Soy Sauce, meat monsters and disembodied penises.

Sometimes a book tries to create a fantasy world that is supposed to pull you in and make you feel like you are actually living it. There are books that have achieved this and had great followings of people imagining they lived in that world, writing fan-fiction and imagining their lives if they were born into that fantasy.

John Dies at the End is not one of those books.

I'll start this review with a little backstory as to how I discovered this book. I have been an avid reader of Cracked.com for years. For those of you who have browsed the site, you undoubtedly know that is is one of those websites that you can get lost in, opening fifty new tabs for articles that seem interesting. You also know that the humour used in those articles is not particularly sophisticated, but it's witty enough to create a few laughs out of sheer absurdity and amusing parallels.

David Wong, the author of this book, is the editor of Cracked.com. I've known his name for years. So when I used an online recommendation site to look for more books similar to my favourite author, Chuck Palahniuk, I was surprised to see a familiar name in the list. Without even reading a synopsis, I pressed the download button on my nook for John Dies at the End, hoping that it would be just as engaging as David's writing on his famed website.

I was not disappointed.

As I said before, this is not one of those books that pulls you in to the fantasy world. The main character is not a portmanteau of what the reader could be in this situation. He is not an everyman, and neither is he someone to be aspired to. What this book does is create a detachement, an unreliable narrator that pulls you through the ridiculous events of his life with an aire of "I know you won't believe me, but listen to this shit I had to go through."

The fantasy world created in this book is that of the supernatural, but created in a way that someone never truly understands what's going on. The main character doesn't even understand it.

The first chapter includes the main character and his best friend, John, going into a 'haunted house' and being faced with a monster that takes on the form of a large humanoid figure made entirely out of meat from the downstairs freezer, completely with a cow's tongue for speech.

Then things get weirder from there. The basement fills with raw sewage as they try to escape the monster, then when they try to use the door, the handle turns into a realistic penis that neither character is willing to touch for fear of some form of homoerotic pleasure the monster may gain from it.

You find out through the story that the two characters were thrust into this world of the supernatural by the drug curiosity that plagues those in their early twenties. A mysterious man with a fake jamaican accent gives them a drug called "Soy sauce," which is itself living. It turns them temporarily into demigods, able to go through space and time and inexplicably be able to know the entire history of the person or object in front of them. These side effects only last a few hours at most, but from that moment on, John and David can see the invisible monsters from other dimensions that find their way into our world.

It's a story of trying to save the world, and being completely and utterly unprepared for it. It's a story that uses ridiculous situations to illustrate the absurdity of the world they see.

And it's fucking awesome.

If there was one book I could recommend to you, it would be this one. That's why I'm avoiding putting any spoilers in this review, because I legitimately want you to go out, download, buy, or borrow it and enjoy. It is one of those books you won't be able to put down for fear of missing something important and ludicrous.

And if that hasn't pushed you to go find it, here's a trailer of the upcoming movie based on it. What surprised me the most is that, after reading the book, I can literally recognize every single scene in this trailer. I'm excited for the movie, because it has me thinking that it very well could be an extremely faithful adaptation.

I've almost finished the sequel: "This Book is Made of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It." I'll update when I'm done with it with another review.

You lot are a bunch of sadistic bastards.

You get some sick sort of schadenfreude from watching me read these books, don't you?  

50 Shades Freed. 

This is me, weighing the pros and cons of throwing my e-reader against the wall. 

I’ve now made it through the entire series, and I can say with glee that it is finally OVER. I don’t have to read about Christian’s angst-filled Freudian psychosis, or Anastasia’s constant doubt of herself. I can go back to reading things that aren’t secret porn for lonely housewives.

Remember the somewhat good vibes I was giving about 50 shades darker, with it’s tolerable plot (surprisingly) and intriguing character development? Yeah, 50 Shades Freed totally ruined all of that.

The first book explored Anastasia’s sexuality, making it intriguing. The second book explored Christian’s mental damages, making it even more intriguing. The third book explored… what it’s like to be married to a rich guy.

Not even kidding.

The entire plot is based on the fact that Anastasia and Christian are newlyweds and she’s not used to having billions of dollars at her disposal. He buys her a house, a few cars, a wardrobe that’s contents probably could feed a 3^rd world country, and of course, her own publishing company.

