Ah yes, the pregnancy scare book. I have been kind of dreading rereading this mess. That said, I am very happy Anita and Ronnie can have the frank conversation around abortion they have. It’s kind of fantastic. Ronnie’s whole mess is… not. Girl clearly has issues, but that’s largely not what this book is about.
There is alot of talking in this book. Talk about Master Vampires. Talk about Anita’s powers. Talk about pregnancy. Talk about Marmee Noir. It’s honestly no wonder my brain took in the important bits and discarded the rest over the years… I honestly didn’t even remember how this book went, like, at all. Merlin… for such a powerful vampire, literally does not show up again and I just forgot he existed. Go figure.
Second book in a row Richard has accused Anita of rape. Sir… stop. Also, the fact that he’s still holding out hope for a white picket fence with Anita at this point is just gross. He really, really needs therapy. Or to actually do therapy rather than just going for the sake of going. I wouldn’t want him anywhere near a hypothetical child, either, at this point, regardless of whether or not he’s the father. If your worldview hasn’t shifted to account for actual reality as of yet, that tells me you’re unhinged. I don’t know how much “real world” time has passed, but it’s been several books and enough has happened that Richard’s worldview should have adjusted to reality by now. Seriously, this discussion about Richard’s illusions happens a couple times within a few chapters of each other. Ugh! I am so very over Richard at this point.
All of that said about Richard, specifically, I do like that there is a wider discussion about women and pregnancy and children and expectations around all of this. I’m fairly certain it helped shape my views on the whole thing. I did originally read this book as a teenager, after all. This and being around young children for a chunk of my life certainly worked together to shape how I feel about the whole thing.
It’s interesting “watching” Anita puzzle out what she’s feeling. It feels sort of like an extended therapy session except the boys aren’t professional therapists in any sense. There is honestly so, so much of this that feels like that and not just for Anita herself. Augustine and Asher also get some random talk-therapy here.
I enjoy how we’re not gonna talk about the fact that Belle gave Anita a Human Servant Mark… so technically, Anita’s calling power for both Belle and Jean-Claude… but apparently that’s just a non-issue or something? I feel like that bit of lore is super forgotten about.
The intro of Vlad and Mowgli syndromes is interesting. I do always enjoy my bits of world-building that really make the world feel lived-in. Didn’t really think about birth defects before this point and now… still probably won’t think real hard about them, but it’s nice to know someone thought about them. I also liked that we got some stuff about how were-lions tend to work. Fun stuff, the weird mixing of human and animal cultural crap that happens within Lycanthrope societies. Kinda dumb, to be honest, but we apparently gotta appease the animal bits or else they’ll tear the human bits apart, I guess. Much shrugging.
I had completely forgotten the whole thing with Auggie and how it was the impetus for figuring out what was actually going on with Anita’s powers. I think I, too, would have freaked the fuck out if I realized it was my powers that had drawn all the important people in my life to me and I’d had zero idea. I don’t especially love that Micah goes “We’re almost thirty, Anita.” in the middle of his argument against her freaking out… but… yeah…
So yeah… so. Much. Talking. It’s not a super bad thing, but it also kind of felt slog-ish to get through at points. Might have been the particular characters involved or might have been the real world encroaching on how much brain-space I have for the fictional world. I liked Danse Macabre well enough. Probably going to forget most of it again, though. Heh.
Favorite Lines
"The practicalities of life do not cease needing to be done just because other things are going wrong." - Jean-Claude
"Feelings are never stupid, they just make us feel stupid sometimes." - Nathaniel Graison
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