Blood Noir (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 16)

Hamilton has made her main character, Anita Blake, have way too many lovers. I wish she would go back to just Jean Claude and Richard. The other lovers are just a distraction away from the main plot and an insult to the tough character of Anita Blake. Edward is the only salvation to her new books. C'mon Laurell get over the orgy fantasies and back to the original great writing that made me a fan !

'Blood Noir' is my last Anita Blake novel. It's been a long road, but I will follow it no longer.

I've read the series from the beginning. I got as far as I did because the first books were fun. Anita was an engaging, funny, interesting character, and her situation had tension and mystery and suspense. There was danger. There was excitement. There were laughs. There was FUN.

Note that all of the above is in the past tense.

In 'Blood Noir' Anita runs off to North Carolina with Jason, her werewolf friend/lover/animal to call, to pose as his girlfriend so his family doesn't think he's gay. It's personal drama and I'm sure in a different book we could have gotten to know Jason, the supporting character, a little better. A little character development is honestly not a bad thing. Unfortunately there's none of that to be had here.

Instead we get a couple bland sex scenes (mostly carbon copies of the same overblown adjectives and descriptions from previous books), a case of mistaken identity stretched to its limit, some vague and pointless references to the Mother of All Darkness, and lots and lots of bad dialogue. There is no tension, no real mystery, and no sense that Anita or any of her "sweeties" are ever in any danger of harming a hair on their pretty heads. And by the end of the book, nothing is different. Nothing has changed.

Here's the thing: Anita Blake is not fun anymore. She's not enjoyable to read about, and she's not a compelling character anymore. She's become so powerful that nothing can touch her (unless it's to have sex with her, in which case anything and everything can do that). The sex scenes are bland and repetitive. Plot and storytelling is replaced with pages and pages of "meetings" between characters and dialogue which leaves nothing to the imagination. There is no sense of humor anymore. For a series about supernatural beings, the stories have become increasingly...mundane.

And that, more than anything else, signals the end of Anita Blake for me. She's dead, and I'm burying her. No more.

Anita Blake used to be fun to read. She used to make me laugh or cringe or want to turn the page. For the last few books, though, she's just made me want to put the book down and move on to something better. But I hoped for better, so I kept reading.

With 'Blood Noir,' the pact is sealed. It's not worth it anymore, because she's not fun anymore. The magic is gone, and what remains is not enough for me to keep going.

Anita Blake is dead. Rest in Peace.

1 star; abandoned.

This "review" is more of a goodbye to the Anita Blake series instead of an actual review for the book.

There use to be a lot of things I liked/loved about the Anita Blake series. Now I can't see much or any of the series I enjoyed in the past.

I tried to read this installment twice. Once when I first got it a few weeks after it originally came out, another time about a year and a half later. Both times I got to about page 50, got bored or irritated and set the book aside only to pick up another book that I enjoyed more.

From what little I remember about what I read (it was about 3 years ago) Jason is going to see his father/family, his father thinks Jason is gay and Anita is going to pretend to be his girlfriend. I think when Anita meets a sister or cousin or former best friend (again don't remember much) and the sister/cousin/friend is explaining some of what went on when Jason lived there is when I stopped. I personally don't understand why LKH has so many people who are openly against all of her main characters (the sister/cousin/friend wasn't but she was telling the story of Jason and his father).

This was the last LKH book I ever bought. I didn't buy it at full price either (at that point I would still buy her books but only if they were on sale). Borders had this at 30-40% off, I also had another 15% off coupon, plus a $5 Borders bucks that my friend let me use since it was going to expire soon. So I actually paid about 6-8 bucks for a 25-28 buck book.

I've never loved the Anita Blake character, I thought she was ok but what kept me a reader of the series was the world building and the cases Anita went on and the people and monsters she encountered in her vampire hunting and her necromancy job. Now one thing I never liked was that she made the police (99% of them) look like idiots or sexist or intolerant or overly interested in Anita's personal life, but there is usually something in all books that I don't like, this was just the one major thing in AB's world.

