Cerulean Sins

Rating:
Summary: The Story of A , or, the degredation of Anita Blake
Review: First off, when I met Anita Blake, I just adored her. She was smart, principled, and working hard in a hostile world. Ther first three books were marvels of the supernatural mystery sub-genre, morality tales that made me think.

Now this is no longer true. I checked Obsidian Butterfly and Narcissus in Chains out from the library, and after this gift book, I shan't read any more Anita Blake. It's just too painful. A woman who had a strong and sincere moral compass in a difficult world now only has a compass for sex. A woman who made choices is now only left with the choice of whether to enjoy being driven to sex, or to whine about it.

Carefully woven plots with multiple threads have now given way to a novelette's worth of plot hidden in the sex scenes. Please. Either make it a horrible dream, or put Anita out of her sad and miserable existence. She won't be in my life any more, and I mourn for the Anita Blake I once knew and loved to read.

Rating:
Summary: Yes we know already!
Review: Well, many have told you the story so I won't do that. If you are new to the Anita Blake series and just picked this books up it might be okay. It could easily stand alone as long as you didn't have prior knowledge of the characters involved and how they have developed over previous books. Cerulean Sins goes into my pile with Narcissus in Chains because both of them are so far away from the other book in the series.
Don't get me wrong in a series where you are dealing with the same characters there should be growth and change, but not so drastic and not so far the other way. Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter is what we are paying for, but it is becoming Anita Blake vampire hunter only if I don't like you or you upset me in some way.
This volume of the series is heavily graphic as previously mentioned by many others so BE WARNED! Don't let your kids get hold of this book. I don't mind sex in my books. An Erotic vampire/werewolf/human story okay, no problem. However, Laurell K. Hamilton who is a great story teller must have had this book cut down in the editing process. You are left to wonder about crucial moments only to go into more sex.

I have read some books that made me blush before, but this is the first time I have read a book with sex scenes in it that actually made me want to skip over them because they were so tedious.
Some people didn't like Anita's wishy washy can't make up her moral high horse mind about sex. Personally it was more believable than this book is. She might have got on your nerves before but if you've read the other books you just sit back and say "What is going on?" I found myself digging out the other books to make sure I hadn't missed something a long the way.

Jean-Claude was the sexy, sensual vampire and he's turning into just another blah blah character he still stands out but he's lost what made him great.

Richard don't even get me started with him. I loved him. However, I do not believe in a werewolf community he would be top dog, so to speak. To be Alpha you have to be strong and forceful. He's turned into a simpering, whiny guy, okay, maybe he was whiny before, but not to this extent. He was sexy and the story was this triangle of AB/JC/RZ. Now, LKH has thrown all these characters in that add nothing to the story and in my opinion lose the whole heart of the story. Which is what would you do if you had all these moral hang ups but were still in love with a Vampire and/or Werewolf?

Situations and relationships that were built up in the previous 9 or 10 books have been shattered in these last two. This book Anita miraculously gets another power that gives her this nympho lust she has to sate or else.

These books are for fun and LKH did a fabulous job of building the world through 9 previous books. I gave Narcissus in Chains a chance and thought it could stand alone and work. Cerulean Sins however is too much of nothing.

No matter the argument as a character Anita Blake the character that has been created for this series was absent from this book and in her place is someone you wouldn't even recognize from previous editions.

I do look forward to the next one, but if more of Cerulean Sins I doubt I'll be back for the next one. I know sales are important to publishers, but geez give us a break. Most of us do like the story. If we didn't we wouldn't be buying books.

So for this book I recommend one of two options:

1. Read the other books first so you can see the changes and write your own review so maybe the publishers will get the message.
or
2. Read her Merry Gentry series instead.

Rating:
Summary: Can I give minus stars?
Review: My word, what a tedious book. I've read the other Hamilton books and, while they've had their problems (grammar, LKH, please learn grammar), they've been enjoyable for their humor and subject. But this one is by far the weakest she's cranked out. Whining is not character development, and neither is sex.

Also, whatever you do, avoid the audio version of this book. I have a long commute and listen to a lot of audiobooks, but I've never heard such a horrible reader as the one who reads this book. No real attempt at character voices (or, most likely, no ability to do them) and the worst french accent I've ever heard. Avoid her like the plague!

Rating:
Summary: More sex does not mean a better story
Review: I hope that this is the last in the series and it seems to be. The Anita Blake series has been a wonderful ride and we believe in her world - a Laurell K. Hamilton speciality. However, as far as story arcs go - geez! Anita ends up as a succubus (she needs the sex kids or things go south), Jean Claude is losing his cool factor and poor Richard is down right suicidal.

Then again, perhaps she is planning on writing another book. I just hope it's better than this one, because using explicit sex as plot points does not make for the best of stories.

