CW for NSFW discussion of sex and rape.

I enjoyed certain aspects of this book in my own peculiar laughing-at-50-Shades-metacommentary way, and was deeply troubled by certain other aspects of it. There are some serious issues if you take the book seriously, and at a certain point, it kind of insists that you do take it seriously on its own terms as a standalone experience and not a 50 Shades fic. But I started off reading in the headspace of, “the congruence with 50 Shades plot points is making me laugh, and so I’m not taking it that seriously, also because I’m literally reading this on a beach.”

The tone of the opening is so tropey and obviously riffing on the source, making improbable observations about character eye colours, campily describing gorgeous roommates along with everyone’s outfits, and uncomfortably objectifying our Christian Gray-esque bildom hero at first sight so absurdly that I pretty much giggled to myself and was prepared for everything to be at that level of ridiculous. Reading it conjured the weirdly hypnotic power of the original – as in, I am more than aware that 50 Shades is not well-written, and none of the desires it portrays are mine, but I could not put the entire series down for some reason. Initially, I appreciated that this version was even more over-the-top tropey than the original, but seemed a tad bit more responsible and intentional with what it was doing.

Regarding those familiar 50 Shades and Twilight plot points, the book delivers them in spades. The heroine has not one, but two, awkward meet-cutes with the hero in the office building he owns, one of which involves her falling on her ass, because it wouldn’t be a 50 Shades inspired story if she weren’t adoraklutzing around ultramodern office interiors. Eva’s dad is a policeman in a small town – that plot point is straight out of Twilight. There isn’t any mushroom ravioli but there is copious pasta-eating. Eva’s mom, rather than being with some minor-leagues baseball player, has married a wealthy businessman her third time around. Because of this, Eva’s a bit more Gideon’s social equal than Ana is Christian’s. The whole 50 Shades premise of Ana randomly interviewing Christian for a student newspaper is here changed to Gideon, uh, sexually harassing an employee of a subsidiary company by propositioning her for sex the first time they meet in a professional capacity. Which isn’t a great look – honestly, it’s horrifying.

If I’d come in cold, never having read 50 Shades or other works inspired by it, I think I’d be a lot more roused to horror, but here I felt like I knew I was signing up for that kind of thing? I don’t know what it says about my reading attitude that I expect any work that’s directly inspired by 50 Shades to be about someone being stalked, harassed and possibly abused by someone else who’s really into that behaviour, and then I’ll spend some time thinking about what that says about women’s patriarchal power fantasies of desire. And it’s not as though I think “but it’s about 50 Shades” makes those tropes entirely okay. Of course not. But because the style in which 50 Shades is written makes it impossible to take overseriously (IMHO), I always am mentally prepared for adjacent work to put me in that headspace, where I’m vicariously interested in this fantasy of massively asymmetrical (and gendered) power dynamics, and I’m also curious about what the author changed about those power dynamics. I never expect it to be a responsible guide to relationships.

But the thing that the book starts doing, retconning 50 Shades and intentionally reversing some of its tropes to make them feel less fucked-up and more realism-adjacent, starts shifting that territory out of “this is bonkers” and towards “this is supposed to be the take-me-seriously improved version of 50 Shades.” For example, all the way back in Twilight, Bella’s mom Renee is totally hands off to the point of irresponsibility, not even interrogating why her daughter’s landed in the hospital with broken limbs and blood loss and trusting that her sparkly, quiet vampire boyfriend really did have nothing to do with her horrific accident. Similarly, Ana’s mom in 50 shades is a massive enabler of Christian’s stalking. She pushes her daughter to accept his accelerated relationship timeline and talks about his controlling behaviour as romantic when Ana’s confused and unsure about continuing a relationship with him. Here in Bared to You, Eva’s mom takes on some of the controlling behaviour that is problematic in 50 Shades so the book can call that out as harmful. She is controlling of Eva to the point of requiring therapeutic intervention so that the therapist can enforce some god-damned boundaries for someone who tracks their adult child’s phone and tries to prevent them from doing certain sports activities. This is Not Okay, the narrative clarifies. Of course, later in this book, Gideon has Eva’s credit card details swiped, it turns out he owns the building in which she lives. And he engineers an evening out for her where she thinks she’s out alone with her friends, but a random curbside advertiser gives her a card to a VIP lounge that Gideon also owns, where he joins her. And Eva’s not okay with this, she tells him so. But it does seem like at least some of OG Christian’s controlling tendencies are still romanticized in this version even if they are presented as an obstacle to be overcome.

Other updates I liked more. Eva, unlike waifish Ana in 50 shades who forgets to eat for like three days in a row, is a curvy blonde who loves to eat. Also unlike Ana, who is allergic to the gym and when Christian insists she gets in shape to be more capable for BDSM, is like “I just caaan’t,” Eva’s always working out in a pretty hardcore manner and starts studying Krav Magna to become more badass. I mean, most fit people have a routine more structured than “run at a balls- out pace for half an hour then fuck around with free weights for a bit,” as it’s done here in the book, but we’re hardly reading this book for realistic training regimens. Another thing positioned as a metacommentary on the latter books of the 50 Series is Eva’s clothing choices. At the gym, she wears this sports bra top that’s basically three triangles of fabric that also is a full support running bra for a full-chested woman (truly, a magical garment). Gideon freaks out that she’s wearing it in public. She’s like, “lol, you can’t tell me what to wear” and then goes off to do her thing on the treadmill and he’s like “okay fine, you look super hot and other men can be jealous of me, I guess.” Unlike Ana, who gets horrifically punished by Christian for wearing overly skimpy clothing while on the yacht he owns in one of the most stressful-to-read scenes in the series. This fluffy filler scene felt like a salve against the memory of the original.

