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Dec 17, 2009

Christine (AR) rated it:

(This is a massive pan. Just a heads-up.)

I've finally given up on this series, though I'm embarrassed to say it took me about ten books to get there.

This is another of those books where I loved the premise, but the execution made me gag. Anita is insufferable, self-centered and judgmental, and her self-justification for her transformation from noli me tangere virgin to super-slut is laughable. (God apparently told her directly that it was okay. Whatever.)

Th More...

4 comments like (41 people liked it)

Apr 12, 2008

Mandy rated it:

I never really had any intention of reading this series, but a close friend of mine insisted that I buy the first novel when we were roaming the shelves at Barnes and Noble. Yes, the book grabbed my attention, but I'll painfully admit it was because of the subject matter rather than anything truly engaging that the author wrote.

The truth is I don't really care for Anita Blake's character. Anything she takes any time in describing is pure agony reading. Her continuous lectures on gun More...

1 comment like (16 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2011

Tilly rated it:

Laurell Hamilton was completely new to me. I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Well, I was pleasantly surprised. I love her work! I flew through the Anita Blake series. On average, I read a book a day. And on a super lazy day, one and a half.

Guilty Pleasures. Anita Blake. She is an animator. She raises the dead for a living and occasionally consults the new task force that covers all possible paranormal homocides.

Surrounded by monsters, dodging the m More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

pinkgal rated it:

Well. I'd made the mistake of picking up one of Laurell K. Hamilton's later Anita Blake books and reading it first. I had to stop halfway because to be frank, it sucked. It really, really sucked. I couldn't believe people were paying money for that garbage. But many of my friends insisted that the first few books of the series were actually pretty good and not quite so wlsh fulfillment-esque. So I read the first book.

... it wasn't bad. In fact, it was a much better scale than her lat More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Aug 04, 2011

Elif rated it:

kitap direkt olaylarla başladığı için kim kimin nesi ne yapiyo pek anlamadim başlarda ama sonra oturuyo.anitanin kisiligini sevdim:) hiç durmayan hızlı tempolu bir kitap. vampirlerden ibaret değil ayrıca. zombiler, fareadamlar, animatörler..çeşit çok;)

23 comments like (4 people liked it)

Apr 17, 2009

Abigail rated it:

Unlike so many of my peers, I was never a great devotee of vampire-fiction in my adolescence, never read Dracula for a high school English class, and have never (to this day) felt the desire to pick up any of Anne Rice's many novels. It was not until I was in my early twenties, while working in the children's section of a large bookstore, that I picked up my first book in the genre: L.J. Smith's Secret Vampire, the first in a series of teen vampire-romances.

Motivated largely by curi More...

17 comments like (15 people liked it)

Sep 13, 2008

Donna rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Mar 26, 2008

CJ rated it:

The engaging start of a wonderful series that morphs into erotica partway through.

If you like V.I Warshawski, Kinsey Milhone,and other female gumshoes, and you like some fantasy, you will definitely like this series in the beginning. Normal world, normal woman, except that vampires (and other supernatural critters) are real, some have civil rights and coexist with humans more or less peacefully, and the protagonist is a 5'2" gun toting butt kicking necromancer. Her day job is r More...

4 comments like (16 people liked it)

Feb 18, 2008

Shannon rated it:

I finally got around to reading Guilty Pleasures, the first Anita Blake book, and can at least see why they're not in the Romance section: it's gory and the author doesn't seem to like vampires at all.

I know Hamilton's very well established and has a huge fan base, and I know there are lots of other people who don't like her books, so I feel pretty confident I'm not going to get lynched by saying I'm glad I only spent $2 on this book.

I really didn't like it. This is partl More...

23 comments like (19 people liked it)

May 09, 2007

Kelly rated it:

Guilty Pleasures is the first of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series. It’s filled with cool concepts (vampires as citizens, vampire strip clubs, freak parties, the inner-working of a zombie) and catchy descriptions (“silk” and “velvet” adjectives make me happy). But I doubt I’ll continue with the series. It’s described on the cover as a mixture of horror and romance…genre aside, it has too little tension to be scary and too little sex to be sexy.

I also never understood why Anita wa More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2007

Anna rated it:

All of Ms. Hamilton's books have erotic undertones, but this is toward the beginning of the series, before those undertones turned into overtones, sidewaystones, diagonaltones, and all those other tones that we can't discuss in polite society. At this point and through book six or seven, you can still call them action novels, rather than "action" novels, at which point you're just turning the pages thinking MY GOD, WHAT A HORNBALL THIS WOMAN IS.

