The Lunatic Cafe by Laurell K. Hamilton

Beware of spoilers if you have not read the book. Otherwise, read on.

So, I spent a lot of this time reading The Lunatic Cafe this time focused on Anita and Richard and their relationship. I said in my review of Circus of the Damned that I'm really not a fan of Richard and that definitely still holds true. I feel he's all wrong for Anita and know he's not super secure in himself at this point, so them getting engaged in this book was just... blech. I'll definitely be getting more into that later in this review. The B-Plot with the shapeshifters and lycanthropes isn't my favorite of the police-centric stories, but it's definitely not bad. I'm honestly surprised the sort of thing it turns out to be doesn't end up being more prevalent in the series... but then, that would probably be too repetitious... and the antagonists do all die in the end so... yeah.

It's always interesting to get more preternatural world-building. I don’t think we hear much, if anything else about gargoyles and trolls through the rest of the series. Interesting to know they exist, though. We also get our first big encounter with witches, so that's fun. I really do feel like the way Hamilton does her world-building makes the Anita Blake universe feel very lived in. We get trickles of information from what Anita encounters when she encounters it, but never in large info-dumps. I appreciate it a lot.

Sheriff Titus and Officer Aikensen, first in a long line of cops Anita has to convince she knows wtf she’s doing. Being assholes basically just to be assholes. These guys never fail to piss me off. I find myself skimming those parts lately, more often than not. This time they had the added bonus of pissing me off more toward the end of the book... I can just hear Titus' slimy "good ol' boy" voice in my head as I read his dialogue. I fully believe Aikensen deserves his fate.

We also get another impatient antagonist in Marcus. Like, dude, allow for scheduling meetings for the next day, ESPECIALLY if it’s frigging 2am. This intimidation tactic really reads as annoying af. I also find it extremely annoying when the sub-cultures introduce and enforce rules on the humans (it’s generally humans) who have zero clue what’s even going on. Especially when those people used to be completely human themselves and/or have to exist in human society. Like, wtf are you even doing expecting someone who has no clue what’s going on to know this shit or agree to it? Like, yes, okay, explain it to them, but don’t expect the newbies to follow immediately. Express an expectation that the newbie will be held to the “laws” or whatever the next time ya’ll interact. Ugh. Frankly, this whole thing with Marcus, at least the beginning of it, really did not need to be or turn into what it did. He could/should have set up a meeting with Anita alone. But hey, gotta set him -- and Raina -- up for later installments.

Alright, now for the relationship discussion. I have THOUGHTS.

The following two paragraphs are verbatim notes I took as I was reading:

I feel like the conversation about “happily ever afters” at the end of Anita and Richard’s date really highlights why the pair of them just won’t work. This doesn’t exactly come out until later, but Richard’s insistence on that white picket fence mentality despite knowing all along that what Anita does isn’t conducive to that… big red flag. I would have liked to see where that conversation would have gone if Jean-Claude hadn’t derailed it.

How the fuck was Anita supposed to “take care of yourself” when she a) doesn’t know what’s going on and b) doesn’t know the dang rules, Richard? Wtf, man. Keeping her out of it clearly did her no good. Also, Jean-Claude using her against Nikolaos was totally different than the whole Marcus thing. Jean-Claude and Anita weren’t even close to dating at the time. You tell people you’re dating about your big life things, especially when it’ll probably get you killed.

Oooooh the absolute hilarity of Anita waiting for marriage… Also… Richard’s very quick “well let’s get married then”… oooof. Ya’ll haven’t been dating that long… not that people haven’t been a roaring success with a short dating period but… ya’ll also have some serious differing life opinions you need to sort out first. Ooof.

End notes.

Okay, so… Anita and Richard basically have a good chunk of issues. Mainly because Richard doesn’t believe Anita’s really as tough-as-nails and Anita had zero clue what she was getting herself into with Richard and his Beast. This does not go away and, from what I remember about the rest of the series, only really gets worse. Hamilton pretty much states this herself in the Afterword. Richard also clearly has issues with the Beast side of himself, so… yeah. That contributes a lot. Anyway, them getting engaged this early was honestly really stupid, in my opinion, for all the reasons I’ve stated here.

