Sucker Punch

This novel represents a bold move by Laurell K. Hamilton, for in its pages, you will find absolutely nothing to appeal to any remaining fans of the series. Are you still reading them for the over-the-top sex scenes? There are absolutely none in this book. I repeat - ZERO SEX IN AN ANITA BLAKE BOOK. Do you want to see Anita kick some ass and solve a mystery? Well, she kicks no asses, and she totally fucks up the super-obvious mystery and kind of ruins everything. I repeat - ZERO ASSES KICKED, MYSTERY FUCKED UP. Are you still reading because you are still fond of some of the characters? Anita spends almost zero time talking to or interacting with anyone whose name you might recall from any previous book. Jean-Claude? Micah? Nathaniel? NOPE. Instead, you get endless scenes of Anita trying (and failing) to solve the obvious mystery in the company of some other random Marshal who I guess maybe we met briefly in another book, but who was not (and is not) memorable enough for his inclusion to have any kind of emotional resonance. And when she's not doing that, she's having creepy scenes with serial killer Olaf/Otto, with occasional input from her buddy Edward/Ted. These scenes all focus on whether Anita should "date" Olaf, and they are amazingly uncomfortable, disturbing, and generally all-the-way-fucked-up in terms of their gender politics and understanding of how relationships work. So that's what we're working with, here.<br /><br />First of all, let's start with the fact that Hamilton has clearly done a lot of therapy over the years regarding her anger, her sexuality, and her guilt over all of the above, and this is all chronicled directly through the mouth of the character of Anita. Hence, Anita has grown as a character on these issues. However, one issue that Anita/Laurell seem to have made ZERO progress on is their deeply ingrained misogyny. Let me give you one quote from the book, that sums up Anita's attitude throughout:<br /><br />"Welcome to girl world, where there are no friends and all that matter [sic] is who's more attractive and who gets the man. I was glad for the umpteenth-millions time that I hadn't been indoctrinated into typical girl culture." <br /><br />Just...where do you even start with that? Anita/Laurell are very focused on being a "guy's girl," who doesn't care about "girly stuff," with absolutely zero understanding that they are happily participating in their own devaluation and the devaluation of women as a whole. It's a tiresome but constant theme throughout the entire series, and it's disappointing to see it here...again...still. <br /><br />This all plays into the issue with Olaf, a clinical sociopath serial killer who is obsessed with Anita, and wants to make her his one and only "real" girlfriend and not yet another one of his torture/rape/murder victims. First of all, this is probably one of the more extreme examples in this series of the "Anita isn't like OTHER girls, she's SPECIAL" song and dance. Even serial killers who are incapable of feeling emotions can't help but notice how special and deserving of respect she is! Second, Anita and Edward have been aware of this issue for a while, and had apparently developed this "plan" of sorts, whereby Anita will string Olaf along and make him think she might eventually date him, because if he doesn't think she will, he will for sure try to murder her and everyone she knows, and they will have to kill him first before he does that. And the only reason they haven't gone ahead with the "kill the crazed and creepy serial killer/stalker" plan so far is that Olaf is occasionally useful for plotting purposes where you need a bad character tortured or killed but you don't want to sully one of the nominally "good" characters with those actions. <br /><br />So now, in this book, Olaf is making a determined effort to actually be the kind of person Anita would want to date, by having endless conversations with her about the notion of consent, and what even are emotions, and exactly how much violence Anita likes in her sex life, and Anita...is kind of into it? Which is so, SOOOOO GROSS. And also sooooo problematic, because Anita's main issue is that once Olaf has made any kind of effort at all to listen to her when she sets a boundary, she immediately spirals into "he's trying, so I have to give him more chances, even though I don't want to, because if I didn't reward him for trying to be sort of nice and slightly less murdery (of me in particular), that wouldn't be FAIR, so I guess I might have to actually go through with dating/sleeping with him because it's what HE wants and now he's asking nicely, so what choice do I really have?" HA HA HA remember that thing I just quoted about how glad Anita is that she wasn't ever socialized to be like other girls? Yeah. Ha. Except for the part that this is the exact logic misogynists like to use to try to