Fifty Shades Freed ~Kami's Review

There are *spoilers* so beware
2 Stars
Ok here we go....
We start off with Ana and Christian on their honeymoon. Oh they are so happy, pure bliss. She has these flash backs of their wedding and 1st time having sex after getting married. Here is how the sex goes:
"Ana, my Ana"
"Clothes"
"Let me"
"Mine"
"Yes, yours"
"Oh wife"
"Ana"
"You make me so happy I love you"
"You are so beautiful wife"
"Mine"
"Wife of mine"
"Husband" I want you. Please"
"Mrs. Grey...Wife. We aim to please. I love you"
"Christian...ah..."
"Ana, oh Ana"

Really since there is sex on almost every other page, this gets really boring and annoying especially since this is the 3rd god damn book.

And then we are back to the usual, Ana does something to displease Christian and he must punish her. Half the time she wants this, the other half she is still scared of him so we never know what to expect. He says he wants to punish her but he doesn’t want to hurt her, this is acceptable to Ana. Ana you are a fucking idiot! He just told you (in the last book) that he got his jollies off by beating little brunettes like you. He wants to hurt you, and he likes it.

Handcuffs!
"These can be quite painful. They can bite into the skin if you pull too hard." He holds up one pair. "But I really want to use them on you now."

Of course he does, he still wants to hurt you. *sigh* I really hate Ana.

She ends up with red welts on her wrists and ankles that are already turning into bruises after she wakes up. She has hickies all over her breasts and chest. She is pissed. They argue and he placates her, and she forgives him, like always. He is not even sorry.

They are being stalked by her ex-boss Jack Hyde. Like always Christian keeps valuable information from Ana for various reasons, he doesn’t want her to worry, he is protecting her, and he doesn’t want to damage her fragile mind, blah freaking blah. Really he is just goes about finding various ways to control her.

They happy couple find the perfect house to buy, and hire the beautiful Gia fix her up. Gia is of course trying to bag Christian, but then again who isn’t in these books? Everyone wants him. He is gorgeous, rich, sexy, and a sadist who likes to beat on little brunettes. What is not to love? He is the perfect catch!

Ana goes back to work and wants to keep her maiden name at work so she doesn’t upset the employees anymore. Some feel she only got the job since her husband now owns the company, and they are quite resentful of this. This of course pisses Christian off, how dare her! So he must go to her work and confront her about it. After all she is an asset to him; she needs to wear the correct label.

“I want your world to begin and end with me” Christian says.
I think you all know what happens next. Of course she agrees to do what he wants, like always. Whatever Christian wans, Christian gets. Oh her sweet overbearing megalomaniac. *sigh*
“Don’t be mad. You’re so precious to me. Like a priceless asset, like a child,” he whispers.
How sweet! NOT! He is demeaning and thinks her no more than an errant child whose sole purpose is to serve and please him. Fuck you Christian, really!

Ana can apparently stand up to anyone but Christian and does a fine job of telling off Miss Gia who was still putting some moves on her man. Kudos Ana, you just gained a smidgen of respect from me.

Christian goes away on business for a night so Ana decides she can go have a drink with Kate. She was supposed to go to her apartment but they end up going to the bar with two security guards. Christian catches wind of this and immediately returns. While they were out Mr. Jack Hyde breaks into the apartment and security catches him. Christian gets back and she is in big trouble. He is so mad at her. It doesn’t matter that if she had been home, she would have been there when Jack broke in. Christian gave her an order and she should have followed it.

“I want to punish you,” he whispers. “Really beat the shit out of you,” he adds.
“I know.”
“Maybe I will.”
“I hope not,” she says. She doesn’t say um no, or fuck off you sadist. No she just hopes he won’t beat the shit out of her. Do you really consider this okay?

He won’t talk to all the next day. He won’t kiss her, or have sex with her either. He ends up taking her to the ‘red room of pain’. He ties her up to the wooden cross and tells her he is going to drive her wild. She thinks she is in for a good time, but she feels that something is off. He brings her to the brink of orgasm several times, yet always backs away denying her what she needs/wants. He is punishing her for going to the bar with Kate when she was told to stay in at home. She realizes that this is not love. It’s revenge.

