staceums's Full Review: Laurell K. Hamilton - The Lunatic Cafe
When I last left off, I was severely disappointed by book number three of the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton. They’ve been labeled as the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series though I adamantly disagree about the vampire hunter thing. Anita Blake, the heroine of these books, is not a vampire hunter. She’s a very confused individual who raises zombies for a living and somehow gets mixed up with vampires and werewolves even though she claims to hate both. Yet in The Lunatic Cafe, she ends up dating a werewolf. Hrm.
Plot: Anita Blake doesn’t trust vampires or werewolves. So why is she dating Richard, an alpha male werewolf? Good question. Anita doesn’t seem to know either. But, despite all of the flaws the werewolves seem to have, Richard remains remarkably normal. He’s an elementary school teacher. He’s incredibly sexy, tan, and buff. He’s chivalrous. He turns fuzzy every full moon. And he can’t exactly come to terms with why she thinks the rest of the members of his pack are freaks. Hrm.
Meanwhile, the murders seem to be under control, but not for long. Edward, a gun-for-hire and monster-hating mercenary, comes to Anita asking for a bit of rare advice. He shows her a most disturbing pornography tape, made by werewolves, called a “snuff” film. Turns out the werewolves in the city have been responsible and Edward’s been hired to put a stop to it. Since Anita is dating one of them, perhaps she could get inside information…but it’s harder than it sounds, and she ultimately gets caught up in something that could take her life.
This book makes the third book, Circus of the Damned, look like kiddie stuff.
I have way too many problems with this book. First of all, it’s sick. It’s just gross. It’s not freaky gross, it’s not dark gross, it’s not even blood-and-gore-slasher gross. It’s sick. This book is actually the reason I don’t even like the werewolves - at all - in this series. The author slams such a horrific stereotype against them that it’s hard not to hate them. Almost every single werewolf in the pack has got some sort of mental illness. I find this incredibly unrealistic, because in order to even turn into a werewolf, you have to be bitten first. Almost all of these characters used to be human before they were werewolves, but I guess once you turn fuzzy, you automatically turn into a bloodthirsty psycho while living as a law-abiding citizen in the U.S. I’m sorry, that stuff doesn’t roll with me. Thumbs down there.
Usually werewolves can't control themselves, at least that's how the original stories used to go, and every full moon, they've got to chain themselves down or else go on a bloodthirsty rampage. No, not according to Laurell K. Hamilton. These werewolves can change at will and are disgusting, sadistic creatures 24/7, even in human form.
In addition, the snuff films are descriptive and disgusting. I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of pornography and I get a little squeamish around it, but the stuff that happens in this book is just wrong.
Again, I probably set myself up by reading this trash, but for a book that advertises itself as “A real rush…A heady mix of romance and horror...” - it is extraordinarily misleading.
Another problem I have is the characters. I don’t know about you, but I like to get into a story with characters you can cheer for, or end up liking, a few you might hate, and a few you might want to succeed, a few might be underdogs, and a few might be the heroes...etc. etc. In this book, I pretty much end up hating everyone. I can’t stand how any of these characters are written. It’s really almost like a domino effect – the situations are so unrealistic and disgusting that the characters have to be unrealistic and bizarre as well. I’m just not following the logic. The heroine claims to hate Vampires and Werewolves yet she gets involved with them almost every day. Richard, the alpha male, tries to convince everyone else that werewolves are just like anyone else and has a “Can’t we all just get along? Why do you have to carry a gun?” wimpy attitude, yet is part of a psychotic and overly-aggressive pack. And I seriously doubt there is a buff, tan, super-model-looking elementary school teacher out there. That is so incredibly unrealistic that it makes the existence of werewolves and vampires more believable. To make things worse, the author constantly brings in new people (sick ones) that are hard to follow and don’t really fulfill much of anything besides add to the nastiness of the scenario. In all honesty, no man would want to read this. I seriously think these books are made for bored women who like to imagine weird fantasies.
The only characters that save this book are Jean-Claude, the stoic Master Vampire of the City, and Edward, the human mercenary that has enough sense to hate anything undead or fuzzy and psychotic.
Overall: This book is turning into something that would ultimately be placed in the horror category, I think. Was there any romance in this book? No. Even if there was, it would’ve been completely ruined by everything else in the book. Did Anita hunt any vampires? No. Was there comic relief? Surprisingly, yes. Unfortunately, that just made the whole story a terrible mix of craptastic lunatic monster fetishes with a few laughs. Fits the title, but not very good plot material. How did this thing get five stars on the reviews??? I guess, ultimately, you’ve got to read this thing and throw caution to the wind. It exists primarily for shallow entertainment; something to pass the time...but nothing to be taken seriously.
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