This week we are talking about books we are ashamed to admit we like/own. I could say that I'm most ashamed of owning the issue of Playgirl in which Stephen Pearcy of Ratt appeared...but that is not a book. And I haven't seen that particular magazine since 1989. I think my mom might have found it and did the typical parental discard maneuver.
(FYI, I would not be ashamed to own a Playgirl...just ashamed that I liked him. Looking back, I think my vision is better now than it was as a teen.)
So I scanned my bookshelves, asking myself, what on here would I be loathe to admit is present?
I honestly get rid of books I don't like. So that was difficult to answer.
So my answer must be Anita Blake. I bought everything in Laurell Hamilton's series--at least up until Cerulean Sins. I think perhaps Micah came out after that...and I have that in paperback. I hated it. The type was big, the book thin, and I felt like I'd been had. (Also, doing Micah in the shower using soap as lube screamed yeast infection to me. It was not sexy. I guess Anita is magically immune to those.)
Cerluean Sins might have been the 'just one more' buy. The Anita stories were no longer about a mystery that could be unraveled by raising a zombie, but that's what I liked about them. I realize that Anita's character journey took over the plots and sex scenes became a central focus. I realize that Laurell is the Grande Dame of our genre. And I realize she has sold very very well.
But I wasn't her audience anymore.
I became disenchanted with the Anita books at Cerulean Sins. I still have the books, as most of them are signed. (I remember being particularly giddy as I apprached the table where Laurell was signing at a con--I'd waited in line for hours--and all I could think of to say to this, my hero at the time, was: "I wanna be a writer when I grow up." :-/ I was probably at least 30 then. *facepalm*)
I'm certainly not knocking her; she did great things for this genre. It's simply that she wasn't writing the stories I was looking for anymore. They didn't satisfy me as a reader. I know, I know. Millions disagree with me. I'm okay with that.
I've had friends tell me she's brought the mysteries back. But I haven't bought anything of hers since.
Once bitten, perhaps?
heh heh heh...
