Where the Heart of Anti-Shurtugal Rises Again.

Chapter 9

“She decided to wake Daniel up.” The poor potato is probably a walking pharmacy at this point. How about you don't give him kidney failure? Meyer takes the time to mention yet again, how good looking his veins are.

But resetting the computer protocols needs its own paragraph.

Why? F U. That's why. Having whipped the lazy serfs at the desks with the ancient tomes, Meyer's medieval google is up and running again, and she uses it to google antecubital fossa elbow parts.

“Gingerly... 'What is happening now?' he asked cautiously... Carefully...” Throw in a few more adverbs, Meyer, I'm not drowning in them yet. Also, it's hard showing moods, tones, and personality when your character is nothing more than a giant plastic doll. The ones that have enough moving parts to show facial expressions and body language are so expensive.

“She felt exactly the same about nudity as any other doctor, but he wouldn't assume that.” She's not a doctor. She doesn't/shouldn't know how doctors feel about nudity. Feelings about nudity doesn't excuse torture and nonconsensual groping.

She says she's sorry for what she did to him, but nothing says sorry quite like turning yourself into the police or the nearest mental hospital for the next ten years. Now that is an apology. But Dopey Edward will have to make do with just words. >:( She believes him when he says he didn't do anything. It's all cool now because she's not going to expect forgiveness.

And then Dopey Edward freaks out because her face got banged up. Dude. How about some basic survival instincts? You're still tied to a giant table.

“I have never in my life done this before --- hurt a totally innocent person.” Ohhh.... so torturing terrorists is totally cool. Mary Sue is just that special. Sucks to be an NPC. “but I still can't believe that they set me up to interrogate someone entirely guiltless.” Her co-worker died screaming in pain. They hired hitmen to take her out. Why the #$%@ would they care about some random loser?

To cover this now, because it's an issue for the entire chapter, Dopey Edward never says a negative thing to Fifty Shades of Sherlock about her torturing and groping him. That is not true kindness. That is putting an incredibly low value on human life. On the surface, it looks good. One suffers so others won't. But she never a had a good reason for any of this. If she trusted her former employers, she should have been working with them from the start. A little accountability goes a long way. If she was suspicious enough to take Dopey Edward into her lair where she thought she wouldn't be found, she should have been suspicious enough to question obvious fiction she'd been handed. What was she going to do if she ever got that information about the virus?

As for Dopey Edward, it is not good to excuse her bad behaviour. If I complained that my flowers needed watering, and Crazy Dipshit decided to solve the problem by setting them on fire so they wouldn't need water anymore, she still needs consequences. The reason only dictates the consequences, not diverts. Crazy Dipshit will continue her rampage until she's stopped. He needs to have the spine to confront her. She is delusional and smiling and nodding isn't going to help her.

Where is the anger? Where is the distrust? Where is the secret glee at seeing her hurt? If he is a human, he will have anger to either suppress, express, or work through. The lack of anger is something we see in domestic violence situations where the victim doesn't dare let themselves feel angry for their own safety.

“Somebody did that to you --- on purpose? For hurting me?” I don't know why Meyer italicized that word.

And then Dopey Edward finds out that Cranky Edward is not dead after all. “'Kevin,' Daniel whispered, face going white, then flushing bright red.” I am perplexed. Why did his face turn red? That would be my reaction if I found out that someone ate all my Halloween candy. That is not how one sees their siblings again after they've been declared dead with a funeral and all.

“Obviously the significance [about West Point] was lost on him.” Hey, it was lost on me, too. I don't care enough to read the chapter about his stupid file again to find out what it is.

“Alex suppressed a sigh, upset with herself for not worrying more about the file's gaps in information,” How about time to switch jobs kind of upset? She had three days to sit in the car and watch him. That is plenty of time to think. 'Alex suppressed a sigh, upset with herself for not reading the bottles of cleaners before mixing them. Now the whole room was full of noxious chemicals and her boss was going to get mad because half the customers had to go to the hospital. She had never in her life done this before --- finding a poisonous combination when mixing random chemicals.' Catastrophic failure is not something one simply sighs at. She should be questioning her abilities to function enough to feed herself.

“Daniel looked down at his brother again. 'He's not dead now, is he?'” And that is the most concern Dopey Edward will ever have for Cranky Edward, his twin brother and only sibling, again. Ever.