Rating:
Summary: Anita wherefore art thou?
Review: I had no idea how to rate this book. If you've followed the series, you'll probably want to read this one. Unless you've hated the direction that last book or two has taken in which case you may wanna skip it.

Before I start complaining about all the kinkiness, let me confess that Anita's priggish-ness in the early novels aggravated me badly. She wouldn't so much as kiss Jean-Claude (her would-be boyfriend who was near perfect other than the whole vampire thing.) No intercourse til marriage she tells Richard-her other would-be boyfriend who was near perfect other than the whole werewolf thing. Who by the way has turned into a rather nutty self-loathing guy who barely appears in the book and when he does you just wanna smack him. The whole leader of the local pack apparently is seriously not agreeing with him.

The story starts out promisingly enough with Anita on the job with Animators Inc. Soon she has a mysterious new client and the bad news that the Vampire Council-specifically Belle Morte the found of Jean-Claude's and Asher's lines-has taken an interest in St. Louis's vampire/werewolf/Anita goings-ons. Pretty soon this devolves into a yet another tale in which every man she encounters wants to get carnal with her even though she is annoying as ever, with pointless arguments that go on for pages that make you wanna throttle her and anyone who would wanna get busy with her. And naturally she just has to enter into a menage with JC and Asher so Asher isn't forced to return to Belle Morte. Uh yeah, that makes sense to me. And I haven't even mentioned the Ardeur that needs feeding. Who hasn't Blake had relations with yet? Let's see...well there's Willie the vamp and Irving the werewolf reporter. Then again they've been missing for a few books now. Maybe they were afraid their draft notices were coming up.

Other bad news for fans of Dolph the police lieutenant-he's as buggy for Richard and hates all supernatural types now since an event occurred in his personal life.

This book isn't entirely bad and honestly I'll run out and grab the next one as soon as it's...available from the public library. I haven't reached the point I have with Anne Rice where I've just completely given up. There's still hope for Laurell and Anita.

Rating:
Summary: I never thought tons of sex could make a book tiresome...
Review: ...but it does in this case. I have read all of Hamilton's Anita Blake series, most of them with great pleasure, and in several hour marathon sittings. But I found myself actually falling asleep and losing track of the storyline while reading the lastest novel in the series, Cerulean Sins.

The sex is so constant that it distracts from characterization and plot. I adored the Anita novels in which hot, exotic sex scenes broke up the crime-driven and supernatural explorations of the book, and in which the sexual tensions between the primary characters were sometimes explored and relieved. Then there was enough romantic suspense to keep me hooked. But this book was like a glutton's feast -- far too much, and far too over the top, to the point that the writing actually numbed me out.

I would so much more enjoy a novel in which Anita truly explored her relationships with and feelings for Jean-Claude, Asher, and perhaps Richard (despite Richard's rather irritating constant self-pity), the most compelling romantic interests Hamilton has created for her heroine. All the rest, in my opinion -- Micah, Jason, Nathaniel, etc. etc. just make Anita look less conflicted than like a sex addict. This in turn makes the ardeur seem an excuse for Anita to abandon her earlier sexual ethics while still paying them constant, tiresome, self-excusing lip service. While she may, for example, admit that insisting on Jean-Claude's monogamy is "monstrously unfair" when she has several lovers and semi-lovers at any given time, Anita does not do much to change her attitude. Even when a much-awaited and potentially hot, hot, hot menage-a-trois finally develops in this novel, it is strangely unsatisfying for all the characters as well as for the reader, precisely because Anita still refuses to let herself truly explore or emotionally process the event. Thus reader excitement is abruptly followed by irritation and disappointment -- and atop it all, Anita gets around her moral qualms by messing around with one man in the menage, but not "going all the way", and the two male characters in the menage do not have sex with one another despite powerful attraction. So, Anita is still maintaining her double standards for her men and still splitting hairs without accepting the true nature of her desires, or accepting the complexities of her lovers' needs, or paying more than lip service to her "monstrously unfair" hang-ups. I'm not sure what Hamilton plans to do with this for her future novels, but this angst, and these double standards have gone on for so long now that I want to yell at all the characters and tell Jean-Claude to get together with Asher or Richard and simply give up on Anita Blake.

If this continues, I am going to give up on the series. It's becoming tedious, in my opinion, and I can't see all this character development some reviewers have mentioned. We learn more about Asher, Jean-Claude, and even Richard's personalities, but we mostly learn more and more and more and more ad nauseum about Anita's libidinous desires and adventures. It does her no good to realize things about herself but then do nothing about them. That's not character development; it's making a token gesture toward a promise of future character development. I do hope it is not an empty promise. If there's not definite change in the next installment, I won't be buying any more of the series.

To be fair, Hamilton does have Anita briefly realize she has relationship issues, when she is forced to confront the possibility that she's afraid of full emotional intimacy and commitment with one man. But like too many other occasions in these novels, Anita's realizations lead to far more angst than action. And in this respect she and Richard are perfectly suited.