I also really hate Jean-Claude’s whole “I would like to date you for the same amount of time he did and I won’t kill him” thing. Coercion is not a green flag. While ultimately, I think Jean-Claude is the better partner for Anita (just between him and Richard), the beginning of their relationship is gross. First the vampire marks against her will, then the coercive dating... I was reading the bit where Jean-Claude shows up at Anita's apartment after her dip in the icy river and ranting aloud to my boyfriend about how it's all really stupid and everyone is being an asshole... The whole thing is super problematic and I hate it. There are reasons Romance is not my genre.

Anyway... The Lunatic Cafe is a solid fourth entry in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. It really does focus a lot on the issues Anita and Richard have, I didn't just pull all those notes and stuff out of thin air. I'm mostly satisfied with where and how this ended. And oh yeah, Jason's first appearance! 

Favorite Lines

"There are more roads to monsterdom than most people realize." - Anita Blake

"If you do not help and protect those who are less able than you, weaker than you, what good are you? No damn good at all." - Laurell K. Hamilton

An Illustrative Couple of Paragraphs

Please, for the love of all that is Holy, discuss this stuff with your SO well BEFORE you decide to tie the knot. I feel like these paragraphs say a lot about why Richard and Anita shouldn't have gotten engaged in this book... clearly not all, but A LOT.

Hawksong by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Spoiler Free Reread Review

I'm usually not a fan of Romance and Hawksong is, first and foremost, an Enemies-to-Lovers Romance. However, Hawksong spends a lot more time in the realm of introspection than it does anywhere else, so it doesn't exactly feel like a Romance to me... if that makes any sense. We spend most of the book in Danica's head and she's not super focused on the Romance aspects of her life. She's definitely more concerned with simply stopping a war and keeping it stopped than she is on whether or not her love-interests are interested. Again... if I'm not making sense about this, it's probably because what I'm trying to say is mixed up in my own head.

Anyway, I like Danica as a character. She honestly comes across more Ace to me than anything else. Again, more concerned with stopping a war than the romantic side of things. This also might be because of the "Avian Reserve" aspect of her life sort of saps the outward manifestations of her emotional states. That's a fun bit of world-building that's brought to the fore once she spends more time with Zane among the Serpiente.

I also quite like how the world-building is done through how the people behave, rather than just their surroundings. The Avian Shapeshifters bottle up their emotions and act "properly" rather than, like the Serpents, be very open in thought and deed. I don't know how true this is, as the Hawk's Keep isn't really described in terms of building materials, but I've always kind of envisioned it as made of wood and plaster in contrast to the Serpiente's palace of stone. Not sure why that is, but yeah... Contrasts.

It's also really interesting how these writ-large Shapeshifter societies and kingdoms eventually get whittled down when moving from this series to the main Nyeusigrube series. Rise and fall of civilizations, I suppose. Just something fun to think about when reading and rereading these series.

Nine Tailed by Jayci Lee

I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed this. I’m not generally a fan of romance, so that Nine Tailed was billed as one had me thinking I was gonna end up DNFing it. I did not. That said, Sunny and Ethan’s romance is fairly well done. I didn’t feel like it was forced or too much in the forefront.

I did find it distracting when Sunny was distracted by Ethan, though. Had the thought of “is this what non-ace people experience” just about every time it happened. I was glad even Sunny was perturbed by the level to which she was distracted.

There is an abrupt tone shift about 70% of the way through and it’s jarring. The story also grinds to a halt at this point, because politics or something apparently. This is also where the Shinbiin are introduced, which was kind of fun, I guess. It’s pretty much a setup point for the rest of the series, getting us out of the Mortal Realm. I am not going to remember much of the information dumped here, even if I do continue with the series.

But yeah, Nine Tailed was better than I was expecting. Getting a world not steeped in Western mythology was pretty cool.