manipulate women into dating them, and that women are socialized to find plausible, for some reason. The idea that you don't owe someone a date just because they refrained from doing something that you asked them not to do or did do something that falls well within the realm of expected human behavior seems to be entirely foreign to Anita/Laurell. Like, I mean, this guy is LITERALLY A SERIAL KILLER, but the fact that he didn't put his hand on your knee in public a second time after you asked him not to do it one time a few minutes ago now means that, whelp, he tried, now you HAVE to give him a chance? HOW ABOUT NO. Of course, that won't work here, on account of the whole SERIAL KILLER thing, so Anita and Edward spend a ton of time agonizing over whether she sleeps with Olaf or they kill him instead, as these are CLEARLY the only options, and are only saved from having to make a decision on this by the fact that the case they have been "investigating" goes seriously sideways and comes to a sudden end because they have been so caught up in their ridiculous bullshit that they missed the solution that has been obvious throughout the book, and Olaf disappears to track down the obvious baddy and do the convenient plot thing where he cleans up Anita's mistakes in a way that maybe the reader is supposed to see as "justice" but would be too gory for Anita to mete out herself. <br /><br />Other things that grated throughout the book: <br /><br />1. There is apparently a big push in Anita-world to change the terminology from "were-whatever" and "lycanthropy" to "therianthropy," because "lycanthropy" technically just refers to wolves and "therianthropy" is more inclusive language (why it is problematic to refer to someone who changes into a leopard as a were-leopard or someone who changes into a bear as a were-bear is never explained). Anita makes several comments throughout that seem to indicate that she thinks this is PC bullshit and that it's going to be too hard for her to remember this new terminology after a lifetime of referring to it as lycanthropy. The parallel to real-life marginalized communities and their preferred language is unmistakable, and it's gross. <br /><br />2. And yet, Anita/Laurell is SUPER-specific in her language when referring to particular kinks and polyamorous relationship structures, so I guess the lesson here is "I will be offended if you are not familiar with/don't use my community's preferred language and terminology, but I can't be bothered to learn about the preferred language of your communities, because that's tedious." OK then! <br /><br />3. Anita/Laurell is still super-judgey about weight and who is and isn't working out to her standards. There is a LOT of body-shaming throughout the book. Just another shining example of how Anita/Laurell isn't like other girls, who are conditioned to be vastly concerned about body image...<br /><br />4. Something about this book, in particular, makes it obvious that Hamilton has zero clue how to pace a story anymore. I read an ebook version, so I have no idea how many "pages" it's supposed to be, but it feels like another door-buster that is twice the length of the early books in the series. You know, the ones where there was a basic mystery plot that proceeded in roughly linear fashion? Instead, you have a whole lot of nothing going nowhere fast. The case in this book sets up an important legal question about the rights of supernatural creatures, and loopholes in the Marshal system, and it dwells endlessly on the fact that these issues exist...and then goes precisely nowhere with trying to resolve them. The "investigation" is constantly derailed by pointless and boring conversations. There are literally pages upon pages where the characters have a conversation in which they decide they need to have a conversation, and then argue at length about where to have the conversation, and how many of them will participate in the conversation, before getting to the ultimately pointless second conversation. As you can imagine, this has the effect of draining any sense of urgency out of the investigation process/mystery. Which is probably partly the point, since, as I have mentioned, it's obvious Who Done It almost immediately to the reader, and the book would have been about 2 chapters long if it was only about investigating the case in a competent way. <br /><br />All in all, this book feels like an enormous FUCK YOU to the readers of this series. Is Hamilton just sick of it? Is she courting the negative reviews so she has an excuse to throw in the towel, while blaming an ungrateful fan base? It's honestly hard for me to imagine even her most die-hard fans finding something redeeming in all of this. But then again, it's 2020, and nothing makes any damn sense anymore, so I guess I'll just sit back and see how the rest of the reviews shake out once this is officially released.

