Jenny Reads 50 Shades of Grey

Ugh

I think this might be getting a little bit meta. Jenny Trout is an American author who has a long-held frustration with the 50 Shades series by E.L James. So last year, Trout decided to read the first book and recap each chapter.

I'd never read the series myself, but was still curious due to my girlfriend having read all three books. It was about a month ago when I first heard about Trout's blog on Twitter and decided it might be a less painful experience than actually attempting to read 50 Shades of Grey for myself.

So, this is a review of the recap of a series. I guess. Like I said, it's a bit meta.


Any text written in blue and any images are taken from Jenny Trout's blog.

As I mentioned before, Trout is an author. She writes romance novels. She also reads romance novels. So when the 50 Shades series took the world by storm, she was naturally curious.

Jenny Trout, on the Twitternets. @Jenny_Trout

What she didn't expect was to find a badly-written knock-off of the Twilight series.

Probably was a better 50 Shades movie than the real one will be.

What I wasn't expecting was for these recaps to be as entertaining as they are.

There is a surprising amount of BatAbed in this blog.

Trout mainly switches between three formats. Giving a broad overview of what's happening in the chapter; directly quoting the text; and reacting to said text.

She points out the glaring contradictions between what E.L James says and what actually happens in the book. The major case(es) in point are the fact that Christian is not charming and commanding, but creepy and acts like a spoiled brat, and that Ana is neither "bright" or caring "but" but kind of "a shitty friend."

Of course Ana doesn’t feel bad! Why should she? She’s the heroine! We have to like her. Because she’s the heroine. So, when her friend is saying, “Please, for me, blow off work and classes and go meet this famous person, so you can put this interview on your resume when it could have been on mine had I not contracted a horrible respiratory illness,” Ana can only think, “Ugh, it is soooo not fair that she is prettier than me. I will absolutely not feel sympathetic toward you,” and the reader better know whose side to be on, damnit!

It's a testament to Trout's writing that reading the blog really does feel like going on a journey. You can feel Jenny Trout's frustration bubbling up, and the confusion as character actions and conversation are not necessarily paired.

“That’s fine. I can still make a fine article with this. Shame we don’t have some original stills. Good-looking son of a bitch, isn’t he?” I flush.

Here is another problem I have with this book, since I’m so obviously short on things to critique.  See that line of dialogue? Looks like Ana is saying it, right? Nope. Those words are coming out of Kate’s mouth, tagged with Ana’s actions. And it happens all the time in this.

She also frequently criticises the badly-structured sentences, leading to this wonderful piece of imagery in the first chapter.

So young – and attractive, very attractive. He’s tall, dressed in a fine gray suit, white shirt, and black tie with unruly dark copper colored hair and intense, bright gray eyes that regard me shrewdly.

That… is one hell of a tie.

To which her readership replied with.

This is when I knew I'd found a blog to keep reading.

She also ridicules the allegedly spicy sex scenes, pointing out how frequently Ana relates an alarming amount of sexual situations to feeling "child-like."

I’m like a small, giddy child. And all the contract angst fades.

So, here we are again, feeling like a child because a man paid attention to her.

Why don't you have a seat right over there, Mr Grey?

She also points out how laughable the terminology is, with Ana constantly referring to her "inner goddess" as code for her sex drive, and basically "feeling funny down there" as if this supposed 21-year old woman has the anatomical knowledge of a 14-year old.

The romance in this scene is paralleled only by the unbridled eroticism, with Ana using such wicked terminology as “down there”. Someone quick, turn up the AC!

“I’m going to fuck you now, Miss Steele,” he murmurs as he positions the head of his erection at the entrance of my sex. “Hard,” he whispers, and he slams into me.

“Argh!” I cry as I feel a weird pinching sensation deep inside me as he rips through my virginity.

There you have it. At age twenty-one and a lifetime of clumsiness, Ana is still, unbelievably, factory-sealed, and breaking the seal voids the warranty turns her into a pirate.

At the time of publishing, I have read the entire first series of recaps and I'm now several chapters into 50 Shade Darker with Jenny Trout.

I can see what she means when she says the series is addictive. It's great fun to see somebody tear down something that has garnered such undeserved acclaim. I thought I'd stop when I'd finished reading the first set of recaps, but I was pulled back in - I wanted to know what would happen in this badly-written knock-off and what Jenny Trout would say about it.

If you've ever been curious about the 50 Shades series, then this is definitely the way to experience it.