What was THE MOMENT for you?

[bluesimplicity.livejournal.com]

Hey Fellow Lashers. 

I've got a question I've been wondering about for you all. Consider it a survey of sorts.

What was THE MOMENT when you knew that you were done with AB:VH (Or even Merry?) I'm not talking about the bad grammer, the endless, bore me to death sex scenes, or LKH not even remembering how to spell her own character names. (We've all plodded along with those in the hopes that it would someday get better.) I mean the moment when it FINALLY happened. When you threw whatever book you were reading across the room and just KNEW you were never going to pick it up again?

For me, it had to be in Incubus Dreams. I almost did it when we found out Richard was now a rape victim (WHAT?? A-fucking-NOTHER one?? Can you not have a dick in the AB world and not get raped?) But I held on. Then it was almost the sex scene were Anita goes on and on in great detail about barfing and blowjobs, followed by the 18 thousand fuckmefuckmefuckmes at the end. But not quite - I was plodding along until....

The bad guys leave a note. 

After all this drama, all this tension (well, no not really, but let's pretend), said bad guys don't even show up and do a "Whoops! Our bad! So sorry. Gotta-go-bye!" 

For me, that was IT! I was never ever EVER going to pay good money to read this woman's crap again. And I feel so much freer for it!

What was everyone's else THAT'S IT moment of clarity? 

Just curious.

Blue

P.S. For Merry, it was in the last book, which I didn't even bother to read, when my friend mentioned to me that is was 384 pages and they STILL hadn't made it to the Seelie Court. But they sure as hell did fuck alot. BAH!!

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/belladonna_/]

Vampire uke? BTW, you win the Internets. :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/belladonna_/]

Merry Gentry - "Ride the storm."

I not only threw the book, I had to go pick it up, call my best friend and read two pages of it to her so we could make gagging noises together. Then I threw the book again. :)

I think Blue Moon was where I really lost my Anita-love - the whole "bring me her head in a basket" thing. That's a figure of speech? Since when?

Also IIRC that's the book where Glenda the Good Witch tells Anita that she is a Pure Innocent Spirit who will always be more comfortable "saying 'golly' than 'goddam.'" Gack.

Of course, I've kept reading them... though I have apparently blocked out most of ID, and have no plans to acquire DM.

[darksongtrilogy.livejournal.com]

Narcissus in Chains was my WTF moment, but ID was when I realized I was truly, truly done. Richard, Anita, and JC's sex scene was so screamingly bad that I threw the book at the wall. Seriously, we'd been (as a fandom) anticipating that scene for years. Ever since TKD, for me, I figured it would happen. It had been built up to, book after book after book. We finally get it and we get a Blowjobs for Dummies lecture including Anita reminiscing about throwing up while she learned to deepthroat Micah and drool strings while she's going down on Richard. That was it for me. That was the moment when I said, "kill this bitch, I'm done."

I'm STILL utterly disgusted, just thinking about it.

[withered-spring.livejournal.com]

That's the only way I can remember him is by referring to him as such. Because otherwise he is such a non-entity... which to an extent all of her characters are.

But thanks! XD

[agatha-mandrake.livejournal.com]

For me, The Moment came in Incubus Dreams, with the use of the word "deepthroat". That one word summed up the entire direction of the series: it's not about the story, it's all about teh sex. F*ck you too, Laurell.

[klmorgan.livejournal.com]

Mine's pretty blase. It was Incubus Dreams... I wasn't even reading the thing, just leafing through the hardcover at Borders. It felt so alien at the time to not own the newest AB book, but I'd had my hand slapped with Narcissus, and then my head with Cerulean. I'd heard vague murmurrs from other previously die-hard AB fans/friends (including the girl who originally hooked me on the series) that the latest one was even worse, not to read it at all... but still...

So I was rifling through the thing at random, trying to discern how good a read it'd be. And I hit the discussion between Richard and Anita vis a vis his not-so-delicate touch on a girl's cervix.

I just put the book back on the shelf.

See, kinda anticlimatic. But I was so sad! It was just reality hitting me in the face: this wasn't just a two-book slump, LKH wasn't being experimental in a way that would pay off. The series was done. Dead. It had come to a shuddering halt -- most of that shuddering mine.

As for Merry, well. I never reall got into it, but after skimming though the end of whichever book it is where they're all in a puppy pile and Merry's men are assuring the new recruits how happy they'll be now because the sex is AWESOME... YES EVEN MORE AWESOME THAN THEY THINK... I stood in Waterstones thinking, "Bitch, please."

[klmorgan.livejournal.com]

We finally get it and we get a Blowjobs for Dummies lecture including Anita reminiscing about throwing up while she learned to deepthroat Micah and drool strings while she's going down on Richard.

... shit, seriously?

I mean, SERIOUSLY?

Just when I think I've heard it all.

and my respect for her remaining fans just whirled down the drain, man. how can they read that shit and be all "OMG it's character growth"? did their parents read them Penthouse Forum to make them go to sleep at night?

[klmorgan.livejournal.com]

I'm only hanging in there for my fucking Sholto porn that was promised back in book one!

AHA! I KNEW there was a reason I trudged through three of those damn books, and that was it! I remember now!

Damn you and your cruel whimsy of unfulfilled porn promises, LKH. It's like you live in Opposite Land -- giving us the gristle and keeping the good stuff unwritten. Hate. You. So much.

my $0.02

[klmorgan.livejournal.com]

Good books!

[klmorgan.livejournal.com]

Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer: smart fairy book.

Actually, all her books are damned smart. I love me some Kushner. I'm in the middle of her newest. YAY for a noble-girl-who-takes-up-swordplay story that is realistic and makes sense! YAY I SAY!

[klmorgan.livejournal.com]

And oh damn I nearly forgot -- Patricia McKillip does a fantastic retelling of Tam Lin with her Winter Rose. It's more about humanity than fairyland, but she does a bang-up job of contrasting the familiar with the alien, and showing how the latter can be both enticing and terrifying.

She has written other fairy-ish books, I believe. (One of which... I own? And have read? Must really assemble library into coherent structure...)

Re: Actually?

[klmorgan.livejournal.com]

(The advance copy of A Caress of Twilight was a big ol' mess--I checked out the actual book from the library and noticed some significant improvements, which indicates that at least SOME editing is being done.)

Really? Wow. Like, grammatical errors and typos corrected, or scenes rewritten? Because it'd be fascinating to know the changes made.

[eeyore9990.livejournal.com]

Cerulean Sins when the evil human servant chick backed down like a whipped dog at the end. I have a dent in my wall from the book hitting the wall. Seriously. You can't build up a character like that and then just... have them deflate in the face of Anita's awesome ferociousness. *bashes head into brick wall*