How has Anita's vagina not fallen out and killed her by now?

There is no doubt in my mind that Laurell K. Hamilton could write almost any genre of book, not just the supernatural romantic suspense / paranormal and urban fantasy novels that she is well known for. <i> <b>Sucker Punch</b> </i> is more of a supernatural suspense police procedural blended with a very uncomfortable romantic suspense story. It is the twenty-seventh book in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. This time, the main setting is in the fictional town of Hanuman, Michigan. U.S. Marshal Winston Newman has asked for Anita’s help. Both are U.S. Marshals with the Preternatural Branch. Bobby Marchand, a cat-based lycanthrope, is accused of killing his uncle Ray, the only father he has ever known. While the evidence points to Bobby and a warrant of execution is already under way, something seems off about the murder. <br /><br />This book focuses on the investigations of the marshalls, the state police, and the local sheriff’s department for a large part of the book. However when Anita’s long term friend, Marshall Ted Forrester and another marshall, Otto Jeffries show up, the story gets blended with several agonizing interactions between Anita and Otto. <br /><br />Whether it is Anita’s relationships with the many men and women in her life, the relationships between Anita and her co-workers, or relationships between the local police and the U.S. Marshals; there is a lot of drama. This is not like most of the books in the series where there are a lot of steamy scenes. Besides the specific murder case, this novel is about how Anita is struggling personally with metaphysical changes that are affecting her ability to do her job effectively, and how she is struggling with all of the various types of relationships she has at the moment. It was interesting to see some additional character development with Otto; scary though it was.<br /><br />There are a lot of themes running through this novel including anger management, various phobias, verbal abuse, racism, gender bias, lies, deception, the paranormal justice system, and much more. There is also a look at what can happen when police know both the victim and the accused.<br /><br />Overall, this book was a study of paranormal police investigation and complicated relationships with suspense and occasional action intermixed.<br /><br />I have read all of the books in this series up to this point and can’t wait to start the next one. They are best read in order as there is a lot of background and character development that builds over time. This novel is definitely a departure from the previous books in this series. However, the author continues to bring great characters, entertaining and unique story lines, action, suspense, and romance together in her novels.<br /><br /><i>I own a digital copy of this novel. This is my honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own and are not biased in any way. This review was originally posted at Mystery and Suspense Magazine.</i><br />

I just gave Laurell K. Hamilton two stars. What is going on? I usually love LKH, but not this time. I felt like I was being dragged through mud. When I first started the Anita Blake series I was hooked. It had excellent plot, wonderful characters, and was overall just great storytelling. After awhile the series turned into porn with a sprinkling of plot and became incredibly repetitive.<br /><br />But, I was holding out hope for this one because in her last few books she was getting back to basics; back to having plot. While this one did have a plot, it was put as a backdrop for Anita to constantly overanalyze every single person, place, or thing. I swear that if I had to read, "What do you mean? or What does that mean?" all defensively every two paragraphs again I would've thrown my kindle at the wall.<br /><br />Never have I been so disinterested in an Anita Blake novel. This book could've been cut in half by just taking out the descriptions of the nurse's haircut, or how fluffy the pancakes were. There were pages dedicated to just plain unnecessary filler. While it was refreshing to not be bombarded with sex scene after sex scene, I sure could've used at least one to stave off the boredom. And yes, you read that right. There was not one single sex scene. That's pretty unheard of for Anita Blake. <br /><br />I got through around forty percent of the book when I turned to my mother and sighed. I explained how it was going so slow, but that I was still holding out hope that it would pick up because Olaf and Edward were involved. I thought that maybe this would be the book where the culmination of Olaf's sociopathic tendencies being tempered by his pursuit of Anita would become too much. That he would finally break and force the long-awaited death match between the three that we've all been waiting for. But alas, no. Just Anita ping-ponging with her conscience about being scared, angry, worried, angry, horney, and you guessed it, angry.<br /><br />Truthfully, I should've given this a one star rating, but somehow I still hold onto that thread of hope that the next book will be closer to her books in the beginning of the series. She's getting back to some plot, but it's a shadow of what it was, of what it could be. I'm too invested in this series to give up on it, but throw me a bone here. I want to like it.<br /><br />Special thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for releasing this ARC to me in exchange for an honest review.