Oh and then she gets pregnant by accident. And Christian freaks out.

I’m sorry, I’m not even really trying anymore. This last book took all of my wittiness away with it’s horrible plot. I mean, she seriously spends a chapter lamenting about how unfortunate it is that her husband spends money on her, and that she has to become accustomed to this new lifestyle.

Boo-freaking-hoo.

Wanna send some of those money my way so I can pay for college? You can keep the kinky sex with a psychopath. I just want a few thousand dollars. Probably about the amount you spent on that bikini you wore on the south of France during your holiday. That’d probably do.

Or the $30,000 he spent on a bracelet you didn’t need so he could hide the handcuff marks.

Or maybe the Audi R8 he bought for your birthday, because in passing you mentioned you liked it. Which you never drive anyway. 

You know, I bet if you just gave me one of those cocktail dresses your personal shopper picked out for you, I could sell it for enough to cover my tuition.

I’m a broke college student, thus I’m angsty about the source of your angst, Anastasia Grey. Even if you’re a fictional character designed to help an entire population of under-sexxed women life out their fantasies vicariously through you.

The sex is mindblowing? Good for you. The man you’re married to is gorgeous? Congrats. You just inherited several billion dollars without a prenup? Great!

STOP FUCKING COMPLAINING ABOUT IT.

That’s all I’ve got for this book. I can’t even muster up the effort to berate it, because it’s that bad.

I do have to commend it for giving a definite end to the series. They have kids, move into a picturesque house, catch the dude stalking Christian because they were in the same foster home as kids, or something like that. No cliff hangers, no “Coming next fall, 50 Shades Domestic.”

Except the promise of a film version of this book. I honestly have no idea how they’re going to pull that off with less than an R rating. Hell, if they were faithful to the book in anyway, they might as well just release it on pornhub, or something similar.

I’m done. I made it.

Promise kept.

Why 50 shades darker is still a better love story than Twilight.

50 Shades Darker

Now available in a not-quite-as-pornographic-version! 

 Alright, I’ll admit it. I read Twilight. It started in high school when I was coerced into it by a few of my friends on my speech and debate team.  Always one to enjoy reading, I gave it an honest chance. I even read the entire series.

I’m not saying I enjoyed it, but I’d rather have a frame of reference about something before passing judgment on it. After reading the series in it’s entirety, I can easily say that I absolutely hated it. The character development was non-existent, the situation absolutely unrealistic (even without the sparkling vampires,) the story not engaging in the least, and the writing style was absolutely atrocious.

And now, I find myself doing something rather similar almost four years later with the series of 50 Shades of Grey, which I recently learned was originally a fanfiction of this series.

I have to admit, however, that as far as mindless romance novels go, this one is actually superior to Twilight. I’m going to take some time to explain the pros of this series.

First of all, the character development is superb. The plain narrator goes from being an underconfident young English major to an independent woman with her own needs and wants. She goes from being completely innocent, to learning about another complete culture and keeping an open mind for the sake of making her beau happy. She maintains her virtures, while at the same time giving the other side, the dark side, if you will, a chance.

The same can be said for the main male love interest. He starts off unrelenting, with an obsession with Anastasia that borders on unhealthy. Of course, unlike the source material, he doesn’t break into her house to watch her sleep all night, but his obsession is very obviously lust.

It grows from there. You realize this man is not a perfect specimen of what a man can be. He has a legitimate reason to be disturbed. He has a past that leaves him terrified of intimacy. Slowly, these guards come down and you can feel the character grow from a heartless, dominant sadist, to a scared little boy who never had the chance to cope with his past.

For the first several hundred pages, I actually found myself enjoying 50 shades darker. Gone were the cliché scenes of the narrator being terrified of her admittedly scary love-interest. In the first book, Christian taught Ana about his lifestyle. In this book, Ana teaches Christian how to be an emotionally functional human being.