The central idea of Bared to You, which I don’t hate at all, seems to be, “what if the heroine were just as possessive and dramatic and messy as the hero, and that OTT dynamic of hate you-need-you-I’m-jealous-of-everyone-who’s-ever-touched you produced their mutual sparks?” In 50 Shades a lot of the tension is created because Ana sensibly resists Christian love- bombing her into submission to his abuse. But she eventually caves to all this demands, including sexual activities she doesn’t enjoy, until he’s miraculously (problematically) cured of liking BDSM through her divine purity of love or whatever. Here in Bared to You, Eva is super into Gideon physically, but emotionally knows she can’t hack a businesslike NSA arrangement with non – disclosures signed, as he wants to arrange with her. So she resists his proposition that they become fuckbuddies, makes it very clear as to why, and eventually HE caves because he wants her that badly. I liked that the emphasis was less on Eva tying Gideon down to something he doesn’t want, and instead, on her advocating for what she does want, which he decides he’s going to accept because he wants her. Then it turns out he’s surprisingly into the switch in his usual power dynamics (until the text undermines that at a later point, harrumph).

I also enjoyed that Eva’s neediness and jealousy were totally a self conscious thing, that they mirrored Gideon’s own neediness and jealousy. I know there’s some messy business with her thinking demeaning thoughts about some some dumb woman at the elevator spilling change in front of Gideon at their meet-cute, blaming the woman for being so into Gideon she only babbles and forgets Eva’s existence although Eva’s helped her pick up the loose coins. But I saw that more as a commentary on Gideon’s godlike level of attractiveness than “other women bad and dumb.” Unlike Ana in 50 shades, Eva doesn’t typically resort to blaming other women for being attracted to Gideon, as is such a big thing in that novel. She consciously thinks that it’s going to be hard for her to have an incredibly attractive partner whom every other women wants, and she’s right; it is difficult. But it’s presented as a Her problem, not an Other Women problem. She also enjoys that he turns every single head at the gym, and enjoys thinking of him as a trophy; that feeling’s mutual. Also, she puts the responsibility for respecting their relationship in Gideon’s court, not anyone else’s. When Gideon behaves thoughtlessly, talking to his former fiancee while ignoring Eva at dinner or not bothering to mention he’s gone out for dinner with a longtime friend who’s confessed to be in love with him, Eva leaves those situations in anger. She lets him know this behaviour is unacceptable to her, that she won’t put up with being treated like that. She doesn’t go after the Mrs. Robinson characters and warn them off, as Ana does in 50 Shades. She has a thousand times stronger spine than Ana, and, since I’m obviously reading this in a funhouse mirror reflecting 50 Shades kind of way, that aspect worked for me as entertainment and commentary.

Likewise their love bombing of each other is, if still a lot, like, this would be red flag territory for many people, is at least reciprocal. He makes a home art installation of candid photos of the two of them together, including a picture of her sleeping she didn’t know was taken. Which is utterly horrifying, don’t get me wrong, it made me panicky, but she LOVES it. Eva, in return, sends Gideon three enormous bouquets of flowers in one day to commemorate moments of their relationship, distracting him so much he can’t concentrate at work, and then tops it all off with a… Promise ring of sorts, mirroring the promise ring he’s just given her that she freaked out a bit over before accepting. This is ridiculous and smothering and if a romantic partner treated me this way, I would flee the country and assume an alias, but you know what? It’s so evident that these dramatic, theatrical fools get off on wooing each other with gifts and declaring their love in this OTT way, that I kind of enjoyed it a bit because they did. I usually don’t appreciate dynamics of, “I love you, I hate you, I can’t live without you” because it often feels like straight up immaturity. And I’m not saying this depiction of this relationship is the height of maturity; it’s more like the immature aspects of this dynamic were consciously considered in the text. This is a pairing of two people who thrive on a relationship intensity that would be too much for most partners finally meeting their match.

On the overall arc, though…. This is a bit of an odd story in that, instead of gradually escalating the relationship while building towards an understanding of The Reason that they shouldn’t be together, we have this string of mini dark moments that builds to bigger dark moments, with bucolic interludes of OTT mushiness in between with zero stakes whatsoever. It’s like, here’s a small problem, we’ve solved that. Here’s a bigger problem, we’ve solved that too. Repeat until the end of the book. At many points it’s not evident what the obstacle between them is anyone, we’re just waiting for some miscommunication to happen or one of Gideon’s exes to waltz on the scene to stir up drama. Of course both have Big Secrets related to being abuse victims. But I was never waiting for Gideon to go full Angel st. Clair and write off the heroine for being an an abuse victim, because I didn’t think that was something the character would do or the author would do? It’s clear early on that Eva has experienced some sexual trauma. It’s also heavily hinted at that Gideon has been a sexual abuse victim as The Issue they have to overcome. And this is obviously inspired by Christian in 50 shades being sexually abused by Elena, and being abused as a child by his mom’s partner. The general idea here in Bared To You is to set up these two characters as mirrors of each other in terms of their trauma and responses to that trauma to make them equals in most ways, so I get that’s why they are both abuse victims.

