Kiss the Dead

I just don’t have it in me to go into all the things that annoy me with almost all of Ms. Hamilton’s Anita books that come after Obsidian Butterfly. Besides so many others here have done it much better than I ever could or have the patience for.

Sufficit to say she needs an editor that is willing to take her to task. Repeated word usage can be unbearable. Repeated sayings, not from book to book, but in the same damn book, sometimes in the same chapter. I could go on and on, but like I said others have already done it better.

The worst part is, that this plot could and should have been super interesting. Vampires trying to live without a Master. Of course it goes wrong, but I wanted the interesting plot elements to go with it.

And while I enjoy sex scenes in my reading, I like them to at least follow the storyline, not be dropped in just because it’s been too many paragraphs without sex.

I’m still baffled at myself as to why I keep reading, but I do. Maybe someday Ms. Hamilton will remember why an editor is so important.

Summary
An old vampire named Benjamin heads up a new group of vampires who choose to be free…that is, not tethered in any way to a Master Vampire. Because of the very nature of vampires, in order to keep all of them safe and able to contine to live with humans, this arrangment is not normal and is heavily frowned upon by other Master Vampires. A rogue vampire or group of vampires is a threat to all vampires. Anita is called in to help SWAT and other preternatural law enforcement with containing a large group who’ve broken away from Benjamin and want to start a war.

What I Liked
Jean-Claude – the 5 pages that were actually devoted to him anyway 🙁
I actually feel a little tricked bc somewhere over the last year, I got the impression that this book was going to be more Jean-Claude than we’ve had in several books. I think it was less! The only thing less would be nothing.

Micah and Nathaniel – Anita has my permission to keep these two…they are there for her, when she needs them and they don’t whine like babies. They each have their own comfortable lives and responsibilities outside her house; they do their own things and come home to her and they don’t question her about what she does or where she goes.

The premise of the story…what could have been a very interesting plotline…just wasn’t…but it was bc the plot wasn’t given time to develop, and the connections (if there were any) weren’t made in between the beginning and the end and all the extra-curriculuar activity in the middle.

What I Didn’t Like
The F bomb – I don’t necessarily have an aversion to the “F” word (and I ain’t talkin’ about “fruit”), but geez Louise…I honestly started rolling my eyes every time it was used. And then I got an eye cramp. Ok, ok, ok, I got it. Things are bad.

The sex – sex as a part of a storyline, I’m ok with…sex as just sex thrown in so that you feel like you’re reading a porno novel…not so much :p

The cliches – I got so tired of the Anita-isms – her “live-in sweeties,” “girls do this; guys do that; I’m so guy,” “main honey-bun,” everybody gets “pissy,” her collection of penguins, “my second yummy boy,” “we’re police; we run toward the trouble, not away from it, silly ringtones, dressing in a thong and 9 inch heels and falling down where everybody can see her undies” and on and on and on and on and on and on…

# of Characters – We are so way past too many characters…I cannot in any way imaginable keep up with who’s who…how am I supposed to remember which animal is Anita’s to call when, who came from where, how old everybody is, why who needs who, who’s which personality, and for Heaven sake, just how many lovers am I supposed to believe are ok with sharing her. Really now? Seriously??
Jean-Claude, Micah, Nathaniel, Cin, Nicky, Devil, Richard, Asher, Jade, Damian, Ethan, Crispin…I can’t even remotely begin to remember even their names!

Plot – Hello? Could we please have a plot?? We learned about the rogue vampires in the very beginning…then sex, sex, and more sex, a little violence in between and then finally in the last chapters (pg. 327 out of 359) we returned to the plot. Ahem.

Cynrick – Sin – whatever he wants to be called…kick his whiney hiney out the door, Anita…I just cannot take any more.

Repeitition, repetition, repetition, repetition…and did I say repetition????
Where the heck was Hamilton’s editor?? She explained the elevator being a killing box and whether or not she knew about Jean Claude taking power from lesser vampires in at least 2 places close together…I swear, I wondered if Hamilton worked on these chapters out of order and then forgot where she mentioned what.