The character development was much better than expected, and the best part was that, unlike Twilight, you actually had an inkling of why these two were together. I may need to remind those who did not read Twilight that three chapters into the book, Bella Swan says “About three things I was absolutely positive: First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him-and I didn't know how dominant that part might be-that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”

Note, this is before she knew anything about him.  In the 50 shades trilogy, Anastasia Steele actually falls in love with her broken beau. You can see the progression from fear, to interest, to excitement, then infatuation, then anger, love, and familiarity. There are scenes that have absolutely nothing to do with sex whatsoever, but you can feel the chemistry between the characters. Half of their dialog takes place in e-mail format, with flirting and witty dialog. There’s actually a reason for them to be in love, and the reader can actually feel that.

That being said, the author admirably skips over many opportunities to use the L word. For a romance series, the actual word “love” isn’t said until towards the end of the second book. Even then, it’s more like a dirty confession than a profession of undying feelings. Of course, from then on it’s used every other paragraph, but I digress.

I have to say, 50 shades Darker was a much better book all around than 50 shades of Grey. Of course, if you read it alone, it wouldn’t make any fucking sense. But the sex scenes were toned down a bit and sometimes skipped over entirely. The focus of the book was less on the BDSM discovery and more of the emotional development of the characters.

Of course, it had its ridiculous moments as well. I mean, just as I was starting to be surprised at how original the plot had been thus far, they decide to throw in the “Oh no! His helicopter went down in the mountains!” plot twist. I literally facepalmed.

There’s also the insane ex-submissive who has snapped and decided to stalk Ana and Christian, lamenting over the fact that Christian chose Ana instead of her. Another boring plot device, but let’s face it, no one reads these books for the plot anyway.

And one more thing I forgot to mention in my review of 50 Shades of Grey; I fucking hate the way the author decided to display her main character’s inner feelings. She has her anthropomorphized “subconscious,” which is described as always reading some British novel and disapproving of her actions. She also has an “inner goddess.” Not kidding. She has a little person inside her head she imagines doing various things to display how turned on or dominant she’s feeling. Some of the things this goddess has done include: donning a gladiator outfit and fighting a lion, putting on “fuck-me heels” and glaring sensually, the dance of the seven veils, passing out on a beanbag chair from sheer pleasure, and she’s usually described as sitting in the lotus position serenely when Ana gets her way.

I made it more interesting by personally imagining these two parts of her subconscious as if they were the angel and devil on her shoulders, as if she were a cartoon. It gave me a few laughs.

Some of you asked for some passages from the book, since you have no intention of reading it and just want to live vicariously through my literary pain. So here’s a few.

“ ‘I don’t’ care if you hit or miss baby. I just want to see you like this—partially dressed, stretched out on the billiard table.’ I flush, and my inner goddess grabs a rose between her teeth and starts to tango … He caresses my behind, over and over again … I bend over the table once more … ‘You missed,’ he says softly in my ear … Gently, he caresses my behind and curls his other hand around the nape of my neck, his fingers tightening around my hair at the nape, his elbow at my back, holding me down … ‘Open your legs,’ he murmurs and for a moment, I hesitate. And he smacks me hard—with the ruler!” (243, 244, 245)

After-hours pool, anyone?

“ ‘I’m a sadist, Ana. I like to whip little brown-haired girls like you because you all look like the crack whore—my birth mother …” He runs a hand through his hair and almost smiles but instead sighs ruefully. ‘I’m talking about the heavy shit, Anastasia. You should see what I can do with a cane or a cat.’ ”

A…. cat?

“‘These clamps are vicious.’ He prods the nipple clamps. ‘We’ll use these …They’re adjustable.’ Christian, my sexual mentor … My mouth is already open from panting. I open wider, and he slides a large cool metal object between my lips. Shaped like an oversized baby’s pacifier, it has small grooves or carvings … ‘I’m going to put this inside you …’ His fingers trail between my buttocks spreading oil … Instantly the plug inside me starts to vibrate—down there! ... It feels alien, full, forbidden … but oh … so … good … As my body explodes, I’m nothing but sensation—everywhere.” (487, 492, 493)

Yup. Nipple clamps.

These books are entertaining in the fact that they’re utterly ridiculous. I should probably mention that my favourite author is Chuck Palahniuk, though, so I’m somewhat used to the ridiculous being used as a plot point. I think I’ve figured out why they’re popular though.