And I don’t think the book is using sexual abuse gratuitously in a totally disturbing, irresponsible way. As in, I’ve read far more exploitative takes on sexual abuse as a plot point – not that setting the bar low is a good answer. But it did give me pause that sexual abuse trauma is used to produce an extremely dark moment, THE darkest moment in the book, in which the heroine is almost raped in her sleep by the sleepwalking hero having a nightmare? Eva, comparatively to Ana in 50 Shades, is very good about advocating for herself in terms of relationship expectations and boundaries. But the fact she was almost raped by her boyfriend barely seems to trouble her, even though she has specific trauma around being raped by her stepbrother. Gideon agrees to go on medication for his acting out in his sleep, but he’s also acted out sexually while sleeping next to her before. So it seems a bit like he took a big risk here for plot drama?

And I’m left wondering whether using this scenario – or any scenario involving their past abuse – for an issue that’s resolved in the next scene is really necessary? Which leads to an additional question: if this is retconning 50 Shades to do slightly more responsible things with it, do we have to go full-on dual sexual abuse plots to explain both MC’s harmful or toxic behaviors? A lot of Eva’s jealousy problems and trust issues are chalked up to being a sexual abuse victim. Some of Eva’s sexual behaviours are also related to her trauma, where she wants to do certain sex acts with Gideon to mentally take control over them being done to her abusively – which made me, honestly, super uncomfortable, because it taps into this belief that sexual intimacy with someone is about sexual ownership of someone. Emotional abuse without sexual abuse can also produce people who need control, who are jealous, who only know how to love bomb and throw tantrums to get their way. So I definitely questioned whether there was a more responsible way to produce those kinds of flawed characters with the issues they have.

At least the narrative avoids arguing that BDSM is inherently harmful behavior linked to being abused, as it is portrayed in 50 Shades. So, points for that. Unlike in 50 Shades, Gideon doesn’t spring a BDSM negotiation on Eva as an initial requirement – it comes up in the final quarter of the book after they’re committed. He sees submissive tendencies in her which are totally decoupled from her personality in the rest of life, which is pretty assertive. However, I chafed at Gideon telling Eva, “you’re definitely a submissive and I was just letting you top me that one time to let you think you did something.” Come on, man, switches exist. If that’s her need, maybe listen to her instead of forcing a paradigm on her before she even knows the experiences and concepts. And he’s pretty insistent that she’s going to enjoy a type of sexual experience she’s never felt she needed before, which was also uncomfortable.

Regarding the love scenes…I know they’re much ballyhooed for being scorchingly hot. I didn’t really find them hot so much as dramatically entertaining and then disappointingly heteronormative. I enjoyed the first scenes more than the latter ones, because before PIV is on the table, Gideon’s primary concern is giving Eva pleasure. We all know that in 50 Shades, Ana’s pleasure is accidental to Christian’s sex prowess of, “he began to move; to really move” and yanking tampons out of her. So I was pleased to see on-page heroine orgasms as the end-goal of the initial sex.

There’s actually too many sex scenes to count -I think at least 20? Later ones are highly repetitive and most of them don’t explore character or new relationship territory – they’re there to establish that hero and heroine are hot for each other, which, I mean, if we’ve been paying attention we know? There’s a lot of him aggressively slamming his cock into her as some kind of display of primal male triumph, which was pretty cringy (in both a literal and metaphorical sense). There’s a lot of standard-issue mentions of how tight and wet she is, she comes endlessly from penetration. He’s some ridiculous tantric sex god who can ejaculate without losing hardness, which happens repeatedly, giving us back to back to back penetration scenes. I was surprised that the male performance fantasy here was so specifically at human limits of achievability and it frankly took me out of things a bit. There’s so many mentions of his “primal male virility” and her “female triumph” as a seductress of him, and it winds up feeling quite cartoonish? The scene I enjoyed the most was the one where Eva tops Gideon in his limo, because it performed both character work AND relationship work that took us in an unexpected direction. I was a bit angry Gideon had to point that out as a negative example later in the novel when he explains what BDSM is to her.

Another extremely strange thing is that, despite the fact our heroine has been raped, there’s at least a couple of times where she wakes up to Gideon… Having sex with her while she’s asleep?! And that’s very much rape, everyone? Maybe unless you expressly say to your partner, “you can use my body for sex while I’m asleep” but, like, what if you wake up while sex is happening and don’t feel like having sex? The consent issues with that are troubling to say the least. It’s very yikes and totally unnecessary, as well as clashing with a lot of good discussion of boundaries and consent that runs through the rest of the novel.

Originally published on Goodreads on August 24, 2021