Favorite Line

"Besides, I wouldn’t mess with the Greeks. Their mythology is part of the US public school curriculum." - Sunny Cho

Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama

A Spoiler Free Review

I quite enjoyed Monstrous Beauty. It’s a departure from my recent readings of vampires and witches. In fact, aside from the mermaids and ghosts, there’s not really a lot of magic in this. That’s not a bad thing. It definitely works as story mostly grounded in our reality.

I thought Hester’s job was interesting. Or at least, getting to see some behind the scenes on that job was interesting. Interpreting historical characters definitely isn’t a job many people are familiar with and very few have. I certainly haven’t read many characters with such a different job.

I thought Hester and Ezra’s love story was handled fairly well, especially coupled with the Syrenka/Ezra story and the inkling I had about Hester. Turned out I was right, so that’s fun. I don’t have any real feelings about Hester and Peter as a couple. Peter seems sweet enough but is also blank enough as a character that I’m just kind of shrugging in his direction.

Eleanor and Noo’kas as antagonists were alright. I feel like Eleanor was more fleshed out than Noo’kas, who I originally thought was some kind of mermaid god at first. I definitely didn’t like either of them, but I felt more dislike for Eleanor. Noo’kas was introduced as an antagonist too late in the game, I think was most of the problem with her. Well, that and those Jaba the Hutt type characters never end up winning so… yeah.

I think that’s in on this one. Not a whole lot to discuss without getting into spoilers. Monstrous Beauty was pretty good and definitely worth a read.

Bitten and Stolen by Kelley Armstrong

Here begins my reviews for Kelley Armstrong's "Women of the Otherworld/Otherworld" series. These are definitely all reread reviews and I believe I at least attempted to keep them spoiler free. They also seem to have run rather short, so these posts will probably contain at least two books per post. Also, also, I know I did not review all of them and will probably not be adding reviews to round out my series of reviews due to having moved on from "Women of the Otherworld" and having read so much this year... things tend to run together if you don't take notes or write reviews immediately after reading so... yeah. Welcome to my reread reviews.

 

Bitten by Kelley Armstrong

A Spoiler Free, Reread Review

Originally Posted on GoodReads: October 6, 2021

Okay so, this is probably my third or fourth reread. I dunno what's going on with me but I just absolutely cannot with Elena. She's incredibly selfish and hypocritical pretty much throughout. I really hate how she treats Phillip, who she's apparently in love with. Like, I get that it's a out-of-sight-out-of-mind sort of thing, but it really should have been apparent to her MUCH earlier that she didn't really care for him in that manner.

I also really hate the way the Pack acts, Jeremy in particular. He got on my nerves this time pretty much right out of the gate with his phone call shenanigans. I'm sorry, you tell someone to call you back, maybe pick up your damn phone. I understand that Jeremy's the Alpha, but good lord, man, keep your people in the loop. It's no wonder Elena and her "lone wolf" personality went off on her own to get Clay. If you don't keep lines of communication open, you're inviting trouble.

Uhm, yeah, pretty much just came away this time feeling annoyed. Hopefully that doesn't continue on in Stolen.

 

Stolen by Kelley Armstrong 

A Spoiler Free, Reread Review

Originally Posted on GoodReads: November 1, 2021

So, this book has a villain who is reprehensible and one who’s just kinda… there all of a sudden, but not really, kinda. You get to absolutely hate the one and not really care about the other. Not sure that worked very well, to be honest. Not really sure if it’s a spoiler to say that I think the villains went down fairly easily once we got around to taking down the villains.

Aaand I spent a majority of this reread inserting a character — who’s kind of introduced here, but not actually — and forgetting who actually did all the things, so that was a facepalm moment.

I did enjoy the world building that happened, even if it was mostly via info dumps from individuals. Building out from the werewolves is definitely a plus. More female voices is definitely a plus.

Uhm… idk what else to say, really. Elena was more enjoyable in this book than she was in the last, but there also wasn’t as much inner monologuing from her. There seemed to be a lot more actual dialogue going on.