lkh_lashouts | Just recently finished Flirt...or wait, was it really a book?

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Current Location: Somwhere.

Just recently finished Flirt...or wait, was it really a book?

Okay…so, I miraculously just came out the other side after spending a few tortured days dragging my feet through Flirt. Maybe it’s just me, but I get increasingly more discouraged with every book I read in this series these days. They’re just so…well, if you’ve read them, you know. Beyond words would be a good way to put it, but when in reference to anything put out lately by LKH, it’s really just my way of saying I’ve never read something so irritating that I can barely even articulate it properly.

At any rate, most people are probably more eager to discuss Bullet (those who have made it that far, anyway), but I’m not going to bother getting that monstrosity to tackle until the traffic over it at the library clears up, so I’m game for discussing Flirt.

But some things that I found HORRIBLY annoying in Flirt:

--The very annoying, constant referencing to people just about being able to read someone’s actions by the slightest of motions.

Okay, STOP. Please. When it kept happening, I just wanted them all to shut up and someone to die. I don’t think you can pinpoint someone’s thoughts with perfect accuracy when they so much as have an eyelid twitch. It was almost as annoying as the constant power plays that were really just unnecessary muscle flexing. It really and truly gets old VERY fast considering that most of the wording for each “powerbath” seems to just be a recycled and rehashed one from some other part of the same book or a previous one.

--The reoccurring descriptions of just about every darn little thing. The most annoying that I can recall off the top of my head is saying that someone’s pulse is like a piece of candy. How long have we heard that one? Honestly. I understand that it’s part of her style, and I understand her style as being witty and (supposedly) creative. There’s hardly any creativity in reusing the same description for quite a few more than just several occasions.

--All the pathetic group hugging (which I find hard to imagine someone so set at being hard as nails and THE man accepting without thinking) and sudden doting on Blake because she’s so darn beautiful. I don’t mean to say this in a mean way, but to most people I know, scars aren’t necessarily beautiful. Isn’t Blake covered in them? And her descriptions of them are never pretty, so I feel like I’m missing something when it comes to those and how EVERYONE seems to fall under the impression that she’s just gorgeous and flawlessly perfect for EVERY man she meets.

--All the awing over her weapons and skills. Can’t we just have bad guys who don’t care? All the commentary just adds to the inflating balloon known as Blake’s massive head full of hot air. Yeah, we get it that she’s just SO badass. Can we move on now? Please?

--Mistake in Nicky’s eye color. Really now? It says his eyes are blue earlier in the book, and then near the end says they’re brown.

--It was said earlier that lust never lies, but hope does. Later on says that the ardeur, essentially lust itself, can make lies seem like truth. Inconsistency is rampant and slowly driving me crazy, here. Stupid hypocrites.

--Honestly, I’m tired of her trying to justify herself like as if she firmly believes God forgives every murder she’s ever committed—even those done in the name of saving others. I understand possibly those for others, but she also kills purely because she feels it’s “necessary.” Whatever happened to the Golden Rule? Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t have done to yourself? Do I just sleep through church every week or what? I do believe that God is a forgiving being—I truly do. But I despise how LKH abuses that to say that Blake is still “good.” Uh-huh. I’m finding it harder to by that with every new “book.” The only good she does is in the eyes of her half-blind boytoys so infatuated with Blake I doubt they know up from down.

I also just love *sarcasm* how she seems perfectly okay with stealing Nicky’s free will to help herself, but when Silas is supposed to be drugging a hooker with drugs and pretty much taking that woman’s free will, suddenly they don’t have to right to do that. Uh-huh *sarcasm* Right. Got it. Makes perfect sense. And then later, she has the audacity to say she feels guilty about it, but when with her men it doesn’t seem to matter. I read that and was sputtering with anger because I think anyone in their right mind would think themselves as bad as…say…Belle Morte for doing that. But no. Because she did it so she could come back to her other brainwashed, one-dimensional sweeties, it’s okay. The heck it is because it’s not. I used to think she had a conscience…but apparently having lovers out the wazoo means that have one isn’t necessary anymore—along with having standards and morals.

*sigh* Okay, I’m going to can it there before I blow a gasket on this thing. It’s not worth it. All this already makes me feel ashamed to share the same first name as the “heroine” of this series and actually live in St. Louis.

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There's also Nicky going from having one eye to two, and I kept flicking back and forth to see if I was dreaming, but no...I wasn't. Consistency is not strong with this one.