Also, there is strange potential foreshadowing in the book about someone thinking Anita must be pregnant -- but she's not. Perhaps this is what Hamilton intends for the next novel in the series. If so, God help Anita Blake, who quite possibly would have no way of knowing who the father of her child really is... And if this happens, I do hope she will finally make a full commitment to *someone*, even if it is to a baby. Yet that seems very difficult to imagine, so I doubt Hamilton will choose that sort of plot development -- the domestication of Anita Blake. Therefore, I wonder, what in the world was that strange scene all about, anyway? If it's not foreshadowing, it's really confusing writing.

Rating:
Summary: not so very hot
Review: I know, we don't confuse fiction with reality. Yet, when you read enough about a character, you start relating to "it" (him or her) as if that character were a personal friend. Sadly, I have broken friendship with Anita in this new installment. "Anita" books used to have two major strengths, I think: a good mystery plot which got solved at the end (and if Anita kept pulling increasingly unbelievable tricks out of her sleeve, more power to her), and Anita's coherence as a character. The reader may have gotten a bit bored with her constant moral qualms ("An affair with Jean-Claude, does that make me a monster? Maybe yes...maybe no...yes...no...") and may not have agreed with some of her choices, but at least they used to make sense within Anita's system of beliefs, the way the author described it. In this book, we encounter a new Anita who, while trying to learn self acceptance, also stops making sense. I don't mean it as moral judgment, but Anita's quite brusque transition from "prudish" to "orgiastic" seemed more motivated by real market pressures than the internal logic of a fictional character. Anita is as coherent as a software with a virus: push the button marked l'ardeur, and lo and behold, there's no stopping her. (I have to say that at this point I sympathize a lot more with Merry Gentry from the other series, who at least does what she enjoys best.) To top it off, one of Anita's strong points, her ability to take control of an explosive situation, here turns into the obsession of control: she whines, she complains, she complicates fairly straightforward circumstances. Unfortunately, that doesn't come across as complexity, but rather as a badly constructed character.

My second problem was with the plot of the book. Surely enough, the first 100 pages or so build the right momentum and offer the promise of great suspense. Then it all goes away, leaving the reader increasingly frustrated. The story is only partially resolved - we don't find, for example, the key to Anita's visions (or at least it wasn't clear to me), probably in anticipation of a sequel. Because of that, you cannot help but feel throughout the remaining pages that the author actually had two books in mind, couldn't quite figure out which one to concentrate on, and decided to wait awhile and hope for the best. I don't think the best happens, not in this book. I am not sure whether to give it 4 stars out of nostalgia for the early series, or 2 stars out of disappointment. An average it is.

Rating:
Summary: Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton
Review: Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton is the last Anita Blake I will read. Very few times have I not finished a book, but all I could do with this is skim the last half. I couldn't get past all of the gratuitous sex, the "I am so...," and the whining. They have steadily become less action and more sex and sex and well, sex. The sex passages are simply absurd. Anita Blake's language is that of a 13 year old rather than a college educated professional. It is as if LKH is trying to make the books more "hip" but it just comes off as silly. Her internal whining is tedious. It appears that the only way to save her male friends is to have sex with them, which she appears to do with frightening predictibility. There are no females in the book other than psychopathic vampires or angsty female cops. Why can't there be a werewolf or vampire, or for that matter a human, that isn't a stereotypical female? The attempt to make the books more literary by quoting poetry is wasted. This is a disappointment as I enjoyed the first few books in the series, they certainly weren't great literature, but they were very entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: Saddly Disapointed
Review: I've been follow Ms. Hamilton's Writing for some time now. She started off very strong, with strong characters, impelling plots and morbid humor. When she started up her Fae series I saw another side of her writing. It's not that I do approve of her Fae series just that I wish she would have kept her two main subject matters seperate. I worked for a bookstore for over a year and the main sections I took care of were the Relationships and Fiction. Bookstores have policies of placing the sexual fiction books in the relationship sections where they can keep an eye on them. Those under 18 are not allowed to review or buy the overt sex books at all. Unfortunatally, Ms. Hamilton's fiction series is reaching the point that if I still worked for the bookstore I would place them in that section. Please bring back the action and humor that you had In your earlier writing Ms. Hamilton. I felt when I was reading the book that it was a few lines of talk between sex scenes. If I wanted to enjoy an x-rated book or video I would have bought one.

Rating:
Summary: A weak effort from a formerly great author.
Review: Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the Anita Blake series, but I feel like Ms Hamilton has lost the plot (and the characters) in exchange for more sex and sensationalism. In addition, there's a lot of repetition of sentences lifted directly from earlier books which is boring. Her prose seems to have gone down the tubes compared to the punch-packing flow of the earlier stories. The last great book in this series was Obsidian Butterfly, but if you must read this I'd say check it out from the library and save yourself the cash. You'll be glad you did.