Matt and I were talking the other day, and we’re very pleased with the audience this blog has, don’t get me wrong, but we’re also concerned that most of our hits just come from people searching for information about Christian Grey’s penis. We haven’t gotten hate comments, so I guess these searchers have either continued on their merry way or become enraptured with this blog. What a mysterious mystery.
2
Chapter two opens with Nora talking to her housekeeper (and sometimes babysitter) Dorothea. Of course the subject of their conversation is the big switch-a-roo in lab. Though Nora keeps telling the reader, and Dorothea, how much Patch repulses her, a whole paragraph is of course dedicated to how sexy he is.
I’d liked a lot of what I’d seen. Long, lean muscles down his arms, broad but relaxed shoulders, and a smile that was part playful, part seductive. I was in an uneasy alliance with myself, trying to ignore what had started to feel irresistible.
I’m sorry, how much time has passed between the abrupt introduction of Patch and his personality straight out of Creepsville and Nora’s sudden pull towards him? Like five hours. If you’ve read either of my Fifty Shades Darker posts, you’ll be familiar with how ridiculous I think Ana and Christian were being about their fucking five day break-up. But this is somehow even fucking stupider. At least with Ana and Christian at this point I understood that they were obsessed with each other. I can’t believe Hush, Hush is making me say something not terrible about Fifty Shades. Ug.
Even though she swore she was never going to call, Nora calls Patch. What a shocking turn of events!
Of course, Patch is an ass, and he tells her he’s too busy to meet for their assignment because he’s in the middle of a game of pool. To be fair, that does sound better than a biology project where all you do is interview your partner. I know Coach said otherwise, but you could easily fabricate this assignment. There is no such thing as a hobby background check.
Patch is hanging out at Bo’s Arcade. It’s pretty apparent that he knows that she’s going to come find him, otherwise he never would have told her his exact location. As it turns out, Bo’s is a place where total bad boys hang out. Ya know, the kind from the wrong side of the tracks and what not.
Graffiti splashed the walls, and cigarette butts dotted the foundation. Clearly Bo’s would be filled with future Ivy Leaguers and model citizens.
Apparently if you’re not going to Harvard or cleaning up your dog’s poop, you do not belong at Bo’s. That leaves quite a bit of wiggle room. I’d totes check it out.
I’m having trouble summarizing what happens next in this book, because it’s yet another conversation that makes no real sense and just wants to show you how mysterious (and romantic) everything is. First Nora begins to ask Patch absurd questions for their assignment, which she apparently takes seriously enough to drive a half an hour to a place that scares her.
Questions like, “How many cigars do you have a night”, “Your biggest dream?”, “Religion?” and “How many times did you fail tenth grade biology?”
Patch’s answers are just as weird. He claims he’s in a cult, that he doesn’t smoke at all, that his biggest dream is to kiss her, and that he’s never been to school period CAUSE HE’S A FALLEN ANGEL, YA’LL!!. He hits on Nora some more, and she gets all huffy about it, but then thinks about how repulsed/aroused she is at the same time.
Then they discuss a birthmark on Patch’s wrist, which Nora definitely doesn’t care about.
“You’d prefer it to be someplace more private?”
“I wouldn’t prefer it anywhere.” I wasn’t sure how this sounded and tried again. “I wouldn’t care if you didn’t have it at all.” I tried a third time. “I don’t are about your birthmark, period.”
Just so we’re clear, she definitely does not care about his birthmark or his sculpted back or his perfect shoulders. Not even a little bit.
Later that night we find our Nora’s dad was shot to death in Portland while buying her mom’s birthday present. No jokes to be found here, that shit is sad.
She’s woken up to a noise, and she thinks she sees a shadow, but when she turns towards the window nothing is there. Is this another fucking sneaking-into-the-room-to-watch-girl-sleep situation? NO! I put my foot down. No more of this creepy bullshit in young adult fiction, I say!
3
Okay so I know I just accused Patch of creeping on Nora in her room, but the fact that the next chapter opens with Nora sitting in class, suspecting this is actually pretty strange. Like, that would absolutely not be my conclusion if I thought I heard a noise/saw a shadow, but it turned out nothing was there.
I found the location of Patch’s birthmark eerie, and I was spooked by the incident at my window last night. I didn’t outright suspect Patch of spying on me, but I couldn’t ignore the coincidence that I was almost positive that I’d seen someone looking in my windows just hours after I met him.
So on the one hand, kudos to Nora for being pretty intuitive (unless of course someone else is watching Nora), but on other other hand, she sounds ridiculous right now. Sadly, Coach is never going to make Vee her lab partner again without proof of stalkage and a better explanation than, “His birthmark placement weirds me out.”
Then Nora expresses concern over Patch finding out she is anemic because somehow he may use that against her? What the even fuck?
Then, for some reason, Coach starts asking about what his students are looking for in a potential mate, and I start looking for the number for Child Services. He gives a big, awkward speech about attraction and how it’s all over the place in nature. What an insightful guy! I always wondered if it was natural when my vagina got hard for some guy. Biology, man!
After class, Nora tries to cut a deal with Coach. If she tutors one person in their class, he’ll let her switch seats. So of course he tells her, no deal, but then tells her she’s going to tutor Patch. I can’t even believe how carefully plotted out this story is.
Coach didn’t wait for my answer, he whistled the tune to Jeopardy and ducked out the door.
