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Friday, February 8, 2013

Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake)- Laurel K Hamilton

** spoiler alert **


So I am re reading the Anita Blake novels and no matter what anyone says Guilty Pleasures is just that for me. I enjoyed this almost as much as I did when I org. read it.

Things I loved about these first few books is the zombie raising, Bert, animators inc and all the fun stuff that went along with that, like pissing off her boss with inappropriate coffee mugs and grave yard mold in her ointment and the zombie drama.

I enjoyed this series more when she was bitching about going to a friend’s weddings and parties, and mooning over her penguin collection. The first six books in this series are much more light hearted and funnier.

However with that said things I noticed that I hated:

1) Anita being all tough tomb boy shooter girl… Does it EVER tell us where she learned to fight and be such an awesome bitch with guns and other weaponry? I don’t think so.

2) Anita being squeamish, this is reoccurring, in this book she freaks about needles and almost gets my beloved Edward killed because she wont stab some nasty vamp with needle, this drama causes her to drop her shot gun and Edward almost being killed.

3) Jean Claude- lovelovelovelove… However if Anita hated him and vampires and really didn’t want vampire marks she should have shot him in the face with her sawed off instead of just thinking about it. When it comes to dick Anita has no brains.

4) LKH and the getting rid of human girl friends. As Anita talks about Catherine and Ronnie all I can do at this point is decide Anita or LKH hates women, because both of Anita’s BFF’s wind up on the character chopping block about five books into this series. If Anita can’t be head bitch no one can and everyone wants Anita, right?

5) Her self loathing image. This first time I read this I was 18 years old and I thought, “Wow she has body images, she’s not perky super skinny and blonde, I TOTALLY relate!” However now as a mature adult I just want to slap her and tell her to SHUT THE FUCK UP. Why is she complaining? Pale skin, dark hair, probably fits into a size 12 or less, in good physical shape and eventually all the boys want her. This character is an unrelatable as it gets. Now I just find it a pathetic way to get the reader’s sympathies.

6) The clothes, I know this book was middle 90’s but c’mon, in the later books Kiss the Dead her clothing style does not get much better. She and Sookie Snatchhouse should have a reject clothing pity party.


Things I loved:

1) Edward- frankly I want a series all about him….

2) I love that Jean Claude can eat through Anita, that is a clever Human Servant trick.

3) The characters, LKH pre sex fest barftasticness could write damn good and interesting, unique characters.

4) NO SEX

5) Guilty Pleasures and Circus of the Damned- these are great business names and even better ideas.


So, three stars….. Mainly because Anita bothers me, not as much as Sookie and Bella but she still bugs me in a trying to be a feminist not quite making it way


3/5

Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse)- Charlaine Harris

** spoiler alert **



Ok… So this is part one of reviews of  the books of this series. I am re reading The Southern Vampire series by Charlaine Harris, mainly because I put the series down in 2012  after starting them in 2001. I couldn’t even bring myself to read the new book.

Honestly I have read Dead Until Dark several times over the past eleven years and never before have I been so disgusted with this book. Honestly I cannot remember why I even liked this book to begin with. Let me start with some of the things I despised the most.

1) Sookie, aside from Bella from Twilight could a character be any more annoying? She cries away this whole book, has no personality and is a bad dresser. There is nothing interesting about her aside from the fact that she is supposed to be pretty, and the telepathic thing. All she does is clean, sun bathe, work and have every man in Bon Temps want to fuck her.

2) Bill- such a one note character, while more interesting than Sookie it’s never a good sign when minor characters inspire more interest then the MC’s main snuggle bunny. I make no secret that I am a hard core Eric fan and this novel just gives you a taste of how much more awesome Eric is.

3) Once again, the MINOR characters like J.B, Terry, Eric and Pam are all more interesting than the MC and her love interest, granted these characters, most, become main ones but c’mon. Even the VILLAIN was more interesting than Sookie and Bill.
4) Now I will complain about passages I found freaking RIDICULOUS.

a. “Your blood heals” I said after a little pause. Yes I am referring to the scene after they first have sex where he shoves his blood covered finger inside of her to heal her after rough de virginizing sex. YUCK
b. ”Did you ever play show me yours with your brother” Not only was this passage out of the blue and disturbing it was thrown is hap hazardly just so that we could find out Sookie was molested by her Great Uncle and then Bill could act like a psycho macho vampire and kill him. This might have been interesting if it hadn’t 1) Been tossed in without any forewarning and 2) been completely pointless to moving the plot forward.
c. He slid directly into me as if he were trying to reach through me to the soil. SERIOUSLY? He is practically raping her in a muddy graveyard. I mean I am all for dominant hot sex scenes and I have nothing against sex in a cemetery but this was just horrible. I mean apparently she’s not even wearing panties cause he just rams it home, after sleeping naked in the dirt… So logically now she has mud in her cooch. GROSS.
d. ”I know you can tell hee never actually…ah..screwed me.” Sookie, telling Bill about her molestation experience. Obviously Ms. Harris has never been a victim of such tragedy because Sookie would not actually say something so crude about something so horrible. Especially since we’ve been led to believe she’s sweet, modest and virginal.
e. “I want to enter you again.” who says this kind of crap when telling the woman YOU LOVE you would like to have sex again. It’s creepy, and not hot. Just lame, like she ran out of ways to say fuck.


There were about a dozen other little things…But you get the point.

Now things I did like

1) Bubba- what can I say… Elvis rocks!
2) Sam- I always enjoy this character, I just do not think he and Sookie belong together.
3) Fangtasia- Pretty much everything about Eric, Pam and this whole set up makes me very happy.

Now I am not saying don’t read this… I’m just saying be warned. I loved this once upon a time and now… Well you just read it. *shrug*

2 out of 5

Thursday, February 7, 2013

I HUNT KILLERS- Barry Lyga

I Hunt Killers was probably the second best book I read in 2012. Not only was the plot line original, imaginative and interesting the characters were deep, well written and interesting, characters you could actually get behind.

I am really into serial killers, murder and forensics and have been since I was a little girl. I know, I’m a freak. And this book turned me on, yes, even creepier but bear with me. The author did his research and was able to not only write a convincing serial killer but a budding sociopath, touching on the fact that you can be a sociopath and not have to be a bad person. something I personally fight with.

There was humor, light and dark in this novel as well, after working in a funeral home you get used to there being death surrounded by laughter, it truly is the only way to get through that sometimes.

Through the novel the author always used respect, fear and awe when painting the different serial killers mentioned as well as the ones he created for the story line. While part of me hopes that he leaves this alone and does not write a sequel another part of me craves a second book with just as much delicious macabre and beautiful; despair, mayhem and agonized resolution.

5 out of 5 stars