16 July 2013

Affliction (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter #22) by Laurell K Hamilton






Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #22)

Some zombies are raised. Others must be put down. Just ask Anita Blake.
Before now, she would have considered them merely off-putting, never dangerous. Before now, she had never heard of any of them causing human beings to perish in agony. But that’s all changed.
Micah’s estranged father lies dying, rotting away inside from some strange ailment that has his doctors whispering about “zombie disease.”
Anita makes her living off of zombies—but these aren’t the kind she knows so well. These creatures hunt in daylight, and are as fast and strong as vampires. If they bite you, you become just like them. And round and round it goes…
Where will it stop?Even Anita Blake doesn’t know.





Hello, hello! Here I am jotting down a few notes since I just finished book 22 (!!!) in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton. I'm subscribed to view updates from Hamilton on Facebook and have noticed over the last week + since her book has been released that she's very amendment about people NOT posting spoilers... so as much as I'd like to abide by her wishes, it's slightly difficult to review a book w/o posting a facts that people wouldn't know without having read the books themselves. In that case, I'm not sure why I do book reviews? I know there is a fine art to reviewing and well, you know me, not too classy, not too cooth, sooo.... I will try NOT to post spoilers in this review, but I can't promise much, there was a lot about this book that I'd like to share... a lot of meh, okay things and some not so okay things... so, without further ado... my review!

I've been listening to the stories Hamilton writes about Anita Blake for a couple of years now. I was a little late to the dance, so I had kind of O.D'd on the books via audio all at one time, up until, I think, Bullet (#19), it was... then I had to wait the year or so it took for her to create another book and get it published. So I've been patiently doing just that and here we are with Affliction. I was pretty excited about the release of this one as I absolutely LOVE Anita Blake and honestly think a tv series should be created on like, FX or some non mainstream tv channel like that. There is THAT much about her that's just been had, sooo many stories and details and the series is just so involved and all encompassing. I would honestly tune in each week to watch a tv series, BUT it probably would never be as juicy as her books are by way of the furry lovin' and all the "polyamorous"...ness going on! LOL! That word is just so silly. Call her what she is- a slut! And that's okay by me! ;) I recall the book before the last one, Bullet was a real disappointment for me, it wasn't fulfilling for me at all, and I remember strongly disliking it, then she released Hit List and I fell back in love! LOL! Most of her books are hit or miss, with the majority of them being a serious HIT for me, but her most recent ones you can tell she's just in a different place in her personal life (Hamilton is) and therefore her writing really reflects that. Some of her older books are much darker and much more emotional, and "believable" in a way (not that the situations or characters are believable, it's paranormal... but the raw emotions...), and things are clearly just really different these days in her writing. As fluffy and lovey dovey as I thought Bullet was, Affliction tried to get there, referring in several different spots in the book to "God" and angels and believing in a holy power etc, I just was left with a sour taste in my mouth when she had little tangents like that. If you all don't know, I'm passionately atheist and don't choose many books that refer to God, or have topics of religion in them, so it was a little meh for me, in this book. I think that coupled with the extremely intense threesome scene where one of Anita's sweeties (who is a self professed "sociopath"- which also rubs me the wrong way the way he describes himself as such and how much attention they actually put on that whole topic... weird.) went into a startling and kind of all of a sudden choke-fest. I guess that's a little spoiler-ish, sorry, but it really irritated me. I'm very open minded, and I'm pretty much down with alternative lifestyles (you HAVE to be, to read Hamilton's books, quite honestly) but there is just ONE thing that really bothers me in relations to "sex"... choking. It's sort of a sexy sexy pet peeve, I guess you can say. I just don't understand it at all. AT ALL! It turns me pretty cold and turns me off quickly. Not sure why! I just see no attraction in it and don't recall a book that's had a choking scene in it, ever, that I've read, but this one DOES and it's by one of my very favorite characters, so it really bothered me. Not sure why, but it did. :/ Otherwise, I really loved this book... oh wait! The ending! Seriously anti-climactic! LOL! There was a lot of hunting hunting, looking, searching... a lot of insinuated action, and then BOOP! All done! I was like, huh! It took her 80 some chapters to come up with this hair brained idea to do what she always does in every single book- raise zombies... ?! IDK, just kinda goofy and almost like Hamilton wasn't quite sure how or when to wrap up the book. It was like she hit a certain word count and was like Oh, I'm where I need to be, no use in going any further on words, lets wrap this baby up! LOL! It WAS good though, I really did like it. I liked how it played out, the travel involved and how the more familiar main sweeties took a bit of a back seat for others to step up into the limelight! It was nice! Kinda a bummer it took nearly 40 out of 80 chapters to get any sexy sexy, but once it got there, it was worth it! Hello shower scene with Anita, Dev and Nicky! MEOW! Holy smokes! But I expect nothing less from Hamilton when it comes to the sex! I recall in one book she literally wrote like 4 chapters straight describing just one sex scene- it was very... vivid, to say the least! Can't recall which book that was, since there's TWENTY TWO of them now! ;) But for anyone with a VERY open mind, the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series by LKH are awesome books and I recommend them to anyone who will sit still long enough and who's got a love for the paranormal! :)

This deserves:  
... up next! No idea... you'll know when I know! :)


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