I was honestly sputtering with outrage when Micah showed up to be "there, there, I'm sorry! It must be so horrible that you had to do that!" while Nicky's just...standing right there, and Anita totally forgets that oh hey he's now bound to her because she took away his free will. But no! SHE DID IT TO PROTECT THE PEOPLE SHE LOVES! Even though they fought the assassins and came to rescue her on their own! The point is, she's totally justified, okay? Or so I'm told over on the forums. This is when my faith in humanity takes a dive and I want to go live in a cave with a dozen cats.

In my initial dissection of the book, I wound up with 100pt bold capslocked NO LAURELL, THIS IS NOT OKAY. EVER. >:( >:( >:( all over the place.

I think the eye thing at first was that since she didn't know he didn't have another one, she was going under the assumption that he had two. Then again, maybe it was just LKH making crap up as she went. Wouldn't surprise me very much.

I don't think any amount of LKH trying (and failing, mind you) is going to convince me that Blake is in the right about all of this. Never ever ever. You might need to make some room in that cave of yours for the rest of us converts. :P The end of the world could happen any minute and it would take the biggest brainwashing orgy EVER to save us from a crashing meteor. Because that's just how LKH rolls and clearly how it would go down since sex and meteors are completely related. *sarcasm*

The funny thing about Flirt is there isn't actually that much to dissect...unless I missed the actual plot (should there have been one, let me know).

A nightmare...this "book"...UGH. It really isn't okay.

No, the eye thing came after she noted he only had one eye, which is why I went to double-check in the first place.

Thing is, if this was intentional to show Anita's finally embrace her role as a villain, this is a brilliant move. She's fully transitioned from heroic figure to the very thing her younger self would have killed on principle -- she preys on the weak, enslaves them to her will, and maintains all her actions are just. But it's not, and we're still supposed to back her as the heroine, and I just can't do that in this book.

Ugh, honestly? I would have started the book at the part where she wakes up in the cemetery. I copied the whole thing over into a Word doc, hacked out the first part and other bits that aren't necessary (such as what happend to Nicky, because Anita could still have used Silas' death to raise the zombies), and I wound up taking out about 80% of the book. I maintain that this could have been a 20k word tense, thrilling story, instead of a 50k rambling monstrosity.

Oh! Then nevermind. :P Point held. That's...just wow. Two mistakes with the same character in the same book. Did she even read it before she shipped it off to her so called publishers? Editors? Whoever. And everyone missed that...? I'm sorry, but that's just sad.

I'm really agreeing with you that she pretty much makes a better villain right now than she does a "heroine." Maybe what seperates here from the "real" bad guys is that she doesn't "enjoy" killing anyone and all the bad shit comes to her...? Who knows. >< All I can say is she can't keep hopping the fence onto the bad side and then go back to the good side and expect people to keep liking her.

I think I wanna see what you did. :) Is it posted anywhere?

And what I really find rather disgusting is how everyone just has to fall in love with her or like her. Anyone who doesn't tends to have bad things happen to them or they're villified for some reason or another. That's what I liked about Richard despite how people saw him as whiny. At least he said no and put his foot down (somewhat and momentarily) in The Harlequin. I wanna see more people doing that...and staying like that instead of suddenly defecting a book later. ._.

I only have the immediate dissections of the piece posted, and I'm cleaning them up to post to Lashouts (I'm up to part 3, where Anita meets her second client and this verse is same as the first and need to post that ASAP, and right now I'm going through the book of essays on AB:VH too) so there's less capslock rage and tangents on Questions I Have About The Animation Industry.

Mostly the copy pasta of Flirt was just to roughly hack it to pieces to see if there was anything worth saving. It's kind of interesting to see that the book itself is just under 50k words (which is about the length of a reasonable Big Bang fic), and such a large percentage have been axed without detriment to the overall story. At least, that's what would have happened were I here editor.

Man, you may want to give Bullet a miss for Richard. He's apparently been in therapy, or replaced with a pod person. I am choosing to believe that he's off sipping cocktails with the real Edward and Anita hasn't realised that he's left. So there's some guy all "why are you calling me Richard? What is going on here? Stop taking off your clothes...stop taking off my clothes!"

I'll be looking for those dissections then. :) And by book of essays do you mean that book titled ArdeurblahblahblahIdidn'tpayattention thing I've seen popping up? I was kind of curious as to what that was about actually.

Speaking of Blake's second client...I was a little miffed during that part. Honestly, I didn't understand why Blake was so adamantly against letting the woman find some piece in hacking her husband to pieces. And really, that's only because I can actually imagine Blake doing that herself without a problem if given the oppertunity. I don't see her having a problem with doing that for HERSELF. Then again, I guess it would have to make sense since everything that for her is okay is bad when someone else does it.

