Affliction (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #22) By: Laurell K. Hamilton (Book Review)

 ***This review will contain spoilers***

Summary:

Micah’s estranged father lies dying, rotting away inside from some strange ailment that has his doctors whispering about “zombie disease.” Anita Blake makes her living off of zombies—but these aren’t the kind she knows so well. These creatures hunt in daylight, and are as fast and strong as vampires. If they bite you, you become just like them. And round and round it goes…Where will it stop? Even Anita Blake doesn’t know.

When I noticed that this book was over 600 pages almost double what Hamilton's books usually are I was worried and kinda panicked. This series has been on a crazy rollercoaster of major highs and major lows. Lately, it's been mostly lows so when I saw this book was double what her books usually are I was crazy nervous. If Hamilton can't come up with a decent plot for a 300 page book then what the fuck is she doing with a 600 page book? However, I am beyond excited to say that this is for sure a redemption book! I was nervous this book would've taken me 3 months to read but luckily there was an actual plot so it was easy to read through it. 

I was completely shocked when I picked up this book and automatically we've got a damn storyline! Micah's dad gets attacked by a zombie and he gets infected with a zombie like virus and before we know it boulder and the surrounding areas become a zombie apocalypse. One thing I found curious about the whole zombie virus was why Anita never tried to remove the virus with her necromancy. It's been said by every foe she's ever faced she's the most powerful necromancer so how come she didn't try using her necromancy to remove the virus. That would have been really cool and added another dimension to her psychic abilities. Plus, if Hamilton went that route then Area could have been saved instead of killed before the virus and the vampire bite took hold and made him go absolutely apeshit. 

For the majority of the book, I was dead set on giving it a 5 star rating but then there were a few hiccups towards the last half/end of the book. There was some sex in this book but not as much as some of the other books in the series where it was all sex and no plot. One sex scene that I found odd was they finally get to the hotel after shooting up a storm at the hospital against a bunch of killer zombies and they jump into sex. I don't know about anyone else but I would be exhausted beyond belief and would want to take the downtime to recoup and sleep a couple hours. The whole sex scene with the ball gag was so random as well as the breath play fantasy kink that they were playing out. I've said it before and I'll say it again, some of these sex scenes feels like a fan who wrote fanfiction staring their favourite characters. Then the last scene that really was let down was how quickly they defeated the lover of death the big bad who absorbed some of the mother darkness power when she was defeated and was raising all these zombies. It was literally just one small chapter. This whole dang build up got resolved in just 1 chapter. How fucking disappointing is that? There was barely any fighting, there was this lead up of how Seamus one of the shifters that belong to a Harlequin member is the best fighter and is super dangerous and yet barely a paragraph was written about how he was used in the fight (which he really wasn't). The ending wasn't well thought out but Anita ended up with another animal within her fighting for control. She now has a hyena. I wonder how that will change the dynamics in St. louis since there is a huge clan of hyenas. 

Rating:

I am going to give Affliction 4 stars on 5. This has been one of the better books to come out of this series in a long while. There were some definite hiccups which we never had early in the series but otherwise this has been an enjoyable book and I hope we get another one where we have some real plot. You would think a book having plot would be a given but with this series you never know what type of bullshit you'll have to endure.