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Cherith (USA: KS) (2006/08/09):
Reading things by Butcher, Armstrong, Harrison or Caine makes me long for those early days of Laurell's Anita. The days where I identified with her rough and strict upbringing, her moral ambiguities, and questions about sanity, religion and monsters. That's not to say that Anita doesn't still deal with all those issues in the stories, because she does. As a matter of fact, the problems get bigger but with blurrier lines everytime - and that's what keeps me reading. But back in the beginning, I cared. I loved the stories, the characters, and the problems with both. The men in Anita's life were simple, but complicated, and most of her issues came from herself.Now, there's just so much there, so much to weed through, to understand. I feel like the story (and yes there is still plot there) gets weighed down by everything else, like the sex. Especially the sex. The ratio of sex to plot to character development has shifted so much from book one to book twelve. Sure, we know Anita better now than we ever did in book one, but with everything she's going through, there's plenty left there to discover, and I don't feel like I get it all. That's not to say the sex isn't good. Hamilton over the years has figured out how to write some pretty fantastic sex scenes. But there comes a time when a girl wants to buy a book off the horror shelf, and actually wants to be scared or jarred or engaged by it. I don't get that way anymore. And I miss it. I think the main reason I noticed it so much more in this book, is because technically this is almost my second read-through. Out of the 722 pages, I'd read about 600 or so of them before in multiple settings at Barnes and Noble. I bought the paperback, and wanted to finish it, but couldn't remember anything that'd happened with the exception of the "lots of sex". Oh, and the first chapter, because it's the third time I've read it (it was in one of the short story collections...Cravings maybe). So I started from the beginning and was suprised that I didn't remember anything about the actual plot - the Big Bad - in this book at all. I still like Laurell's writing, and Anita's character, but I don't feel as invested in the stories as I once did. Maybe it's me. But I don't think so.
Sondra (USA: FL) (2016/01/03):
I absolutely love this series, Anita Blake rocks as the Vampire Hunter.
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