I…don’t know what to do with this.<br /><br />I’d stopped reading LKH a few years ago. At the time I stopped, the books felt like 20% plot and 80% icky sticky orgies. I was bored.<br /><br />But when I was offered a chance to read this, I was curious. Maybe something had changed. Maybe Anita was back to being a monster hunter. I decided to give it a try.<br /><br />Keeping in mind that I’ve been away from the series a while, and I’m really not aware of what’s happened in recent books, but this…is weird.<br /><br />There’s no sex. Zip. Zero. None. There’s sexual tension, but no icky sticky. If you love the icky sticky, you may want to stay away from this one. If that’s what made you stop reading it, you may want to try again.<br /><br />There’s an honest to goodness plot! LKH has given us a pretty solid murder mystery plot, while I figured out the *who* pretty early, I was invested in the *why*.<br /><br />But…<br /><br />You also have new PC terms for various types of shapeshifters and I was sooooo confused. I can’t even remember them now. My mind mentally stumbled every time Anita would talk about therio-somethings and ailu(um)-somethings and not-bipeds-but-something-similar-somethings.<br /><br />You also have Olaf. Now, I kind of like Olaf in a makes-me-very-uncomfortable-to-admit kind of way. But Olaf in this book is…extra. Olaf (you know rapist sociopathic serial killer) + Anita might make you very uncomfortable in this book. And if it doesn’t, please stay over there and don’t come near me – ‘cause you kind of scare me.<br /><br />I already mentioned the lack of sex, but you do have a very boring scene that feels about 10,000 pages long in which a bunch of character gather in a room and read off a laundry list of Anita’s sexual kinks. It’s a very unsexy scene.<br /><br />I just don’t know who the book will appeal to. If you like the shifter sex shenanigans, you might be disappointed. If you like not thinking of rapists as hot, you might be disappointed. <br /><br />Yeah, it’s just weird.<br /><br />*ARC Provided via Net Galley

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.<br /><br />I didn’t go in expecting greatness (or decency, or any kind of remotely positive term to describe it) from an Anita Blake novel. The series is far past “going downhill” and has steadily been at rock bottom for the last 15 books, at least.<br /><br />The same issues with previous novels reoccur in Sucker Punch: the ridiculous explanations of each character and their extensive relationship to Anita any time they’re mentioned, focusing on irrelevant, skim-worthy details for several long paragraphs, repeating the same lines/ideas we’ve seen in previous books over and over again, the rampant misogyny Anita carries around with her and how she treats/describes any female character she comes in contact with, how Anita is 32 years old and still says the “I’m not like other girls, I’m one of the guys” which is frankly pitiful and laughable, but if you guys are still reading this series like I am, I shouldn’t need to continue.<br /><br />This novel takes Anita to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to help with a US Marshal case. A were-leopard may or may not have been framed for the murder of his rich adopted father. We see Marshal Win Newman, and then Edward/Ted and Olaf/Otto. Anita is fighting the time limit of the execution warrant to try to discover the truth behind the murder.<br /><br />I don’t usually read the in-between novellas, just the actual books, so I sometimes will miss out on things, but this book randomly introduced new official terminology for shifters and is used throughout the novel. Twenty-whatever books in and they decide to change the terms NOW? It felt useless to me. Don’t try to fix what isn’t really broken.<br /><br />I will say I’m surprised that there wasn’t A SINGLE SEX SCENE in the entirety of the novel. Not even a gratuitous emergency ardeur feed. Nothing.<br />With previous books having more sex than plot, I’m shocked and would usually consider that a good thing, but I’m disappointed to say that this book had no sex AND no plot.<br /><br />Most of the actual conflict and content of the book was Anita debating moral dilemmas with various characters: Newman, Olaf, Edward, etc. There was so much dialogue about all these emotional conflicts and truly nothing else happened in the novel. As with all other Anita Blake books, the concept and plot of the novel is forgotten for weird, irrelevant stuff (usually sex, but this time it was replaced with the morals) and only comes back to play in the last 5% of the book in a huge rush.<br />All the rest of this series is terrible, but Sucker Punch was truly so bad, so numbingly boring, that it had me wishing there were the gratuitous sex scenes.<br /><br />In the overall arc of the series, I don’t think anything of importance happened in this book at all, so I’d recommend just skipping it. There weren’t any developments with Anita’s impending marriage to Jean-Claude or any of her other relationships (Nathaniel, Micah, Nicky, etc) at all. So this book really had ZERO impact on the course of the series. Consider me reading this and reviewing this a favor so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.<br /><br />Edit: I just went to a bookstore yesterday and saw that it’s been published and the hardcover is MASSIVE. FOR WHAT?!?!? NOTHING HAPPENS I PROMISE YOU.