I bought all of these books for my nook, a device I carry with me everywhere I go. Rather than having to go into a bookstore, awkwardly ask for the title of the book, and bare the judgmental looks of those who know it’s basically porn, all I have to do is press the “download” button. I read the books discreetly, just about anywhere, without anyone having a clue what I was reading. I bet for under-stimulated woman all over the world, it’s exhilarating to be able to read about riding crops, handcuffs, and butt plugs while sitting at the park and no one is wiser.

I’ve already finished 50 shades freed, and I have quite a bit to say about that one. I’ll update soon. 

A feminist pseudointellectual attempts to tackle the BDSM fantasy series sweeping the bestseller’s list.

50 Shades of Grey

Here it goes... 

This book is complete fantasy. Now, when I write that word, I’m not alluding to the usual definition of it in literature. I’m not talking about fairies, dragons, and other mystical beings creating a fantastical world of magic. I’m talking about dirty, fantasies. The type that most people keep holed up in their diaries with little padlocks on them. The type of fantasies that most people keep under their sheets and in their minds. I feel absolutely dirty reading this book, because it’s not my fantasy at all. I’m intruding on someone else’s dirty fetishes and trying to connect with a character that wants them.


I should start off by explaining one of my biggest pet peeves in literature. I’m serious, if I were to keep a list of such things; this one would be at the top, underlined in red and starred. I absolutely hate it when a female author writes in first-person with a vaguely plain character.


This device has previously been used in another inexplicably best-selling series, Twilight. To me, when someone writes this way, they do it intentionally. In first person, so they can step into the shoes of the character they’ve created and live out their fantasies that way, and with a vague character so any of their readers can do the same.


The first two lines of this book told me that this writing style was in full effect. I’m convinced that when a romance novel does very well, it is always written in this style and the hoards of under stimulated housewives eat out of the author’s hands while they fantasize about being the main character.


The worst part, by far, is that even with the character being vaguely described and essentially an empty shell for a reader to step into, I find that I do.


The main character, Anastasia, is a early-twenties English major, whose roommate is a journalism major and the editor of the university’s paper. She drives a blue, classic volkwagen beetle named Wanda. She has an affinity for classic literature and quotes Shakespeare, the Brönte sisters, and Jane Austen; even more obscure references, like Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, which I must admit parallels the story all too well.


For those of you reading who haven’t quite caught the gist of this allegory, let me explain a little bit about myself. I am in my early twenties, I am the editor of a paper, I was a journalism and mass media major, and I have a beautiful ’71 Volkwagen Beetle I’ve affectionately named “Freddie.” Get it now? It only became creepier as time went on, and she ended up applying for a copy editing internship, an experience I have lived.


Even if our personalities are completely dissimilar, by some fluke, I picked up this book to review and found that the author had picked oddly specific characteristics that fit all-too-well with my current status quo.


And then the freaky stuff starts to happen.


My first impression of this book, even when I was only 50 pages in, was that it was mash up of Twilight and American Psycho. The main character, Anastasia Steele, bares an uncanny resemblance both in appearance and demeanor, to one Bella Swan. The love-interest, Christian Grey, is an obvious portmanteau of Edward Cullen and Patrick Bateman.


In fact, I even found myself seeing the character as a doppelgänger of Bateman, from the fact that he was a wealthy, attractive, twenty-something CEO, to his immaculate apartment, polite demeanor on the outside, and even down to the part that he was an empty shell of a human being, incapable of human emotions.


The only thing missing was the bloodshed, which by the middle of the book, I was really hoping he would just snap, put on some Huey Lewis and the News, and kill the object of his affections with an axe.


Here’s the rundown of the plot. Ana Steele steps in for her journalism major roommate to interview the very important CEO of Grey Enterprises Holding Inc., Christian Grey. She makes an absolute fool out of herself, asks him if he’s gay, and stumbles around a bit. Instantly, she’s attracted to him. He starts showing up in random places, doing absolutely nothing of importance, but making her absolutely infatuated with him just by being gorgeous. Within a week of knowing him, they go on a first date and her clumsiness leads to an almost-kiss. He tells her to stay away from him, that he’s not the one for her. That he’s dangerous. Etc. See a familiar pattern?


After that, it spirals into the weirdest sex fantasy I’ve ever read. Grey asks her to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement before showing her his “Play room,” something likened to a sterile version of a 17th century torture room, complete with whips, chains, shackles, and other seemingly sado-masochistic fixtures.


