Anita Blake #1 Guilty Pleasures

 Guilty Pleasures

Anita Blake #1

6/10

Ah Vampire Literature why do you grieve me so?

 

Shoutout to The Southern Vampire Mysteries books

Alright before I start I should add a small disclaimer here. I JUST read this book for the first time. I knew they existed and two people had actually recommended them to me but it was some years back when I could only afford to buy a few selected books (and I only bought whatever I couldn't find in the library) so I kind of skipped the whole Anita Blake business. Onto the review now.
This book's setting is a-fuckin-mazing. Seriously, The dead can come back, there's vampires, zombies and generally supernatural fun goodness BUT then there's Anita. I don't know what it is that bothered me about her but I just couldn't like her. I kept reading and had a kind of "meh" attitude towards her throughout the book. Hell I even liked Philip better than her.

Another huge bother for me was the name of the Master of the city. Nikolaos is a male name. WTH was Ms Hamilton thinking? She could make it Nicolaea if she liked the sound and didn't want to use Nicola. I just kept picturing this (I must admit) amazingly written creepy little girl  baddie and then her name was mentioned and all I could think was that she's a drag queen (no offense to actual drag queens intended whatsoever).


Jean-Claude  seems to be there to stay and I must guess he'll probably become Anita's lover at some point no matter how set the heroine is on not banging a vamp. Sorry love, you're the main character in a vampire novel. You're getting some serious vampire sex at some point. I've yet to see a book/movie/show of a similar setting with the protagonist abstaining from supernatural sex.

Now don't get me wrong, I really love me some vampiric hanky panky but Jean-Claude really did absolutely NOTHING for me. He seemed like a bad copy of Lestat to the point of him being a caricature. It might have been intentional but I really doubt it.

Ohhh and the actual plot? It was good. Oh God it was VERY good and interesting but I got who was the vampire killer almost immediately.

I'm really saddened because this had so much potential but was actually a really mediocre read. It might have been because I'm still Rothfussgovered though. I might return at some point to read the rest of the series but I will have to be in serious lack of other Urban Fantasy titles.