Anyway, if you like the super More...

1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Jul 28, 2008

Cassa added it

If I read "naw" one more time, I'm gonna have to slap a bitch. That has to be, to me, the least intelligent-sounding word to come out of anyone's mouth--doubly so if you're answering your own rhetorical questions, Anita, as though the reader is too stupid to realize that no, the vampire probably won't let you go.

Anita's a stone cold bitch; in all three hundred pages I think the only real concern she had was for a character we barely met whose name I've forgotten. (In fact, More...

6 comments like (16 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2011

I ♥ Bookie Nookie rated it:

I liked this book much more than I had anticipated. I am not sure what all the fuss is about in regards to Anita's promiscuity--uh, there was absolutely no romantic situations in this book. If Hamilton's Merry Gentry series is anything to go by, I am sure the series will heat up in the next few installments.

I actually enjoyed the plot and liked the author's characterization of Anita--being an "animator" puts a spin on things unique to this series. I can see the beginning More...

4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 23, 2011

Merve- rated it:

Okuduğum ve bu seri içinde en sevdiğim iki kitaptan biridir bu kitap. Her ne kadar içinde ÇEtin bir kadın karakter, tehlikeli vampir, şekil değiştiriciler olsada ortada düzgün bir aşk yok. bu Laurellin son kitabındada böyle bunu böyle kabul ettik ama eksikliğini duymuyor değiliz.
Anitanın silahlarını anlatışı, onu bunu öldürmesi, Edward ile olan çarpık ilişkisi beni bu seriye bağlayan unsurlardan bir kaçı geröekten seviyorum bu kızı.
Jean-Claude. Hayallerimiz vampiri. Fransızla More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 01, 2009

bookczuk rated it:

This is a cult favorite in the genre of ummm...paranormal, vampire chick lit? Anyhow, I thought I'd give it a try, since I have heard from several people that Anita Blake is kick-ass (insert adjective of choice). I must admit I kind of liked the alternative St Louis (as I lived in our St Louis) for many years. The set up and such reminded me of the Jim Butcher novels, but with a female vampire-hunter, instead of a guy-wizard-P.I. (Prime line early on is "I don't date vampires. I kill th More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 13, 2009

Maggie rated it:

I would give this a 3.5 if could. It was a quick and easy read, I did find myself confused at one point about the characters...but that might be my fault since I read some after a few glasses of wine!!

Anita is an animator, that is, she can raise people from the dead, into zombies. She doesn't actually do much of that in this book, since she's asked by the master vampire of St. Louis to solve some vampire murders. She's also pretty well known in the vampire world as a vampire hunte More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 08, 2010

Ladiibbug rated it:

#1 Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter

Reread - Finally! I've wanted to reread books 1-4 for years and FINALLY have begun!

The Anita Blake books rocked my world and were my first vampire reads ten years ago. I quit reading at book 5 or 6 due to LKH's increasing obsession with sex and violence.

This #1 was darker and more violent than I remember it being, but that's OK. The violence gave realism to the treachery and pure evilness and danger associated with Nickolaos, t More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 09, 2010

Joey rated it:

I first read this book years ago, and have since gone on to enjoy most of the others in the series (the more recent metaphysical sex fest books excluded) so I was surprised at how lacking I found this story when I recently reread it.

- Very little background information and minimal physical descriptions provided for main characters, making them unmemorable and easy to confuse. That there are a ton of secondary characters doesn't help, either.

- Repetitive language. Flame t More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

May 26, 2011

Sindre rated it:

REVIEW:…

This is the first book out of nineteen in the Anita Blake, Vampire Slayer series. My first thought was that this book was something written like Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, but this book was actually written some years before Buffy even existed.
Anita is a really cool character when you get to know her. The really cool thing with her is that she’s really vulnerable and that’s what I like about her. It’s a bit difficult to set yourself in this story and it’s character More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 18, 2012

VampireNovelFan rated it:

Guilty Pleasures is Book 1 of the prolonged ongoing saga that is the Anita Blake series. Enter Anita, a necromancer by night and a vampire hunter...by night. You can imagine she has her plate full, raising the dead and staking fanged baddies.