Turns out that prince charming is secretly a dominant sadist, and the only form of relationship he has involves his female friend being completely and totally submissive to him.


The rest of the book devolves into a LOT of sex. Some of it vanilla, most of it otherwise. The dramatic tension comes from this otherwise independent young woman deciding whether or not she can be a submissive slave to the man who has captured her attention and opened her eyes to a world of sexuality.


I seriously couldn’t stop laughing.


The moods of the main characters switch so quickly. Ana goes from being frustrated with Christian, to angry, to being in love with him, to offended, to being bend over a leather couch with a tie on her wrists being taken roughly from behind. Seriously.


I seriously lost count of how many times the two characters randomly have sex. And I mean randomly. They could have just had sex two pages ago and are in the middle of a deep discussion about their future. Then Ana bites her lip, Christian can’t control himself, and they end up doing it on his desk.


Ana sends him a joking e-mail about the fact that she’s leaving him? He shows up ten minutes later at her door, blindfolds her and fucks her. That. Quickly.


It’s almost as if the author decided to write a lot of porn, then had to come up with a plot to go in between the sex scenes.


As for the emotional plot, most of it deals with how damaged Christian is. He doesn’t like to be touched, he doesn’t like to be defied, he doesn’t like to not get his way, he doesn’t like to sleep with someone else, and he can’t stand it when Ana doesn’t finish all of the food on her plate.


From what I gathered, this is all a product of his formative years. He was born to a crack whore, probably went hungry most of those first four years, and was probably burned with cigarettes. He was adopted by a new family and set off becoming perfect. Oh, and then when he was 15, his mother’s 40-year-old friend turned him into a submissive in a six-year-long relationship.


The very title of this book is a reference to what Christian says to Ana when she questions this: “Because I’m 50 shades of fucked up.”


Well, I couldn’t agree more, Mr. Grey.


I’ve alluded before that the main characters remind me of the two fang-crossed lovers from Twilight. I will give this book credit in at least one place. Mrs. Jones is much better than Mrs. Meyer at describing a relationship where there is a reason to stay in it. Take away all the BDSM, the emotionally fucked-up male, and the ridiculous scenario, and the exchanges between the two show why they might actually be good together. The dialog is surprisingly witty, and they have obvious chemistry- both of which are missing from Mrs. Meyer’s vampire romance novel.


Immediately after finishing the book, I decided to research it. I had had literally no exposure to the book before I pressed the download button on my nook. I’d had about half a dozen people tell me to try it, seen it on the bestseller list, and knew it had something to do with BDSM.


The first thing I found out was that this book was originally written as fanfiction. Can you guess which series? That’s right. Twilight. The author wrote most of the sex scenes as something that would happen between Bella and Edward in an alternate universe. The first draft didn’t even change the names of the characters. It was actually removed from a fanfiction website for being “Too sexual.” So the author rehosted it on her own website. She took it down for a little while while negotiating the publishing rights. They changed the names of the characters,  wrote a little bit of plot to go in between the sex scenes, and released “50 Shades of Grey.”


I’m not making this up.


So, my first impression of the book was pretty spot on. I mean, even some of the plot points are directly pulled from Twilight. Buying a car for her to replace her “rust bucket?” Check. Multicultural best friend who tries to vie for her affections? Check. Researching the dark secret of the love interest? Check. Being the first real “love interest” of the main character? Check. “Breaking the rules of the relationship?” Check.


So, what about the fact that I also got some serious American Psycho vibes from my first impression of the book? Well, guess what? They’re currently in talks to turn the series into a movie franchise. And who are they considering for the screenwriter? None other than Bret Easton Ellis, the original author of American Psycho.


After discovering all of these facts, I relayed my absolute exasperation to my boyfriend, questioning what the hell women of America were thinking then they started buying this book en masse and turning it into an un-ignorable phenomenon.


Me: “Oh my god, there’s still two more books in the series…”


Him: “DON'T DO THIS TO YOURSELF ANOTHER TWO TIMES.”


But apparently, I didn’t listen. I just pressed the “download” button on my trusty nook for “50 Shades Darker.” I promised I would try to make it through the series, and I’m a woman of my word.