey Abs.

“Enough of that.  Be serious.  I’ve been competing against unobtainable men a lot longer than either one of you.  But I’ll tell you, that damn Ashley Wilkes has nothing on Christian Grey,” said Rhett.  ”We may be down, but we cannot be out.  We shall rise again.”

“Hee hee.  Rise again.  That’s what she said,” and with that Matthew’s Abs were slapped into silence.

As the conversation continues into the wee hours of the night, a plan is hatched by the down, but not out trio.

*             *             *             *             *            *

Ok, ok.  Now that I’ve had my fun with creative writing, let’s get back to why we’re all here: a review of Fifty Shades Darker  by E.L. James.  There’s no secret, women LOVE these novels.  I’ve also analyzed in my labs the various reasons why we may fantasize about having Christian Grey in not only our beds, but our kitchens, driving us to work, and checking up on us throughout the day via Blackberry emails.   The same tactics that enticed its readers to stay up well beyond a reasonable hour were present in the second book, but somehow Christian and Ana’s love intensified my joy and total fixation with their story.

I cannot begin to tell you how far my heart fell when  Fifty Shades of Grey  ends with the breakup of Christian and Anastasia.  I was fully prepared to stay in a mental pair of baggy sweatpants and listen to Adele along with Ana.  Who knew that the sun would come out and I’d be in a sundress in less than two chapters?!?!  I’m not complaining at all; Ms. James gave the audience what we wanted: HOT, EXPLORATORY LUVIN’!

This segment of the ying and yang relationship between Christian and Ana seems to focus more around their insecurities while trying to figure out who they are in the other’s world.  In book #1, Christian is more in control because he gets to make the rules.  When he realizes that the game has to change in order to keep this unexpected breath of vanilla-scented air in his life, he is willing to do so.  Ana is less than convinced in his dedication to her and her ability to keep him without satisfying his savage carnal needs.

Self esteem issues are peppered throughout this novel, and they seem to be more centered on Christian and his murky past.

I believe that  Ana shows her assertive side more in the second book, and I loved the scene in which she fends off her sleazy boss’ advances when he tries to take advantage of his position.  If only she could find this courage when it comes to going head-to-head with Christian.  But we must walk before we run, right Ana?

And while some people are quick to point fingers as how absurd, at times, the self deprecating dialogue is, I can relate.  Let us not forget what it was like to be a 21 year old/first-timer-in-love.  I cringe at some of the goopy drama that I got myself into.  Of course, my issues with my first boyfriend were about spending more time with me rather than with the guys from the basketball team and not if I wanted handcuffs and the “butt drawer” involved in my spankings.

But my point is that I never trusted that I was enough to keep my boyfriend interested.  I thought I wasn’t skinny enough, not clever enough, not pretty enough to make him ward off all the other female attention he received.  Most of these insecurities, and Christian and Ana’s are intensified by their own demons and not the love in their lives.  No matter how many times Christian declares his undying love, the doubt never quite leaves; the same goes for Ana.  This doubt is manifested in the internal, and ultimately outward back-and-forth that the couple goes through.

The thing that makes this novel even better than the first is that the couple explores even more about themselves WITH the other, and this might be even more hot than the sex scenes, which is good because the author decided to take the classy route and only hint at a their bedroom play.  As the title Fifty Shades Darker gives some insight, the audience sighs a collective sympathetic sigh in reaction to our beloved Christian’s tortured past.  This information helps the audience, and Ana, understand why Christian made the choices that he did in the past and his need for control.   I believe that the biggest example off is growth is that he not only opens himself up to “more,” but to living with and ultimately proposing marriage to Ana.

I can’t give this book an untainted review; I did have a few issues that center around Ana and her nagging.  There’s a fine line between standing up for yourself and persistently finding fault with things that are out of your control.  I would put my foot down about Christian remaining friends with his former age-inappropriate libido liberator as well, but enough digging around in the past.  I can’t tell you how many times I yelled at my Kindle as I was reading through these scenes.

The other issue that I had was Ana’s hot and cold approach to being liberated in the bedroom.  It seemed as if she would be afraid of Christian hurting her, yet she didn’t want to hold back to the point that it would cause him to leave her.

First, she’s all:

but then she’s all:

You can’t have it both ways, Honey.  But with Christian Grey, you take it EVERY way you can get it, if you know what I mean =)

Final assessment: I loved this book more than the first installment of Fifty and all his shades.  I believe that the growth that we see in the individuals, more on Christian’s part, helps solidify their relationship into something that they can both live with.  The new plot developments, including a delicious masquerade ball, and the classic elements of Christian Grey from Fifty Shades of Grey made this sequential novel a must-read.  Vanilla may be bland, and even though variety may be the spice of life, I believe that Christian and Ana’s love made this reader feel like one hot tamale!