Incubus Dreams (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #12) By: Laurell K. Hamilton (Book Review)

 ***This review will contain spoilers***

Summary:

Anita's life is more complicated than ever, as she is caught between her obligations to the living and the undead. A vampire serial killer who preys on strippers is on the loose. Called in to consult on the case, Anita fears her judgment may be clouded by a conflict of interest. For she is, after all, the consort of Jean-Claude, the ever-intoxicating Master Vampire of the City. Surrounded by suspicion, overwhelmed by her attempts to control the primal lusts that continue to wrack her, Anita does something unprecedented: she calls for help.

This has got to be the worst book in the series thus far. I'm so disappointed because from the start of the series we've gotten used to a nicely written, creative and filled with plot twists story. The first half a dozen books or so of this series mentioned sex here and there but didn't have any sex scenes. The books focused more on the story, the protagonist journey through these horrific crime scenes and was just original and creative. But this book is trash compared to the other ones. Hamilton barely even put any effort into the plot. The plot itself and the 'progression' of the plot took up less than a hundred pages. This book has over seven hundred pages....What in the actual fuck? 

The majority of the book consisted of sex. Floor sex, sex with strangers, animals and threesomes...(insert vomit emoji) It honestly feels like she tried to cram as many one shot fanfiction stories with every male character in this book. It's the most disgusting thing ever. What makes it worse is the fact that there is no fluidity in the series. From the last book to this one it makes no sense why she fucks about a dozen dudes in this story. I know the bullshit 'ardeur' is her reasoning as to why all these sex scenes were included but in reality that's bullshit. There's just no natural progression in the story it's just sex, sex, and MORE SEX. As if we hadn't hit rock bottom already, Anita still feels so guilty after having sex with strangers and friends. If you're going to make your protagonist have sex with a dozen men please don't follow it up with guilt filled shame. It's the most annoying thing ever. If you wanna be a hoe and fuck all the guys you want then OWN IT! I could've had a better experience with this book without all the fucking guilt. 

One thing that really threw me off was Anita having sex while her male companions were in animal form...granted they were only partially turned but still! Since the beginning of the series, Anita has said she thinks having sex while in animal form is disgusting and immoral. And twelve books later she's doing it herself. If Hamilton is going to be writing books can she make her characters consistent and not a dumb fucking hypocrite? That scene and this entire book really came out of left field and ruined the quality of the series. I'm really curious who the fuck allowed this book to be published? We have over seven hundred pages of pure garbage. One chapter from her first six books have a better quality of writing than this entire book. I don't know if she was having writers block when she wrote this book but it obviously should have never been printed. 

I had a goal this year to read 20 books and I was right on track till I started reading this one. This book took me about 3 months to read. It was so cringe and at times gross that I could only get through it a few pages at a time. In case you guys are wondering what the plot was for this book, it was about dead strippers being killed by a group of vampires, Anita ends up killing a few of them at the end of the book but the rest of the vampires got away. Sounds short, right? That is because the majority of this book was about sex. I wish I was exaggerating but unfortunately I'm not. 

Rating:

I am going to give Incubus Dreams 1 star on 5. I want to give it a zero star rating but the reason why it is getting a 1 star rating is because what little plot that was included was not bad at all and it helped me get through finishing this book. But otherwise, it was terrible. I will keep reading through the series because I'm the type of person who needs to finish things but if you haven't read this series yet, please avoid it. Don't waste your time.