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Average Customer Rating:

good plotting, but leave the fey to the merry series!

Customer Rating:

First off, I've liked the Anita Blake novels, and have read them from Book 1, Guilty Pleasures. Hamilton continues to build on her characters through each novel, and I continue to be intrigued with the progress of Anita's relationship w/Jean-Claude, her vampire nemesis, yet companion, would-be suitor, and friend. I know that eventually they'll be in bed with each other, but it's fun to see how Hamilton will build into their relationship transitions. In Bloody Bones, the vampires, zombies & lycanthropes are there. But then, Hamilton throws in a few faery characters, as well as gargoyles & trolls. Truly, all of these preternatural & magical creatures are unneeded to make the stories sing, especially when Hamilton has a 2nd series (Merry) that are strictly about the fey if that's what her readers want. The hard-boiled tone of this and the other novels can sometimes be trying, compromising the reader's ability to relate to Anita who isn't the most loveable character. She's rude, bitchy, and almost always self-centered. In fact, I personally DON'T relate to Anita ... I'm much more interested in the other characters, both vampire, werewolf & human. And I wish ... oh, how I wish! ... that Hamilton was not compelled to describe each character that enters a scene, right down to every stitch of clothing they're wearing. It does little to enhance the characters, and who can remember all these details? One or two references to appearance would be quite enough; the fashion parade of descriptions is tedious, and doesn't move the plot along. All things considered, I liked this installment. We got to know Anita's apprentice Larry better, and Jason the lycanthrope became more fleshed out beyond his viciousness in The Lunatic Cafe. The dance between Anita & Jean-Claude bridges the reader into the subsequent novels. I wanted to get to the end ... as quickly as possible ... not because I didn't like the plot, but because I loved it and wanted to read how the conflicts were resolved. I will definitely move on to Book 6!

It has its up and downs	Customer Rating:
The book was hard to put down when I started reading it, it was awesome. But then I had to put the book down. It became boring in the middle, too much fluff. Kept dragging on about Jean-Claude. I picked the book back up with nothing else to do and was Amazed at the ending. Nothing I was expecting. Kind of wished I had not put the book down. It was totally awesome!

Keeper Series	Customer Rating:
I have read and own all the books in the Anita Blake series. While I love to recommend them to all my friends I hate to actually loan out my copies. That is what I call a Keeper Series. Too good to give away!!

Bloody Good

Customer Rating:

Geez, I'm running out of things to say about these books. Let's see: Anita has stopped seeing Jean-Claude as a monster, because she had yet another direct contrast between Jean-Claude and some real monsters -- several of them, in fact, and each was nastier and more gruesome than the last. We start with Xavier, the vampire pedophile who likes to kidnap young boys, rape and torture them, and then turn them into vampires so he can keep doing it presumably forever; right after him we get Janos and his twin rotting beauties -- and oh MAN was that one of the most horrible things I've ever read -- and then Serephina and her damned evil arrogance and thirst for power, and finally we see Rawhead and Bloody Bones, who kills children who have been naughty because that's who he is -- that's what he does. And then on the other hand we have Jean-Claude. Who is really -- annoying. Suddenly he doesn't seem that bad. The characterization still progresses; Anita steps back from her changing self, horrified about what she may be becoming, and returns somewhat to her former self who doesn't really want to marry Richard and who has enough faith to use a cross against vampires and prays when she has the chance. In the meantime, Jean-Claude seems to mellow in his obnoxious pursuit of Anita; I think since he had some evidence that it isn't truly hopeless, that she can have feelings for him apart from lust -- she is willing to save his life, which is a big improvement from when she sold him out in Circus of the Damned -- he is willing to slow down and be patient; it seems the worst parts of his wooing were because he was desperate for something, anything, that would give him the will to continue. I was glad to see Larry, the new animator and apprentice Anita, turning into a person of his own, strong enough to disagree with Anita along with intelligent enough to listen to her when she makes sense; it was fun to watch their changing relationship. I didn't care for the Bouviers, but not because they were badly done characters, just because Magnus was a scumbag and Dorcas was irritating and has a terrible name. Rawhead and Bloody Bones was extremely cool, as was his place in the plot. But it seems to me now that the strongest part of these books, apart from the evolving characters, is not the plots, as good as those are; it's the memorable moments. I don't think I've read another series that has so many scenes that strike me and stick with me. In past books it has been the murder scenes in The Laughing Corpse, along with the uber-zombies in that one; the lamia-in-the-cave scene and the child vampire working for Alejandro in Circus of the Damned, and the snuff film in Lunatic Cafe. Oh yeah -- and the swarm of stuffed penguins. Gotta love that. Now this book adds two to the list: the scene with the sheriff and his wife, which almost killed me, and the scene when Pallas and Bettina (worst . . . name . . . EVER) raped Jason, which has definitely ruined the sexiness of vampires for me. Larry asked Anita how she can kiss and touch Jean-Claude after seeing that, and I know it's because she sees him as something other, as somehow alive despite being dead, but I'm on Larry's side. If that's what happens when you get snuggly with vampires, then that is the end of that fantasy. Forever and ever. Luckily for me, the vampires in these books other than Jean-Claude and Willie McCoy are so freaking unbelievably obnoxious with their jaded cruelty and their impossible arrogance that there was never much fantasy to begin with. We'll see where they go from here.

Great read!!	Customer Rating:
If you like to read about vampire slayers, there's none better than Anita Blake the main character!!!