Two things that made me not care about the character anymore or the world was first, Anita always came out on top (not in a sex way but in a battle way). LKH even mentioned that she had a plan for Anita in NiC and Anita was just too strong and got out of the situation. I don't mind when that happens occasionally but it kept happening. Do I want a character I've grown to care about get hurt? No, of course not, but at the same time yes, of course. It's those defeats those times when a character doesn't win or doesn't beat the bad guy that keep me on the edge of my seat in future installments. Will they be able to make it out of this battle, if they do is it 100% intact or is it with some emotional or physical scars? When a character wins every time it gets boring and I'm not invested because I know they will win. There has to be some weaknesses in a character or I don't see the point in reading the next installment since I know how it's going to end any way.

Another problem for me was the things I liked/loved about the world were hardly there anymore. A series that use to be scary, mysterious, sexy, interesting, surprising, dark, and sometimes funny, became cookie cutter, boring, stagnant, and basically a copy/paste situation from the previous book. I can't remember the last time we got a few chapters of Anita raising the dead for her job. I can't remember the last time a character has grown as a person. Anita is the same individual she was when she got the Ardur, sometimes I think she's worse than when she started out. She hasn't gained control over it, she hasn't set personal boundaries for herself, it wants she answers. I like to read books where the character has conflicts (more than just who is she going to bang tonight/this morning/this afternoon).

This is the book that offically got me to quit the series and I didn't even finish it. I stuck around through Micah, Danse Macabre, and The Harlequin hoping it would get better. I'm not someone who dumps an author after 1 or 2 bad books, I give them a chance to convince me to keep reading and that those couple others were just a bad patch. There have always been issues for me with LKH's writing but it was something that I didn't notice as much because there was an interesting story happening but I can't ignore or brush off those issues anymore because they are much more prominent then in previous installments.

After this book I don't see me picking this one back up, not just because I sold it a few months ago, or any other future installments.

I've enjoyed/loved books 1-9, liked books 10-12, and marginally tolerated books 13-15. I will probably re-read books 1-12 at some point but it won't be for a while and if I do I'll be borrowing them from the library because I sold every book of LKH I had. So with that I bid goodbye to the Anita Blake series for good.

I was first introduced to Anita Blake last summer when I spent the majority of my time traveling the US on a massive roadtrip. I did most of the books by audio and really liked the ones I could download from the library. Unfortunately, not all of them were available and I have not listened to the entire series so I have missed some of the books leading up to the one.

What I can say is that this was the first Anita Blake book that I wasn't sure if I really liked or not. There were definitely some steamy scenes and with 50 Shades of Grey being a big seller this summer, I am sure that desperate housewives might enjoy the juicier scenes in this offering.

I found this book to be lacking in plot and substance. Sure it builds on the fact that Anita will probably be able to have an "animal to call" of every were-animal that exists in that universe; however, this is the worst book that I have read by this author and like other reviewers have said, not sure I want to read any books that came after this one.

I was so disappointed in this book after reading The Harlequin. The two or three books preceding The Harlequin were beginning to be drawn out and have increasingly dilated plots but The Harlequin had a real story in it that I enjoyed.

I don't want to make the Anita fans angry but this book seemed rather pointless to me. Well, maybe not completely pointless but it seemed as though it should have been a short story instead of a full book as there was barely any plot in it. If you are not a fan you might want to skip this book altogether as I'm sure there will be recaps in the future books if they are necessary. There always seems to be a ton of recaps in these books. However, if you are a Jason fan, you may like seeing more of him.

I still plan on reading the next book because I am still curious where the main story is going. But if the rest of the books are like this one, I do not know if I will be able to finish this series. I have heard that the books go up and down so hopefully this was just a down book and the others will be better. I just don't know. This may be one you want to check out at the library before buying. I really do hope the others are better because I am still curious to see what happens with the Mother of Darkness.(less)

what can i say? more praise !! :D

another great read at my local coffee house

another recommended read for those who like the series

I bought these for my home bound daughter (age 21) and she loves them. She now has the complete set thanks to Amazon. Definitely have to be a reader of vampire stories to enjoy these but they are a great set. We are already looking forward to future releases in this series.