Overall Recommendation
I am not a negative reviewer. You can take a look at my review archives and see that I would come closer to being accused of at least liking something about everything I’ve read and reviewed. That’s because I purposely only read books that I think I’ll like. I don’t care how high on the Bestseller list something floats; if it doesn’t sound good to me, I’m not gonna read it. Most importantly, because I just don’t want to. But almost as important are the questions I have in my mind about whether or not I can give that book an honest read.
I like the Anita Blake series…I hated Kiss the Dead.
I really did.
So, I can’t recommend it to anybody. I think even a lot of Anita fans will be disappointed in this one.
I’m not going away though…I’ll be here when Hamilton publishes the next one, but two stinkers in a row will have to be my limit. 🙁
I’m sorry for the snark, but I really felt cheated by this one.

I think this was the worst Anita Blake novel to date. Previously, I had problems with all of the sex in the books but, at least, it seemed to be plot driven. There was little sex in this book (by LKH standards) but it seemed pointless and boring when it happened. The only sex scene worth mentioning was the one that turned out very badly for Nicky but then that part was dropped without further delving into why it happened and what to do to prevent it in the future. And then, after that totally terrifying moment, Anita turns around and has sex with someone else?!

Also, I was tired of Anita contradicting herself from one page to another. First she says she has been with Nathaniel for 2 years; then it was almost 3 years and, near the end of the book she mentions they are almost at their 4 year anniversary. Another time she says killing a master vampire will kill the rest of the bloodline (with the exception of what happened with Wicked and Truth) and on the next page she says that killing a master vampire does not kill all of its bloodline from her experience.

Another big oops came near the beginning of the novel when a vampire Anita is taking into custody tells her something she finds disturbing about Jean Claude’s powers and she tells herself that she’ll ask him about it later. But a few pages later, she recalls a conversation she had with Jean Claude ages ago addressing this very issue.

I think the worst mistake was when one of the vampires taken into custody revealed the locations of where these bad vampires should be sleeping. The plan was Anita and police would get something to eat while waiting for dawn and then go take care of the bad vamps. However, after they got something to eat, apparently everyone forgot their mission because they all went home!

Did anyone proofread this book?

It is shocking that this book was published with so many glaring errors and inconsistencies. It seemed like LKH attempted what could have been some very interesting plot lines but changed her mind mid thought and dropped each one. So there wasn’t any real resolution at the end of the novel because there was never any real plot. I’d rather LKH kill off the characters and end the series than churn out anymore of this kind of rubbish. Maybe she should go back to writing the more porny Anita Blake novels as at least they made sense.

I very rarely read books with a female protagonist because for some unknown reason, authors can never get it right. The character is usually so unlikeable/unsympathetic and antagonistic, which some authors seem to mistake as ‘fiery, fiesty’ that I find it hard to believe that every male in the book would find her attractive let alone intriguing or interesting. I never do and I have even more insight into the character as I get the privilege of reading her inner monologue, yea, which is filled with all sorts of idiocy.

Enter Anita Blake. From around Book 7, this turned into a series about a short, angry, half Mexican woman (this description of Blake is given repeatedly) who:
*has sex with and metaphysically bonds with lycanthropic and vampiric heartthrobs
*and feels bad about having sex
*then makes her peace with having sex by falling in love with the heartthrobs
*but feels like she can’t love all the heartthrobs
*but then questions whether they love her or the aurdor/odor
*but then decides they love her but she can’t love them
*but then …

You get the picture. If it annoys you reading my description, think how you’d feel reading the book! I’m more annoyed with myself as I should have given up long ago on buying these books and not given this author my money. This is my last Anita Blake book.

Shame that a good series turned out so badly. But as my mum always says, if you don’t like something, vote with your feet. So, I’m walking away from this series.

It would be really good if Laurell K Hamilton would revisit the first five or six books in the series, and see just how good the Anita Blake books were before she discovered the word polyamorous. I keep buying the darned things, hoping they get back to the ass kicker she used to be and get rid of the slapper she’s been turned into. But sadly, it’s just more of the same, and I found myself flipping through page after page of the most boring sex ever committed to paper just to find some actual story. I have one more that I’ve already paid for, but I am not sure I can bring myself to read it let alone buy the new one when it comes out.

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