Coach sounds like a total fucking nut job, to be completely real with you guys. I hope it turns out he’s an evil fallen angel who is just really bad at being evil and the extent of his malicious ways is switching seats in his bio class and making students extremely uncomfortable.
The girls go to see a horror movie that Nora is going to write about for their eZine, and of course they end up discussing how hot Patch is. Nora explains she can’t get past his personality, and then we get this shout-out to Twilight/Fifty Shades. This one’s for you, Ana:
“…Your spectrum is about as wide as one of Coach’s microorganisms. There are very few, if any, boys at school you would fall for.”
The girls hit up the library to get some serious work done, all the while Vee talking about how hot she thinks Patch is and Nora reiterating how much his personality sucks. But then a cheerleader (and possibly fallen angel!) sits down with them, and she’s not at all a cliche!
Her strawberry blonde hair was combed low into pigtails, and like always, her skin was concealed under half a bottle of foundation…There was three-quarters of an inch between the hem of her skirt and the start of her underwear…if she was even wearing any.
“Hi, Supersize,” Marcie said to Vee.
Bitch, please.
Marcie then goes on to ask Vee to model at JCPenney where her mother works because they need plus-size models. Then she leaves. This book is stupid.
Then Patch shows up! Have I mentioned this book is stupid? Vee decides the stalker should become the stalked and tries to convince Nora to follow him. But she doesn’t, instead she thinks about him during the car ride home:
Vee was right–something about him was incredibly alluring. And incredibly creepy.
This is what we are teaching our youths these days. Sexy > creepy. Shame on you, Meyer, Fitzpatrick, and James and countless more I’m sure.
But then, out of nowhere, someone lands on the hood of the car. Some guy dressed in black, wearing a ski mask starts to tear the door off the car, then punches through the car’s window. Nora manages to drive away, but her reaction is kind of weird and underwhelming to this incredibly shocking situation, “I checked the rearview mirror to make sure he wasn’t chasing me, then shoved the mirror to face away. I had to press my lips together to keep from sobbing.”
I would be screaming and crying and calling the mother fucking police, girl!!
I genuinely can’t remember how I ended up at this blog. But I assure you, and myself, it was not from searching for information about Christian Grey’s penis. Or Patch’s eerily placed birthmark. I’m suprised you didn’t pick up on “I found the location of Patch’s birthmark eerie” a bit more actually. How less eerily placed can a birthmark be? What makes the location eerie anyway? The shape could be unsettling sure, especially if it spelt out “Nora” or “Boo!” but location…?
You know, I had a coach biology teacher. Coach Pooch was his name (yes, really) and he was a total nut job, so maybe the author isn’t too far off base on that one.
I ended up here doing a search for “bad books sporkings critical analysis terrible writing”. No surprise you guys are dealing with the unholy trinity of the Twilight, Fallen, and Fifty Shades series. Shameless promotion: http://www.verprose.com is my little landing spot for similar writings – you guys/gals may find it to be up your alleys. I’m adding a link to you guys anyway regardless. Keep up the good work, and don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it after ingesting so much stupid at once. The antipsychotic medicines they have these days work _wonders_!
Now for the post-specific comments…
I’m waiting, not out of anticipation but out of dread, for Norma to be called “e-Normas” (enormous) by bimbo cheerleader. Honestly, to those who grew up in these smaller Towns (or otherwise not in our relatively near a “big city”), do these 80’s-era high school student stereotypes actually exist? Or are they purely unrealistic authorial devices used over and over?
The bio teacher definitely gives off some “quiet, eccentric, but has loads of kiddy porn” vibe. Why not have a seat right over there?
Your vagina has gotten _hard_? That isn’t good, it’s supposed to be live a soft quivering pile of love pudding. ARDa can be a real downer, might wanna get that checked.
How dare Vee think Patch was spying on her! It’s probably the skeevy/mentally questionable bio teacher, “looking for a mate” *shudder*
This book needs to be carpet-bombed.
My mistake! You’re doing the Hush, Hush series, which is about fallen angels, and I mistook it for the Fallen series, which is about angels who have fallen. Totally different. Perhaps you should add the fallen series to your menus as well, hmmm?
Ok…guys very very late to join the party but thank you for reading the cringe-fest that FSOG was. I just couldn’t bring myself to read that filth even after 6-7 years of its release but after reading your sharp comments and finally realising there are people out there who just can’t bear shitty story telling just like me I finally decided to give it a shot. That and after watching 50 shades freed on Netflix. Need I tell you that movie was one snooze fest? I still can’t believe this was a global phenomenon. 10th graders write better than her. And don’t even get me started on the loopholes and the writer’s ignorance on how people in US actually talk. I mean ‘I’ found it weird and I am not even an American. Just visited it. Who says, “I have to ‘telephone’ so and so.” That’s objectively British and I have read my fair share of British litany watched enough shows to say that. Geez! Do your research at least on the culture you are trying to represent. My God that’s objectively bad, bad writing. Thank God for this blog that I did not have to read the whole crap. I, somehow managed to read half way through the first book and I was super depressed on how this shit glorified emotional abuse and the fact that lead female character should just put up with it because the man’s broken? C’mon! Women are not rehab. I pity the people who actually like this crap. Also you guys are hilarious. Keep up with the service to good lit all over the world people.