Happiness! <br /><br />Anyone who has kept this series knows they can expect a certain amount of craziness of one kind or another. If you've kept up with these books, you know that the first ten-ish books were classic awesome UF that's bloody, interesting, and quirky. From then on, the books continue in this vein but take on a decidedly different personal turn. I'm talking about the polygamy.<br /><br />I'm one of those that appreciates the message without not particularly caring about the cause. Sure, you can love whomever you want, with as many as you want. Check. But I kept with the series mainly because when all the earlier strict UF police procedural, thinly-veiled commentary about sexual activism as vamps and weres was said and done, the stories were just FUN, FAST, and FURIOUS and often OTT when it comes to the action and magic bits. To me, they were the gold standard, and when LKH focused on that, I was always as happy as could be. I wasn't in it for the neverending sex or the full-stage production of multiple deep relationships that made my head spin and my care-o-meter break.<br /><br />So many of these middle books broke my care-meter. But the great stuff was great, so I kept going.<br /><br />Fast forward to today. I think LKH is changing direction, or DID change direction in the main plot and concern, for this book. I was used to her focusing on sexual issues for so long that I almost missed how she had become TIMELY in a different way. <br /><br />Legal Rights for the people who are disenfranchised. I'm talking about systemic racism. Injustice at its very core. What if there is reasonable doubt, but custom (in the guise of law) dictates that you must treat a whole people like animals?<br /><br />In this case, it's literal. It's a wereleopard who must be "put down" but there's serious doubt that he did it. Anita has gone through this kind of thing too many times and it just happens to be this case that nearly breaks her. She pulls out all the stops to save him, calling in the calvary, and I actually appreciate this. <br /><br />This isn't a book that's all about the blood and guts, raising zombies, or playing dominance games (much). It's about taking that first and hardest step toward JUSTICE when you see that there IS NONE.<br /><br />And like reality, there are no easy answers. There is only the fight.<br /><br /><br />As for the sub-plot with Olaf... well... we can't win everything, but I appreciate the fact that there was NOT a total overabundance of millions of romantic partners this time. In fact, there was practically no sex at all. It was pretty much... a RETURN TO THE EARLY DAYS. <br /><br />Me, personally, I LOVED the early days. With the timely new focus? I love this one even more.

Ok so this one wasn't as horrible as I expected it to be. And guys, you're going to be shocked but there was no sex in it! I know, I was completely baffled as well. I mean, there was <b>ALOT</b> of talking about it but that was all. Mind blown.<br /><br />Anyway, this book was about Anita doing her Marshall duties. When she's called to assist a fellow Marshall in what should be a legal execution, she's quick to pick up that there's more to this case than meets the eye. It was really nice to see Anita getting back to her police roots but honestly, I don't think the character can maintain that job for much longer. She brings way too much baggage to each case now - not to mention the entourage she has to travel with. But the mystery surrounding the case, while very easy to solve, was nice to get lost in. <br /><br />What I wasn't fond of was the Olaf storyline. I'm so tired of this character. It's beating a dead horse at this point. Anita keeps saying she won't date him but pretends to be interested to keep him from killing her. But yet, she's drawn to him so she can't just flat out kill him. I hate it so much. And now Edward seems to be changing stances. Like just get the character out of the series somehow. He's even worse than Richard at this point and that's saying a lot. <br /><br />These books are very guilty pleasures for me. I complain about them but yet I keep reading them. Hamilton does need to end the series because it seems like she's running out of ideas and spends half the book just talking about all of Anita's relationships. We already know this. We are 27 books in now, we don't need to be reminded of everything every time. I can guarantee you, no one is picking this book up who hasn't read the entire series. <br /><br />So overall, an okay book. The case was the best, anything that personally related to Anita was a mess.

I want more of Jean-Claude and Anita ONLY. No Nathaniel no Micah no Nicki. Please. And if there should be sex, just Jean-Claude and Anita ONLY AGAIN.

Predictions: we get 50 pages of describing secondary and tertiary characters. Even very specific shoe details. Whew. Serpentine was a lot. <br /><br />Nathaniel turns into an even more demanding jerk because Anita and Micah won't do exactly what he wants, when he wants it. Anita puts up with this, even though she never would have from any other men on her life, or even Nathaniel 3 books or more ago. <br /><br />The actual action will be 50 pages long, and the pages will be at the very end of the book. <br /><br />Pages and pages of therapy between characters long forgotten. We *still* won't get much Jean Claude. <br /><br />Anita will tell the story of how everyone told her she wasn't pretty at least once. <br /><br />Now, my *hopes*:<br />Please, more Olaf. I love the suspense he adds. Anita tells Nathaniel to tone it down because she doesn't tolerate ultimatums. They actually move on with the wedding. Anita carves down the men in her life and gets some alone time. (There's a reason Obsidian Butterfly is my favorite Anita Blake novel). <br />Finally, that the library gets a copy fast, because I can't bring myself to pay the hardcover price for a declining series with a few bright spots.