“He smiled just a little, staring at his brother's exposed back. 'So you won?'” I think Dopey Edward secretly wants Cranky Edward dead. That is cold.

“I made some pretty huge mistakes in my security here.” And hungry polar bears kind of make unpleasant company. An airplane engine falling on your house is rather unlucky. Winning the lottery is a nice way to start the day. This book isn't the best I've ever read. If I broke my spine, that'd put a damper on my plans to go hiking. Meyer's characters are a little wooden. Get @#$&ed, Fifty Shades of Sherlock. You had one job.

Wait a second. Cranky Edward was expecting to bust in some sort of den of evil. Why did he take his sweet ass time to noisily climb the wall? The CIA should be embarrassed. But that's last chapter's problem.

“How did you process something like that [your only sibling being dead, but then finding out that's a lie because crazy lady says they're still alive, even though you don't bother checking their pulse]?” Meyer's solution: You don't. You just have your characters carry on as if they'd been away for a few days.

“I'm pretty sure if I hadn't gotten the upper hand for a second, the minute you woke up, he would have shot me.” Good.

That would have been the twist of the century: Mary Sue gets what's coming to her.

“She turned away, walked to her computer, and rested her hand against the space bar.”

                                                                                                                                                               Like this?

The prose is so terribly bland. And freaking Dopey Edward is more worried about making sure Cranky Edward doesn't go on a revenge spree than staying not dead. He doesn't seem the least bit happy. Dude, your brother is not dead. Also, he tried to save your life. Fifty Shades of Sherlock should not be your first concern.

“He was totally stunned.” Dopey Edward then proceeds to have the biggest meltdown he has in the entire book and it's over having to skip town because now he knows too much. Also, it's not much more interesting than the quote, so I won't inflict it on you. lol

“Finally, she thought. She'd been starting to worry that maybe the drug she'd used to kidnap him --- Follow the Leader --- had some permanent neurological effects” No, it turns out he's just stupid all the time and sociopathic when it comes to his brother.

“He looked at his brother --- wearing half of a Batsuit --- doubtfully.” Dude. She tried to undress your brother. She did bad things to you and she obviously tried do bad things to your brother. Does that not concern you? Yes, Cranky Edward does have plot armour, but anyone who did that to even a stranger would be on my shit list. If it was someone I care about, they better start running because I will fricken' kneecap them.

What does concern Dopey Edward is Cranky Edward calling Fifty Shades of Sherlock bad names. So then Cranky Edward grabs Dopey Edward. Fifty Shades of Sherlock decides to threaten Cranky Edward to stop wrestling with Dopey Edward. This is not how adults interact with each other. Dopey Edward is still a walking pharmacy and Cranky Edward is still tied to the cow table. They have other things to be concerned about. We're supposed to ooh and ah over how noble Dopey Edward is, but the plot amour has given him instant Stockholm syndrome.

And then we hear the smartest thing anyone says in the entire book: “'Danny, listen to me,' he hissed. 'You're bigger than her. Get the keys and get me out of these---”

“Suddenly his face froze, went beet red, and the vessels in his forehead pulsed in time with his words. “Where is my dog?'” ..... “'If he's not one hundred percent---' Kevin threatened.” Um. Veins pulse in time with the heart, not talking. Also, he'd have to be holding really still and she'd have to be really close for her to be able to see that. She made a point of being on the other side of the torture tent before he woke up.

Dopey Edward whacks Cranky Edward for using bad language again. Meyer decided that the best attribute for a character's priorities is batshit insane.

“The whine was quickly followed by angry snarls and a few sharp barks, and then a strident clawing at the wooden door.” Then they talk some more. Cranky Edward is totally cool to let his upset dog claw at a door.

“so I rely on brains.” she said. That poor thing.

“The sound of the dog was like a howling wood chipper in the next room.” And Cranky Edward is still totally cool that his dog is upset, even though they can hardly hear each other talk. This has been going on for two pages now.

“There was a sudden earsplitting noise --- an explosive fragmentation of wood. And then the enraged snarling got a lot closer.” It's a dog. Not a Wolverine beaver high on meth. Doesn't work like that. Crazy lady spends a fortune on not getting security deposits back.