Written Revelry – Novel Strumpet Reviews “Affliction” by Laurell K. Hamilton. 20 Years of Zombies, Vamps and Mayhem!

First – Happy 20^th Anniversary to Anita and her creator Laurell K Hamilton.  That’s pretty amazing when you think about it.  20 years of the same character and she’s still going strong despite how fans ebb and flow.  That’s pretty freaking amazing.

I put off reading this book for many reasons: 1) I knew it would focus around Micah somehow and no matter how much he tries to prove differently I still cannot trust him.  I’m still waiting for the shoe to drop because he’s just too perfect.  Always has been.  I don’t trust it.  2) Anita is one of those literary friends you have to spend time with.  You can’t just have a quick conversation with her, you have to commit some time to catch up and see how life’s been treating her.  3) I find it increasingly hard to read them with all the lovey-gooey stuff.  I admit it, I’m old school Anita. I want fighting, zombie raising, bad vamp mind rolling, what gun do we use next – Anita.

Finally I picked it up and I’m of two minds.

The Bad:

Never ending lectures about love, which basically start to repeat themselves.  All variations on a theme and all feel like it’s preaching to the choir.  Kind of like when someone asks me if I’m a Christian.  I say yes and they still try to convert me to Christianity.  What?  Shouldn’t you be trying to save someone else?  I just feel if we’re reading these books then we’re all pretty open minded about the relationship stuff in them.  Just saying.

Repetitive character descriptions.  I say once and done. The burden is then on me to remember how they’re built, what color hair/eyes, etc.  Especially for characters that have been in the series for a while.  I get you have to do a little for anyone picking this up as their first book of the series (why you’d do that is beyond me), but some of it got a little overkill.

The ending.  Really?  All that build up and that’s it?  No real fighting?  No battle?  No, being scared she might lose a lover?   I get that sometimes things just work in your favor and goes a lot easier than planned, but this felt like skipping dessert after a really good meal.  It’s not as satisfying.  But kudos to Anita for getting it done so quickly!

Asher still lives.

The Good:

Edward comes to play.

Jean-Claude comes to play albeit too briefly for my tastes J.

Firepower: lots of guns, flamethrowers, grenades, exciting action – yum, yum, yum.

The Bad Guys:  lots of rotting zombies and vamps to fight, super scary bad guy, killing zombie virus, vamps mind rolling people, zombies eating people….

Creep/Scare Factor: Pretty high up there.  I mean between the zombies eating and adapting super fast, considering who made them and how they can control them from any distance even through a secondary bite…that is super duper creepy.  You know it’s bad when Anita is stumped on how to proceed.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT HERE…..I REPEAT SPOILER ABOUT TO HAPPEN….

OMG Jean-Claude proposed!?!?!?!?!  WTAF?  I expected it of Micah or Nathaniel, but Jean-Claude????   Girly squeal here!

Also, who wants to take bets she’s pregnant?  C’mon, the signs are there.  And oh, holy f**k but that would be a big ‘ol crap storm and a half.

SPOILERS ABOVE…REVIEWING BELOW…YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD…..

In the end:

I enjoyed it.  Despite the things I really didn’t like, I did appreciate that my angry, cynical, fight to the death, Anita showed up here and there.  I liked that there were moments where I wondered how they’d get out alive and who might not.  I even kind of liked the whole progression of the relationships.  Although with certain people coming back that’s gonna get totally screwed to hell and back.   I think I might have finally reached a place of acceptance that the arduer is not going away and the men in her life will not start dwindling, at least it seems we’ve reached a place of stasis here.   I’m making peace with the mellower Anita, and by that I mean biting my tongue hard and forcing a smile when she starts in about her relationship issues.  I want to be a supportive friend, I really do.  It’s just hard when I don’t like 85% of the men in her life and I’ll just admit it again I am completely biased against the cats.  I don’t trust any of them.   Why couldn’t she have been queen of the werewolves, or even the wererats!  WHY CATS?!?!?!  Ok, supportive friend…grin and bear it….