I'm surprised there was enough to salvage out of the 50k words of relative sludge she slapped down onto paper and called a book. Widdling the book down to just the actual plot that was there must leave little to work with. Half the time during the book there's so much unnecessary or perfectly redundant conversation. Makes me wonder that if you could do that then why isn't LKH's actual editor doing anything. Surely they aren't that enamoured with...well, I don't see anything to be enamoured with, but apparently there's something there to keep people reading.

I've heard about the horror of Bullet with a lot of characters. I'm sure when I read it I'll be throwing it across the room half the time like I did with Blood Noir. I vote he was replaced with a pod person. I prefer the image of him and Edward sipping cocktails somewhere (anywhere really) because well...that otherwise leaves us with two ruined characters that I grieve over most. Richard, I liked his good boy scout character while for Edward... Well, it's Edward. 'nuff said. The Edward LKH has been parading around as of late makes me want to cry since he seems like such a noodle now. I hardly see his character devolution as character "development" (hence the devolution--or maybe it's just the replacement of all characters with pod people).

And I must say, your last sentence made me laugh.

Yep, I have Ardeur. I've got three more essays to go, and thus far it's...been cringe-worthy to say the best. I mean, a few of the essays are really good, others are a complete mess or have any relation to AB:VH tacked in there as an afterthought. The prologues by LKH are really, really special.

Yeah, it's totally one rule for Anita, one rule for everyone else. But I really loved Natalie just for how cheerful she was at the prospect of chopping up her husband. I want more of this in zombie stories! Think of how cathartic it would be!

I'm convinced that everything that Edward has done in the books has been to basically mess with Anita's head to lull her into a false sense of security. And the lulz.

Ouch. I'm not sure I'm even going to touch that then. I'm going to guess "special" just puts LKH into her own ballpark.

I really liked Natalie's personality. :P I didn't blame her for wanting to chop the man the pieces, and he's already dead, so what's the holdup? Morals? Pfft. Blake has none to be spoken of anymore except when they're convenient. Plus, not everyone probably wants to bring up a zombie just to talk. Since the woman's shrink thought it'd be a good idea, what's there to complain about? We'll just call it special anger management and be done with it.

Oh, I wish Edward was just trying to see how close he could get to Blake before blowing her "loose" life out of the water. It'd be very nice and very cunning on his part. I approve of such a plan and all its brilliance.

After LKH moved to Berkley (Penguin) she got a no-edit contract, so they're only allowed to do some proofreading not actually edit her mess. That combined with the fact that she gets in her books very late (sometimes less than 7 weeks before publication date) so the proofreaders have their work cut out for them. I wouldn't get too annoyed at her editors since they aren't allowed to do their jobs. I'd save my ire for the publishers who are so money-hungry they give La Laurell a no-edit contract and publish her dreck.

Oh wow. Really? You're right then. But what the heck? That really shows how the publishers really care more about making a profit that printing properly edited work. Maybe they think of it as "oh, she can take care of herself," but when you look at what's happening, it doesn't seem very likely that it's about trusting LKH to put out quality work. I feel for the poor proofreaders. D: I wonder if their job comes with a company brand barf bag.

I think that now they're basically giving her enough rope to hang herself. As long as she's still selling well they'll let her get away with all sorts of crap. This next AB book is the last book on her current contract. I do expect the new contract to have tougher deadlines and they may either cut into her percentage due to decreasing sales or force her to accept editing. The last couple of books she's gone down from a high of around 250K copies sold per book to more like 150K sold. 150K is still a lot of books so I doubt they'll let her go, but they might do something about the fact that she can't meet a reasonable deadline.

Well, then I think since the series is already hanging itself there's probably just enough slack left over for the author. And once upon a time I thought she had placed a limit at twenty books because she had planned up until then with a definite ending. Must've been naive back then because she evidently doesn't plan and makes it up as she sails along. *sigh* I guess we really won't know what'll happen until after the contract ends and she gets a new one... Should we dare hope for anything when that happens?

The only thing we can hope for is that they try to force her to allow editing and she accepts and doesn't just jump to another, smaller publisher. I think that might be what's happening with her MG series now. Her contract for that was up with Divine Misdemeanors and she burnt her bridges with Ballantine more than she has with Penguin. The MG series hasn't been as successful as AB. I think her agent is trying to sell the series to another publisher.