And speaking of which, we meet Nikolaos, a 1,000 year old vampire. She's the most powerful in the city all the while inhabiting a body of a 10-year-old. She's causing a few problems for Anita that leads her to become allies with other vampires. More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 19, 2010

Kat rated it:

Okay, so some of the girls asked that I do a review of the Anita Blake series because I mentioned some things that intrigued them.

It's not a finished series and usually I would reserve judgment on a series until it comes to its conclusion just in case the author was going somewhere I wasn't expecting.

Kind of like that scene out of Austin Powers where Austin's in the bathroom stall with a bad guy and a big Texan man is in the next stall and can only see Austin's feet. He h More...

82 comments like (89 people liked it)

Jul 13, 2010

Larissa rated it:

I had learned of the Anita Blake series in a very unorthodox manner. About 7 years ago my grandmother gave me the tenth book (in English), Narcissus in Chains, and I just read it in one sitting. I was sort of in shock, because it was the first time I read sexually explicit scenes, but I fell in love with the characters and the story, so when I discovered it was part of a series I wanted to get the other books right away.

None of the books had been launched in Brazil, and at the time I More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 04, 2007

Jordan rated it:

Not an intellectually difficult read, none of the books in the series are really, but it's highly entertaining (they all are). This is the first book in the series and introduces you to Anita as well as Jean-Claude. It sets the background for the rest of the series and introduces you to a world not all that different from ours, this one just happens to include vampires and werewolves and witches etc etc. Basically, it's a "what if vampires, werewolves, and all that sort were real and in More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 30, 2007

Korynn rated it:

This book was engaging in the way one watches a crash in slow motion on the news. You can't look away. Anita Blake is not a nice woman, she's a scared woman. Her dialogue is frequently mean-spirited and more blunt than is probably wise. Then what do you expect of a woman who works with the dead? A likeable personality? There's a reason she avoids live people.
The plot, while barely making sense, barrels along dragging Anita into one desperate situation after another, sometimes stopping lon More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2010

chucklesthescot rated it:

Anita Blake is paid to raise the dead for private clients. She is also a court appointed vampire hunter if one needs to be executed. The highly dangerous Master Vampire wants to hire her to find out who is killing vampires across the city and Anita soon discovers that saying no to this request threatens those closest to her,giving her no choice but to cooperate.

I like Anita because she is tough and mouthy,but is also capable of being vulnerable,scared and making mistakes.She is a gre More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 29, 2008

Jimmie rated it:

I don't read much "dark fantasy" or whatever this stuff is (except Neil Gaiman's books), so I guess I was a little unfair in having such high expectations. I do like the idea of vampires, and I remember liking Anne Rice's books when I was in high school, so I took a patron's recommendation and read this one, the first in the series. It was very poorly written: Hamilton's grammar is atrocious (or her copy editors are idiots), the plot is scattered, and her language is weak. There wa More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 25, 2008

Jenn rated it:

This series is SO AMAZING!!! It is about a zombie raising/vampire hunter! She is so awesome! She is very tough and reminds me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer only WAY more kick butt and knowledgeable about Vamps! DO NOT read this series if you don't like sex in your books. At first there is no sex, but as the series goes on, there is more and more of it! The stories are so action packed and there are so many twists and turns that you just can't put these books down!! Honestly, I started with More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 05, 2007

Jorie rated it:

Certainly not a literary masterpiece, but very entertaining and engaging nonetheless. After Anne Rice stopped writing The Witching Hour and Interview with a Vampire series, I quickly went into vampire-book withdrawal. Although I can't say Laurell Hamilton's vampire fiction rises to Anne Rice quality (the Anita Blake/Laurell Hamilton books really don't require much thinking, whereas I found the Anne Rice ones to be much more thought-provoking), the story line was engaging and made me want to ke More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 23, 2008

Jim rated it:

The world is ours today, except vampires, werewolves & such all exist & are legally recognized. Anita Blake is a tough gal who has a talent for raising zombies. She gets sucked in to paranormal politics & murder mysteries. Great fun to read. I love her character.

This started me & my daughter reading 'Paranormal Romance' books & this was one of her best. There are 15 or so books in the series & I like the first 5 or so the best. After that, Hamilton puts in too much weird sex - More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 08, 2009

Christine rated it:

I'm intrigued, for sure. I feel like I missed some steps getting into this one, but I did read it on the plane, so maybe that has something to do with it! I'm definitely looking forward to reading the next one in the series...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

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