When I Grow Up, I Wanna Be Anita Blake

Title: Guilty Pleasures

Series: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #1

Author: Laurell K. Hamilton

Format: Audiobook

My Rating:

The Description:

Learn how Anita Blake started raising the dead-and killing the undead-in Guilty Pleasures, the debut novel in the #1 New York Times-bestselling series. (via amazon)

My Review:

For as long as I can remember (and before Twilight made them the next big thing), vampires have always been my monster of choice. However, up until this year I had never picked up an Anita Blake book or even really knew they existed.

I'd heard the name on number of occasions, even had the books recommended to me by a friend but it was always just a fleeting thought and they were quickly forgotten. It wasn't until I was wondering around Barnes and Noble's horror section that they truly caught my attention.

I'm almost ashamed to admit that it was the updated cover that drew me in but, in all honesty, I'd be lying if I said otherwise. The industrial noir feeling and coloring of the new covers easily make them among my favorites out there. I didn't purchase the book that day but it stuck in my mind so last month when the audiobook version became available to me I couldn't turn that down of at least checking the series out.

Guilty Pleasures introduces us to Anita Blake, a young independent woman who raises the dead for a living and does some vampire slaying on the side in a world where everything sort of the boogey man is out in the open. Attending a friend's bachelorette party at Guilty Pleasures, a vampire strip club that is the namesake of the novel, Anita finds herself pulled into the mystery of who, or what, has been murdering vampires by the Masters of the city.

Normally this description of the book's heroine and plotline would make me skeptical because in the sci fi/horror genres it seems almost impossible to write a female lead without falling hard into every cliche out there and I could almost see her running off to a strapping "good" vampire to save her.

Anita, as it turns out, is a refreshing to change to that. I can't speak for how the series progresses but in this book Anita is truly the tough as nails bad ass the book presents her as without losing a human element.

The rest of the cast does little to disappoint:

Nikolaos: the child vampire Master of the city, Edward: the untrustworthy occasional vampire slaying partner, Jean-Claude: the owner of Guilty Pleasures and a lower Master and, my favorite, Phillip: A young vampire-junkie stripper.

Overall, Guilty Pleasures easily won me over with the dark, vivid world and cast of characters. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the vampire genre.