So... the book after Bullet is the last one on the contract? That should be fun to watch.

Yep, this next AB book is the last in the contract. I believe its name is Cabaret. Let everyone cringe at what ideas LKH could have gotten to chose that name for her next book.

I'm surprised that people are still waiting for Bullet in your library system. I was able to get a copy within a week or so and no one is waiting for it now. As opposed to Charlaine Harris' latest which has 40 holds and The Help which still has 360 holds after 60 weeks in the NY Times list.

But you're correct about Flirt, there's no plot to the book. Just like the last 8 or so AB books.

I was surprised as well to see that the book had holds on it. All I gotta say about that is, I'm not going to trying getting one until I can get it at my own leisure since the book is probably hardly worth that considering what I've read and heard about it.

It can be said that the last eight books have had SCRAPS of plot. LKH just can't seem to keep up with one or make one creative enough when apparently it's just so enticing to bore your reader's eyes out with pages upon pages of rotten smut, blatant bragging about her heroine's "awesomeness" and having all characters fawn over the heroine--villains included.

Yeah the scraps are more frustrating than if she didn't have any ideas at all. But in each book she doesn't manage to get maybe one or two good ideas for plot points and then she drowns it in endless descriptions about people we've already met, their hair and eye color, what they're wearing and how ginormous their schlongs are. Plus of course endless cut and pasted sex scenes with just the boitoi du jour changing. In Bullet we were treated to two identical sex scenes between Anita/JC and Anita/Richard. In both she made much of the height difference between Anita (the shortest woman on life) and JC/Richard making regular missionary position impossible.*

*Total nonsense BTW. I attribute that to the fact that LKH herself has never been with a man who is more than few inches taller than herself and she assumes that a 8" or 9" difference would be a problem. Being LKH she doesn't bother to find out.

All the descriptions always make me wonder if she gets tired writing them. Probably not since that's all we're seeing, but one can be hopeful. Sorta. According to Flirt hope lies to you, so I'm preparing myself for further, completely anticipated disappointment. Thank you, Hope.

I honestly don't see height as that big of a deal. And haven't they probably had missionary sex plenty of times before now on one or another of Blake's sexcapades? I'm getting the feeling that she's suddenly going crazy with her "I'm short!" rants. Apparently being 5'3" is just the pits. Man, I must be lucky that I top out at 5'4" then.

I'm around 4'10" and I've never been with a man who was less than 10 inches taller. My husband is 6'1". I've never noticed a problem with doing missionary position. Possibly if I was a few inches shorter and my partner was the height of, say, Shaquille O'Neal there might be a problem.

I find her constant rants about 5'3" being sooooo tiny tedious since I'm 5 inches shorter than her teeny, tiny, itsy, bitsy avatar.

I don't understand how a height difference COULD be a problem in missionary position. You're lying down! Repositioning is so easy I can't imagine even needing to think about it much!

69ing, of course, is another story. But that's a little different (for example, OMG kinky except not).

Perhaps she should move to places where being 5'3" is normal height (or even above average height. I've been told that at 5'2" I'm median height in a lot of Asian countries.

The only issue with height difference like that (my ex and I had a foot difference between us, me 5'3'' and him 6'3'') is that depending on whether the people have more height in their torso vs. their legs, you may not be able to be perfectly face to face. But that's an easy enough fix... or maybe you just skip missionary. :)

That's what she keeps whining about. The height difference between Anita and Richard or JC is too great for regular missionary position. I don't see it unless either JC or Richard have abnormally elongated torsos. The height difference between my man and me is about 14" and we have no problems. So, I don't believe that her 10" difference would matter. I know LKH has her favorite height for a man. She's stated she prefers men who are no more than 5'8" or so. She's probably never been with someone that much taller than she is and she's never bothered to find out.

I realize it's a small thing to be annoyed about, but in Bullet she did the same whine in two successive chapters. First she's boinking Richard and he's too tall for regular missionary position, then she's boinking JC with the same comments. I guess if she was boinking Wicked and Truth there would be the same story.

I guess I've always assumed Gary was tall, but maybe not?

For someone who prides herself of her sex scenes, she doesn't seem to have much imagination on how to go about it when it doesn't involve adding extra people.

And apparently as of late, adding people means you just have someone lying there watching and commenting on what the other person should be feeling (*coughcough*SkinTrade*coughcough*)...? The fudge is that? A secret fantasy of LKH's?

