Hit List

Actually, a few books ago the series tanked. Gone is the strong kickass jeans-wearing female who bets on who can handle the crime scene without vomiting! Even this book that had more crime detective action forgot it had a real plot! She has become everything the boys club cops always accused her of being, LKH has emasculated all the men, and over feminized Anita. And even all the group orgies have become so repetitive theyre boring. I spend more time skimming the books now looking for an interesting part than I do reading it. Id keep reading if the kindle version was on Unlimited or $1.99, but I have better ways to spend money that on this series anymore. Ill be looking for another series to bide my time until the next Mercy Hauptman/ Mercyverse release!

To put story back in the story. Word!!! Where do I start? Hit List . . . . the book started as usual with what “could have been” a good crime story.

SPOILERS!! Do not read on unless you want to see story spoilers.

Then Anita started talking us to death because LKH feels it’s necessary to remind us constantly about every tiny detail of how awesome Anita is. Add the obligatory jealous guy in charge (Raborn) who constantly snarks at her and makes her cry. Throw in yet again Anita forgetting to eat and getting up in said jealous guy’s face because she’s losing control of her beasts. Geez Louise. This (and so many other things) is how LKH has perverted Anita Blake, former excellent vampire hunter and turned her into a bed-hopping porn queen.

Now add a total newbie Federal Marshal as the man in charge of the ENTIRE federal hunt for the killers and listen — AGAIN — to Anita describe ad nauseum all the things we already know because clearly filler is needed as usual. You know LKH could save a heck of a lot of paper and her readers a lot of wasted time if she’d just say “see book (fill in the blank)” and write 30-60 pages of actual story with each new book because 30-60 pages is about all the new material that exists in every book since Obsidian Butterfly. The rest is just repetitious fantasy land.

Having Edward share a bed with Anita is my horror story come true. I knew it was just a matter of time before Anita being LKH’s wish fulfillment fantasy would totally destroy Edward. LKH apparently cannot stand to have a handsome character in a book who is not in love with Anita (or Merry Gentry) aka LKH. That would mess with the fantasy. But please, it is so totally ridiculous and unrealistic to think that every handsome, powerful man in the Anita Blake series abandons all other women to worship at Anita’s feet. I laugh at this obvious fantasy. Fortunately, this time at least we are spared the ultimate horror of Edward having sex with Anita, but she has still turned Edward into a wuss extraordinaire.

What about Anita “not realizing” that the ardeur was tied to her ability to heal?? These contrived situations are just getting sooooo old!!!

Please try for some originality and variation in your sex scenes. Sex for sex’s sake is just garbage. I’m gonna gag if I have to read about one more man doing something sexual to Anita while looking up her body and locking eyes “like you would on the dojo mat” or “in the fight arena” because “if you take your eyes off your opponent they’re gonna kick your ass”. Because Anita is such a scary man these days. Yes, man. Anita is stronger, faster, tougher and smarter and can bench press more weight than any man in the books. She’s even better than Edward. What a man! She’ll make someone a fine husband. Oh wait!! she already has. She definitely wears the pants in every one of her relationships.

The story that “could have been” good fizzled after the first little bit and deteriorated into the usual Anita is dumb and has forgotten everything she ever knew about herself so let’s psychoanalyze it again. Edward has turned into a touchy feely girl. Anita puts herself and everyone around her into constant danger because . . . she’s a thoughtless idiot. Same old, same old sex scene — thank god it wasn’t 350 pages of one lousy sex scene. We can be grateful for that.

Last, but far from least, LKH winds up the entire halfway interesting part of the book (the actual crimes being committed) in just 43 pages at the very end where the all powerful Anita sucks up the Mother of All Darkness effortlessly. Oh and she added yet another man to the group of brow beaten men she says she loves but really just wants to control. LKH is SUCH a Mary Sue – I don’t think she used to be but maybe she was just waiting for the opportunity to ditch her editors and proofers. It’s clear that no one is telling her that it doesn’t take 50 pages to say what she could say in one. Good job!

