The thing I most dislike about the later AB books is the whole ardeur plot. Let me start by making a couple of disclaimers. I don't mind sex in books. Hell, I love sex in books. I don't even mind a female character sleeping around with various men (I'm from Holland. We're a liberal bunch here). In fact, the whole Anita wanted to marry Richard before she fucked him plot-line from the earlier books kinda baffled me, but anyway, that's not the point.
What I truly hate about the ardeur plot-line, is that it changes Anita's motivation to have sex. She doesn't want to have sex, she needs to have sex. And on top of that, the ardeur is something that takes away consent. It forces her to have sex, whether she likes to or not. There is nothing romantic or arousing about it, at least not in my book.
Because, you know, something that takes away consent and forces a person to have sex twice a day sounds a lot like rape to me.
I get the feeling that LKH started the AB series and didn't feel comfortable writing sex yet (or publishing it). Then as the series progressed, she discovered this new hobby – writing sex – and wanted to put some in the AB books, but damn, she'd written Anita as a chaste girl who wanted to marry a guy before diving into bed with him. She managed to get her into bed with Jean-Claude, but that's only one vampire and writing only sex scenes for him and Anita would get boring pretty quickly.
So she came up with the worst possible plot in the history of plots: OMG, let's just give her a new power that will force her to have sex with dozens of sexy men!
*headdesks*
That's really how the whole ardeur plot feels to me when I read the books. It's a cheap, easy way to have your characters fuck, and it adds nothing to the plot or character development, because it doesn't really offer the characters a choice. And choices are always more interesting to read about than outside forces.
What I also noticed is that LKH is disabling characters that could possibly call Anita on her sudden change of behavior in the sex department. Edward, who would have a few interesting things to say about recent developments, methinks, hasn't shown up in the last 3 books. Before, we saw him at least every other book, but now he's mysteriously vanished from the planet, or so it seems. And from what I know, he won't show up in DM either.
Dolph. My god, what the hell happened to poor Dolph. I didn't recognize him in CS. Now, I don't want to go tell an author how to write her own character, but damn, LKH really fucked Dolph over in the characterization department. And I think she did it because previously she'd written Dolph as a pretty well-balanced, intelligent guy, who'd definitely have a few (true!) things to say about Anita's behavior.
And then there's Ronnie, who has also mysteriously vanished, mostly, and when she shows up again (in the teaser from DM), she's suddenly jealous of all the sex Anita has with dozens of men. ...Right.
So, to make a long story short: I don't really have a problem with sex in the AB series, but I do have a BIG problem with how the sex is written. And all the angsting Anita does about it. That gets old very, very quickly. Plus the fact that the sex has mostly replaced the plot in the books. I love plot! Gimme back my plot!
And then there's of course the fact that Anita is a blatant Mary Sue, with superpowers (and she gains more every day, or so it seems), and every man she meets adores her and wants to fuck her. Well, every incredibly handsome, cute, well-hung guy she meets. The other guys either vanish (Edward), suffer from character assasination (Dolph), or are the bad guys who want to kill her (and in most of those cases, even the bad guys want to fuck her too).
*sighs*
That just bores me to tears.
At the moment, I'm slugging through Cerulean Sins. I still have about 50 pages to go, but my god, this book is dull. I fear for Incubus Dreams, which I have here on my desk waiting to be read, and I'm not even sure if I'll ever read Micah or Dance Macabre.
I still love plenty of the AB fanfiction out there, but AB canon has lost most of its appeal to me be now.
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What I truly hate about the ardeur plot-line, is that it changes Anita's motivation to have sex. She doesn't want to have sex, she needs to have sex. And on top of that, the ardeur is something that takes away consent. It forces her to have sex, whether she likes to or not. There is nothing romantic or arousing about it, at least not in my book.
Because, you know, something that takes away consent and forces a person to have sex twice a day sounds a lot like rape to me.
I get the feeling that LKH started the AB series and didn't feel comfortable writing sex yet (or publishing it). Then as the series progressed, she discovered this new hobby – writing sex – and wanted to put some in the AB books, but damn, she'd written Anita as a chaste girl who wanted to marry a guy before diving into bed with him. She managed to get her into bed with Jean-Claude, but that's only one vampire and writing only sex scenes for him and Anita would get boring pretty quickly.
So she came up with the worst possible plot in the history of plots: OMG, let's just give her a new power that will force her to have sex with dozens of sexy men!
*headdesks*
That's really how the whole ardeur plot feels to me when I read the books. It's a cheap, easy way to have your characters fuck, and it adds nothing to the plot or character development, because it doesn't really offer the characters a choice. And choices are always more interesting to read about than outside forces.
What I also noticed is that LKH is disabling characters that could possibly call Anita on her sudden change of behavior in the sex department. Edward, who would have a few interesting things to say about recent developments, methinks, hasn't shown up in the last 3 books. Before, we saw him at least every other book, but now he's mysteriously vanished from the planet, or so it seems. And from what I know, he won't show up in DM either.
Dolph. My god, what the hell happened to poor Dolph. I didn't recognize him in CS. Now, I don't want to go tell an author how to write her own character, but damn, LKH really fucked Dolph over in the characterization department. And I think she did it because previously she'd written Dolph as a pretty well-balanced, intelligent guy, who'd definitely have a few (true!) things to say about Anita's behavior.
And then there's Ronnie, who has also mysteriously vanished, mostly, and when she shows up again (in the teaser from DM), she's suddenly jealous of all the sex Anita has with dozens of men. ...Right.
So, to make a long story short: I don't really have a problem with sex in the AB series, but I do have a BIG problem with how the sex is written. And all the angsting Anita does about it. That gets old very, very quickly. Plus the fact that the sex has mostly replaced the plot in the books. I love plot! Gimme back my plot!
And then there's of course the fact that Anita is a blatant Mary Sue, with superpowers (and she gains more every day, or so it seems), and every man she meets adores her and wants to fuck her. Well, every incredibly handsome, cute, well-hung guy she meets. The other guys either vanish (Edward), suffer from character assasination (Dolph), or are the bad guys who want to kill her (and in most of those cases, even the bad guys want to fuck her too).
*sighs*
That just bores me to tears.
At the moment, I'm slugging through Cerulean Sins. I still have about 50 pages to go, but my god, this book is dull. I fear for Incubus Dreams, which I have here on my desk waiting to be read, and I'm not even sure if I'll ever read Micah or Dance Macabre.
I still love plenty of the AB fanfiction out there, but AB canon has lost most of its appeal to me be now.