Hit List (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter 20) [Paperback]

This book is not worth the money. The font size is huge compared to Bullet, in all honesty this is a novella with ambitions not a proper novel. If you must read it check it out from your local library or wait for the paperback because it is a rip off at hardback price.

This basically reads like Obsidian Butterfly part deux only without the pacing, plot or general entertainment factor. Its like LKH was following a power point presentation and all of the characters were cardboard cutouts trotting around a sound stage. Anita gets in a fight with the local marshalls, check. Marshalls doubt her loyalties, check. Anita shows off her super special knowledge, check. Anita meets yet another super special wer to add to her harem, check. Anita gets in a gun fight and gets injured, check. Medical people are astounded by her healing ability, check. Anita gets weirded out by Olaf, check. Anita shows her humanity by aiding a fallen officer, check. Anita angsts about everything, about a million checks through the whole book. Then all of a sudden the book ends, its like LKH got bored or couldn't be bothered anymore and wrapped it all up in about ten pages. Really? I mean really, really?? Anita has been fighting Mother Dark for how many books now and it all ends in less than three pages? The ending was poorly thought out and just lame with yet another unexplained power up and one of the enemy switching sides out of the blue. It left me annoyed, frustrated and feeling cheated that something that should have been fleshed out and detailed was treated like an after thought.

What writing gift LKH once had seems to have abandoned her in this book. Supposedly the book is set in the Seattle/Tacoma Washington area but it could be anywhere. No attention at all is paid to setting up the area or the details of their surroundings aside from a moan about it being cold in the first paragraph of the book. Maybe its because LKH is obsessed with describing her characters' eyes and hair. How many times did we really need to read that Edward's eyes were like the winter sky or moon? None of the characters are fleshed out well, not even Anita who comes off as whiney and mostly unlikable. This book had a tiny glimmer of promise but it was buried under the angst driven bad writing and hurried ending. Its almost as if Anita isn't humping someone or angsting about humping someone then LKH isn't really interested in writing her characters anymore. She's tried to write a back to business mystery novel with Hit List but it reads like a sad wannabe knock off of one of her earlier books. I used to be a rabid LKH fan but this book may be the end for me. I think from now on the first few chapters will be downloaded on my kindle app and if it looks to be more of the same, well, I don't think I'll bother.

I am SO DISAPPOINTED in Ms Hamilton. I am so GUTTED with this book. I LOVE Anita Blake Series. I have read all of it and alot of them more than once. I was so looking forward to this book - waited nearly a year for it to come out!! A waste of my anticipation.
The font was too big which means there wasn't much to the book to read in the first place, the plot line was so weak that it's pretty none existence. I love the bit about Ethan but the rest was so not believable. I mean here's Anita fighting not only the Harliquin but also Mother Dearest and she's on her own with only Edward. Come ON Ms Hamilton. Where's Anita's Jean-Claude et al? The whole thing should really start from St Louis with a huge attack then dragged across US in the bad guys trying to lead Anita away from her core support. There should be more crime plots. There should be an answer as to why Rabourne had it in for Anita. There should be some sort of after effect at the end once Anita dealt with Mother Dearest. There should be a longer Epiloge at the end. This was a really important point for Anita's story. The Finale and Ms Hamilton you've blown it big time for us. It was so boring!! It was too quick a read. The plot was so weak. There's no grit, no tension, pretty much no nothing. Even the sex scenes are blah blah. And there were loads of recycling of descriptive text reused from the other books. I was really expecting another but bigger version of Narcissus in Chains. What I got was well... I actually think this is the worse and weakest in the series. It should have been the best in the series. Very very disappointed. I now actually don't know where Anita series going to head to ... if the next one is like this one I'm dumping the series. I've invested alot of time, emotion, recommendations and money in this series so far. I'm heartbroken.

I tried to think of ways of describing this book and then it came to me.

Its like a One Night Stand. It feels good at the time, but at the end it feels kinda hollow and makes you think why did I do that again?

Don't get me wrong its better than the sex-saturated previous books but I felt that it was unfinished or lacking...I like that Edward's in it, I don't like that Edward has been somewhat 'tamed' by the love a woman, feels a bit cliched to me. And like some other reviewers have said, I am getting tired of LKH's 'stock phrases' you know the ones I mean.

"eyes had gone as pale and distant as a winter's sky'
"tightened things low down in my body"

I think I used to be able to look past it because the stories were exceptional but now...? I'm not so sure, I feels lazy to me, and a lot of the scenes just seemed rehashed from previous books, her encounters with Raborne and Bernardo etc. If I have to see her assert herself once more through a combination of feminine wiles (that she refuses to believe she has) and macho bravado I might call it done. I do prefer Meredith Gentry in that respect as a person she makes no excuse for who/what she is...and she's more likable for it.

Thats not to say there wasn't anything good...I could feel the restraint in the first scene (of almost sex) with Ethan I was very excited when they didn't have sex. Although again, I am wondering if there's anything Anita can't do..she's rapidly gone from someone to identify with, to someone who just bitches and complains when there is really no need. The scenes with Olaf were delicious - something clearly has to be done about him...but otherwise this book continues the downward trend started in Micah and strange candy.

I would wait for it to be in the library, I read it in about 3 hours in the evening. Add in the stock phrases, repeated scenes, there's a lot that you DON'T have to read to get the gist of the book.