I love this series, but by this point the series just isn’t as good as it once was. For me this is the last decent book in the anita blake series. After Hit List it turns into a mess. It’s all about Anita being so beautiful, but not knowing it, it’s about how only Anita is the best female at sex, it’s about everyone being jealous of her or jealous because they want to be with her, it’s about situations that lead to sex with weak plots. I have nothing against sex or sex being part of a story, but the books after this only seem to just circulate around the sex and the characters and story become pathetic for it. Warning! I’m about to discuss some of my greatest problems with the books past this point and there will be spoilers!!!
In the book Affliction Nathaniel talks about Anita rolling Damian, so they can have sex with him and strengthen their ties to him. Anita tells him that’s rape. In the book Crimson Death Nathaniel rolls and rapes Damian making him bisexual and Damian is so rolled he doesn’t care. Jean Claude and Anita practically give Nathaniel a pat on the back for it. No one tries to undo the roll and no one cares even though they would be horrified if it was done to them. And Nathaniel continues to have sex with Damian even though the real Damian is heterosexual and doesn’t want guys touching him. In another book Jean Claude and Anita roll a vampire to make him fall in love with his human servant. When Augustine did that to Anita she said his gift was evil, because it wasn’t real and it takes away your fee will to feel how you’d really feel. I guess her and Jean Claude no longer value a persons free will. As I kept reading past Hit List I became disgusted with Anita, Jean Claude, and Nathaniel. Anita treats her vampire servant like crap. She is how she feared Jean Claude would be to her. He’s just her tool. Also if you read past Hit List, the situation with Olaf is so dragged out. The fact that Anita ignores all the women Olaf is clearly raping and killing on his free time including the doctor who treated Anita when she was injured is also disgusting. But not only is Anita ignoring that Olaf needs to be stopped, she’s thinking about dating him and having sex with him, because it might help him be less evil. I’d like to believe the old Anita would have just killed him. That’s who I thought she was. She was someone who killed the hard to kill monsters and made the world a better place. Who Anita has become is someone I don’t like. I stopped reading at Serpentine. I should have stopped sooner, but this is still a really good series up to a point.

Vampire Executioner! I’m happy that there was more of a story and less of the sexual exploits. I’m not a prude but I did not initially fall in love with these books be cause of how much or how many dudes Anita had sex with. I fell in love with the things that Anita could or had to do in the supernatural community with just a little bit of sex thrown in, as they say, a little goes a long way. I was so happy to see Edward/Ted again also, a breath of fresh air. I have hope again in the Anita Blake of old.

This book is not worth the money. The font size is huge compared to Bullet, in all honesty this is a novella with ambitions not a proper novel. If you must read it check it out from your local library or wait for the paperback because it is a rip off at hardback price.

This basically reads like Obsidian Butterfly part deux only without the pacing, plot or general entertainment factor. Its like LKH was following a power point presentation and all of the characters were cardboard cutouts trotting around a sound stage. Anita gets in a fight with the local marshalls, check. Marshalls doubt her loyalties, check. Anita shows off her super special knowledge, check. Anita meets yet another super special wer to add to her harem, check. Anita gets in a gun fight and gets injured, check. Medical people are astounded by her healing ability, check. Anita gets weirded out by Olaf, check. Anita shows her humanity by aiding a fallen officer, check. Anita angsts about everything, about a million checks through the whole book. Then all of a sudden the book ends, its like LKH got bored or couldn’t be bothered anymore and wrapped it all up in about ten pages. Really? I mean really, really?? Anita has been fighting Mother Dark for how many books now and it all ends in less than three pages? The ending was poorly thought out and just lame with yet another unexplained power up and one of the enemy switching sides out of the blue. It left me annoyed, frustrated and feeling cheated that something that should have been fleshed out and detailed was treated like an after thought.

What writing gift LKH once had seems to have abandoned her in this book. Supposedly the book is set in the Seattle/Tacoma Washington area but it could be anywhere. No attention at all is paid to setting up the area or the details of their surroundings aside from a moan about it being cold in the first paragraph of the book. Maybe its because LKH is obsessed with describing her characters’ eyes and hair. How many times did we really need to read that Edward’s eyes were like the winter sky or moon? None of the characters are fleshed out well, not even Anita who comes off as whiney and mostly unlikable. This book had a tiny glimmer of promise but it was buried under the angst driven bad writing and hurried ending. Its almost as if Anita isn’t humping someone or angsting about humping someone then LKH isn’t really interested in writing her characters anymore. She’s tried to write a back to business mystery novel with Hit List but it reads like a sad wannabe knock off of one of her earlier books. I used to be a rabid LKH fan but this book may be the end for me. I think from now on the first few chapters will be downloaded on my kindle app and if it looks to be more of the same, well, I don’t think I’ll bother.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member