“Red,” I whimper. “Red. Red.” The tears course down my face. (This is the ‘safe word’ that was agreed upon while she was still trying to be just his submissive)
He stills. “No!” He gasps, stunned. “Jesus Christ, no.”
He unclips her from the cross, and she is sobbing uncontrollably.
“No, no, no. Ana, please. No.”
He takes her to the bed and tries to calm her down.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Christian murmurs, his voice raw. He kisses my hair over and over again. “Ana, forgive me, please.”
Of course she forgives him; he just doesn’t know how to deal with these kinds of feelings.

The couple takes a trip to Colorado with Kate, Elliot, Mia, and Ethan. Playboy Elliot ends up asking Kate to marry him, she says yes, and they go out to a dance club to celebrate. While there both Ana and Christian end up hitting a guy who dared to try and dance with Ana.
On the last day of the trip Ana and Christian decide to do a little role playing. He wants it rough and he wants her to struggle and try to fight him off. I will admit to being biased simply because it is this book. Any other book I might consider this role playing idea (of her struggling against him) hot, and a turn on, I think everyone likes it a rough once in a while, if not more. However, in this book I found it disturbing. It might be because a part of me thinks he likes this in ‘bad’ way, not a good way. He is a sadist, and I think role playing a ‘rape’ like situation turns him on the wrong way. I may be wrong, I already stated that I was biased simply because it is this book, but it was how I felt while reading this part. Both of them enjoyed this immensely, and had some amazing sex, so…..

Returning to work and their ‘normal’ lives, we get some more emails between the couple. I still think the emails were best in the first book and have since gone downhill with each book. These ones tend to jump time a little bit. Like he would remind her of some event they needed to attend, and then the next email would be her telling him how much she enjoyed the event. In the first book E.L. James would have written out the whole scene of how and why they each enjoyed this event. She might have done just that, but then later cut it out due to length restrictions on the book and what not, I don’t know, just an observation.

Leila shows up yet again in this book. She has attempted to see Christian several times and he has refused to see her. He is paying for her medical care, and her schooling. He has even bought some of her paintings. He has not told Ana any of this. Leila knows that if she shows up at Ana’s work that Christian will rush to Ana’s side, and she will get to see him which is what she really wanted to begin with. Hmm a nice little manipulative maneuver by Leila there, smart girl. Ana’s bodyguard advises against her seeing Leila since she is on the proscribed list of visitors. Ana of course had no idea she even had a proscribed list of visitors. She insists on seeing Leila much to the bodyguard’s disapproval. Ana emails Christian telling him what she is doing, and then ignores his phone calls so he can’t tell her no if she don’t talk to him. Leila happens to be with yet another of Christian’s ex subs Susi. They both look like Ana, how disturbing is that? Creepy! They call themselves the sub club.

Christian shows up at the office, which is what Leila planned from the beginning. He is of course furious with everyone. He fires the bodyguard, yells at Leila, and seethes at Ana. Ana is astonished at how cold and mean he can be towards Leila. Leila tells her that this is the Christian that she knows. Leila tells Christian that she is glad that he is happy and that he deserves it, and then she leaves.
A few days later Ana’s father is in a car accident and she rushes to the hospital to be with him. Jose and his father were in the car as well, but they got off much better than Ray. The next day Christian flies Ana’s friends and her mother and step father up to Portland so they can be there for her birthday. Ray eventually comes out of his coma. Ana and Christian return to the hotel, have some life affirming sex, and things are back to ‘normal’.
 
The following day Ray is moved to a hospital in Seattle. As Ana is leaving the hospital Dr. Greene flags her down to inform her that she has missed her last four appointments. She is late for her birth control shot. Are you really that much of an airhead Ana? Is it so hard for you to keep track of your doctor appointments? You even have someone to help you do just that. Surprise one pregnancy test later, Ana is pregnant, around four to five weeks along. What? No. No. No. Fuck.

