Ah, Anita Blake. Back when the series was enjoyable to read, though re-reading the series, I don't like these early books as much as I did the first time I read the series. Hamilton at least doesn't have a sex scene on every page, like she does in the later part of the series, but there's the constant description of clothes & guns on every page, instead, even though Anita keeps talking about how she doesn't care about clothes. I didn't mind the gun descriptions in the first book because I think it adds to the realism of the story, but as a reader, I don't need to keep hearing gun talk on every page, either. Unless the actual location of where the gun is on Anita Blake's body actual matters in a later scene in the book, let's not spend so much time describing it, please Hamilton?

So, one of the things I do like about this series is that it's so genre busting- you have bits of romance, mystery, paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy, & horror. It's fantastic. The world Hamilton creates is great, and I do really like the characters, though I *gasp* don't like Jean Claude. (I like him more as the series goes on, but I can't stand him right now. He's boring as all heck, and the constant descriptions of his chest and white skin, yuck... I mean come on, let's move the story along now)

Then there's the homophobia... that's bad enough, but when you've read the whole series, and you know that at some point in the series Anita becomes a bi-sexual without even blinking, and there's absolutely NO character development that gets her to that point, you wonder if Anita becomes a bi-sexual solely because Hamilton's fans are pissed that she's a homophobic. And let's not forget she's a judgemental prude.