If she's complaining so much about height in missionary...what have they been doing before now? I'm pretty sure they've (Blake/Ricard and Blake/JC) done it missionary style in more than a couple books before now, so what's the hold up? What changed? Is she shrinking? Or is this just LKH finding something "creative" to whine about?

Maybe that's where her creativity is going...into finding new things to whine about while still whining about the same things we've heard about and accepted from the get go.

She may have written about this before, though I can't remember another instance. This was just so obvious and annoying because it was in back to back chapters.

And yes, Skin Trade was all about Anita getting boinked by whomever whilst another member of the penis parade sat by observing and talking about how tight n' wet she is. Sort of like a pimp having someone "try out" the new girl.

If my attention lasts me long enough, I'll see if I can find evidence of this, but I honestly just DON'T remember ever being keyed in that height is oh so vital when it came to Blake having sex with her various men. Then again maybe I'm just that good at blocking out parts of the books I don't care to remember. I can only recall it being recent, but I'll check anyway.

It really is like a trail for the latest skank. And the fact that pretty much every man is saying that now seems...just ugh for lack of a better descriptive word. Not to mention that if she's having sex pretty much every day to possibly several times a day with several men, wouldn't that mean she's completely the opposite? Maybe I'm just not understanding the physics of an insane sex life...

I personally think that by now Anita is about as "tight" as the Lincoln Tunnel. Especially since mamy of the members of the penis parade are renowned for their ginormous schlongs.

I don't know whether Gary is tall or not. But the only way her constant whining that a woman who's 5'3" and a man who's slightly over 6' tall can't possibly do regular missionary position makes sense is if she's never experienced it and is just assuming. If she had ever been in the situation she would know it's possible/no problem.

Like I've said I don't know why this out of all the weird things LKH has written bothers me. I guess it's just that it's more evidence that she can't be bothered to find out if something she's written as fact is actually fact.

Man, I must be lucky that I top out at 5'4" then.

You and me both, then ;) Just doing a reread to see why I liked the books in the first place (I now have no idea!), and that whole "OMG I'M SO SHORT!" thing really gets on my nerves. I mean yeah, I can't reach the top shelves in a supermarket either but ya know what? I don't spend the real life equivalent of half a book whining about it.

Compared to most men, she's short. And it seems that's all that matters. -_-

(Reposted for, uh, emoticon fail...)

*sighs* Yeah. Ain't that the truth?

No kidding. Being short is NOT the end of the world and nor have I ever seen it to be such a big deal. Sure, I might need a chair to get something out of the cabinet, but so what? It doesn't wound my pride. I don't get what's there to whine about for any longer than five seconds if even that.

I have friends that are shorter than me and Blake. Wonder what Blake thinks of people shorter than her...given that her brain doesn't implode from trying to use a little brain power for once of course.

I don't get what's there to whine about for any longer than five seconds if even that.

Exactly! Sometimes I shake my fist at God (or whoever) for not making me taller, but there's nothing can be done about it.

I honestly don't think of 5'3" or 5'4" as short. Like I said I'm 4'10" and even I don't angst about my shortness. Hey, there are shorter people (not many but some) and I've had a lifetime of working around it. In the supermarket if I can't knock it down or climb up to get it I find a nice taller lady or man to get it for me, no big deal.

That's a fair point (sorry; now I feel like I'm whining when I know you're shorter then me because I read your comment above, and also my mum is only just five feet tall herself).

But yeah, exactly, if you can't reach it, ask someone else to do it! (Or stand on the shelves ;) )

Standing on the shelves is frequently more fun and we can be pretty assured that we won't break them when we do. :D

I will stand on the shelves, but sometimes they don't look so sturdy or well attached and I don't want to end up knocking things over.

I've had a few people come in who have just started the series or are catching up. And before I can warn them about what it turns into, they tell me they're already past OB and loving it and it's really pointless. I want to tell them there's well written (or better written) paranormal smut out there, but that's outside of my comfort zone. And my library doesn't carry any of the really smutty stuff. As steamy as other series get, it's never three on one with possible rape and taking advantage of damaged people.

Not worth buying hardback? I generally don't unless I really like the book in the first place (I waited a year to buy Blood Noir paperback... and I wish I didn't...) but I'll assume I should wait.

Oh no. No no no. If you're talking about about Flirt, oh gosh no. Save your pennies for something worth your time. If I'm daring enough to buy the AB:VH books still, they have to be in paperback (I blame it on the fact that I feel like I need to finish I what I started). We can twiddle our thumbs in the meantime. Trust me.

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Just recently finished Flirt...or wait, was it really a book?

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