When Ana finally gets the courage to tell him here is how it goes:
“Christ, Ana!” He bangs his fist on the table, making me jump, and stands so abruptly he almost knocks the dining chair over. “You have one thing, on thing to remember. Shit! I don’t fucking believe it. How could you be so stupid?”
I understand his anger right now because really, it is not that hard to remember. But he starts taking it a little too far here.

“Not very good!” he shouts. “We’ve known each other five fucking minutes. I wanted to show you the fucking world and now… Fuck. Diapers and vomit and shit!” He closes his eyes. I think he’s trying to contain his temper and losing the battle.

They have known each other long enough to get married but not to have a baby aparently.

“Did you forget? Tell me. Or did you do this on purpose?” His eyes blaze and anger emanates off him like a force field.
“This is why. This is why I like control. So shit like this doesn’t come along and fuck everything up.”
“Christian, please don’t shout at me.” Tears start to slip down my face.
“Don’t start with the waterworks now,” he snaps.

Blah blah blah

“Oh, fuck this!”  Christian bellows and he leaves.
He ends up coming home in the middle of the night drunk off his ass. After some drunk slurring she finally gets him into bed. His phone beeps and it is a text message from the one and only Mrs. Robinson. She says “It was good to see you. I understand now. Don’t fret. You’ll make a wonderful father.” She forwards the text to her email for later. She decides that she is going to go and sleep in the playroom. She leaves the key in the door so he won’t be able to get in the next morning. She emails Christian “Would you like Mrs. Lincoln to join us when we eventually discuss this text she sent to you? It will save you running to her afterwards. Your wife.” (Mrs. Lincoln is Mrs. Robinson if you didn’t know) With that she turns off her phone and goes to sleep.

She wakes to Christian shouting her name and jiggling the doorknob. After he walks away she exits the playroom and tells Sawyer the bodyguard that she will be ready to go to work in twenty minutes. She goes to get ready and Christian follow her demanding to know where she was. She ignores him and gets ready. She does say a lot to him, too much to rewrite here, but I applaud what she said. She finally stood up for herself. Bravo Ana.

They don’t talk to each other or see one another the next day. He is working late and doesn’t return home till after she is sleeping. He is gone the next morning before she wakes up as well. While at work she gets a phone call from Mia’s phone, it is her ex-boss Jack Hyde. He wants her to get him five million dollars today. She can’t tell anyone or he will kill Mia. She has two hours to get the money.

She escapes from Sawyer and goes to the bank. The bank manager notifies Christian that she wants to take out the money so he asks to talk to her. She tells him that she is leaving him, so he won’t know this is about Mia and Jack. Sawyer is there waiting for her when she is ready to leave, she tells the bank manager that she is being followed and asks to go out the back way where Jack has a car waiting for her. Elizabeth who works for Ana, is helping Jack, and is waiting for Ana. She gets in the car and drives to meet Jack and hopefully get back Mia. When they meet up with Jack he starts hitting and kicking her. She pulls out the gun that she took from Christian’s office and shoots him in the knee. She starts to pass out from the hit she took on her head when she hears tires screeching and Christian yelling her name.

Ana was unconscious for more than 24 hours. The baby is fine, and Ana is just bruised and sore. Christian proceeds to tell her how everyone is mad at her for doing what she did. Whatever!! I want to smack him again. They make up. All is good.

He opens up later and tells her about how he came to be with Mrs. Robinson. It is disturbing to say the least.

Fast forward a few years for the Epilogue. She is pregnant with numero dos. They have a little boy and she is pregnant with a girl this time. After sex this in their conversation:
“How’s my daughter?”
“She’s dancing.” I laugh.
“Dancing? Oh yes! Wow. I can feel her.” He grins as Blip Two somersaults inside me.
“I think she likes sex already.”
WHAT? Did she really just say that? Gross! Disturbing! UGH!

Anyway, they live happily ever after.

She writes an extra about Christian as a toddler, and his first Christmas with Grace and Carrick and Elliot. It is very sweet.

Then we get an extra from Christian’s POV of when he first met Ana. I wish I had not read this. It was disconcerting being inside Christian’s head and reading about all the things he wanted to do to Ana.

I have never been so happy to finally be finished with a series.