History YMMV / AnitaBlake

** At one point, she refuses life-or-death assistance to a werelion because he refused to have sex with her. While there were multiple lives on the line - Anita needed to feed the ardeur to pass energy to Richard anf Jean-Claude, and if Jean-Claude died a significant number of his vamps would never wake - this is still harsh when there were other options beside Joseph the werelion.

** He is not banished for wanting monogamy. He's banished because he nearly bites Anita's lips off and hits Cynric hard enough that a different angle could have killed him. And a couple books back he was right on the verge of using violence because he wasn't getting what he wanted, so it showed a pattern. (In Asher's defense the first time, it turned out Jean-Claude wasn't being entirely honest with him at the time.) It's not what Asher wants that is the issue - although Jean-Claude has, so far as we know, been honest with Asher that he is not offering monogamy and will not - so much as how he expresses it.

* SeasonalRot: Many readers have this the opinion of ''Narcissus in Chains'' (book 10) onward. Other fans believe that book 15 ''The Harlequin'', was the downhill turning point, because it had the same general plot as ''Burnt Offerings'' (the all powerful vampire council comes to town and Anita defeats them through respect and "love"). A common complaint about the later books is that Anita is increasingly a DesignatedHero prone to {{Wangst}} and the plots have devolved into [[RomanticPlotTumour Anita having relationship drama and/or explicit sex with her numerous lovers]], with the mysteries and criminal cases that were once the core aspect of the series getting comparatively little page-time.

* AcceptableTargets: Blonde women, doubly so if they are tall and thin. Hamilton's distaste for them seems to grow throughout the books.

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** The change in Richard's character is eventually explained as the result of Anita's magic going out of control, and he reverts to his older characterization when the issue is solved.
** ''Hit List'', like ''Obsidian Butterfly'' before it, features very little of slut!Anita, a focus on a U.S. Marshall case, Edward being awesome, Anita dealing with the ''ardeur'' in a calm, rational manner with little wangst, and [[spoiler: Anita dealing a nice blow to Mommie Darkest by [[TookALevelInBadass leveling in badass]] and [[CallBack using her soul-eating power she gained in ''Obsidian Butterfly]].]]

* UnfortunateImplications:
** Anita rarely willingly chooses to have sex - she has to be forced into it somehow. The first time Anita sleeps with Jean-Claude, she’s just undergone a trauma and is emotionally vulnerable and we all know he’s a ManipulativeBastard who'd been aggressively pursuing her for years by that point. The first time with Richard she was under a magical compulsion. Another character said outright to Richard that having sex with her now was comparable to rape. And let’s not get started on Micah, who completely ignored Anita telling him “no” several times and LKH’s insistence that this was not meant to be a rape scene. And then we get the Ardeur, which is basically a date rape drug that forces people to have sex. All that talk about how Anita is a liberated woman? [[http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2012/06/anita-blake-faux-champion-of-sexual.html Not so]]. And that's not even going into the times Anita herself just flat-out ignores other people's explicit refusals or other issues with consent.
** The [[http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2012/09/gblt-characters-in-anita-blake-series.html portrayal of LGBT+ characters]], especially non-straight men. Many gay male characters end up with a woman regardless. Vampire Byron has amazing sex with Anita despite being gay. Policeman Brice starts to date a female coworker as his beard with a couple chapters of admitting his sexuality to Anita. And Asher, a bisexual who prefers men to women, is demonized and shipped off for contrived reasons. Also, an awful lot of villains happen to be predatory bisexual rapists.
** [[http://www.fangsforthefantasy.com/2012/07/women-in-anita-blake-series.html The portrayal of other female characters in the series.]] If a woman dares not be called Anita, she will almost surely be portrayed as either a weak DistressedDamsel who must submit herself to the heroine's protection so Anita can look good (i.e., Donna, Gina, Violet, Jade, Marianne, Wanda, Cherry, etc.) or an Evil Enemy that Anita will defeat so she can remain as the Strongest Woman in the world (i.e., Silvie, Elizabeth, Monica, Jessica, Tammy. etc) Even more: any woman who is willing to flaunt her sexuality will be rendered as an evil whore villain (i.e. Elizabeth again, Yvette, Pallas, Thea, Musette, etc.), so only Anita can be a "good" sexy woman. Basically, the series will always make sure to let the readers know that Anita is a Strong Woman (tm) and is SO MUCH BETTER than "the other girls".
-->"Anita actually has so few women she regards as peers, that I think I would suspect any female friend she had. (...) It’s pretty sad that the strong female character is so often presented as such by emphasising how different she is from the other, lesser, more evil, more unpleasant or just plain wrong women. And if you present a character, like Anita, as so strong and capable, but then surround her with this backing - are you sending the message that she is a strong female character? Or a character who is strong, despite being female?"

* MoralEventHorizon: In the eyes of many readers, Anita crossed this when she had a man killed for [[NotGoodWithRejection refusing to sleep with her]].

* SeasonalRot: Many readers have this the opinion of ''Narcissus in Chains'' (book 10) onward. A common complaint about the later books is that Anita is increasingly a DesignatedHero prone to {{Wangst}} and the plots have devolved into [[RomanticPlotTumour Anita having relationship drama and/or explicit sex with her numerous lovers]], with the mysteries and criminal cases that were once the core aspect of the series getting comparatively little page-time.

* HilariousInHindsight / HarsherInHindsight: At one point in ''Narcissus in Chains'', Anita is talking to Jean Claude about the effects of the ardeur and quips: "Please, tell me I'm not going to turn into Slutgirl." Depending upon your views, this quote either makes you want to laugh or cry hysterically.

* {{Wangst}}: Anita is the poster girl for this trope. Her backstory ''is'' pretty sad--dead mother, father remarried a somewhat cold woman, her fiancee dumped her [[Series/TheNanny in one of those crushing scenes]], and the first guy she seriously liked after him got murdered--but she seems to think that ''her'' problems are the worst that ever existed despite the fact that most of her harem have far worse lifes than hers. Therefore, her constant whining comes across as major {{Wangst}} that gets worse with each book.

* TearJerker: the ending scene of ''Bloody Bones'' when [[spoiler: Serafina burns to death and Anita relives the death of her mother]] and Jason's reaction after confronting his father in ''Blood Noir''.

* HoYay: The fact that [[EveryoneIsBi every dude in this universe is bisexual]] doesn't hurt, but since Anita insists on chaining every dude to one-way monogamy with her, they all have to cast longing looks and rest heads on shoulders, because otherwise she'll dump them. This changes in the more recent novels, particularly around ''Danse Macabre'' where Anita [[SuddenlySexuality suddenly]] finds two dudes having anal sex a massive turn on and is perfectly fine with group sex. Good thing changing sexual preferences is just like flipping a switch.

* {{Wangst}}: Anita is the poster girl for this trope. Her backstory ''is'' pretty sad--dead mother, father remarried a somewhat cold woman, her fiancee dumped her [[Series/TheNanny in one of those crushing scenes]], and the first guy she seriously liked after him got murdered--but she seems to think that ''her'' problems are the worst that ever existed despite the fact that most of her harem have far worse lives than hers. Therefore, her constant whining comes across as major {{Wangst}} that gets worse with each book.

* SnarkBait:
** Chris Sims has [[http://www.the-isb.com/?cat=91 more than a few words to say]] about the comics, he particularly loves taking shots at the comic's [[CoversAlwaysLie misleading covers]], bad art, wasted premise, [[LeaveTheCameraRunning abysmal pacing]], and [[TheScrappy Jean-Claude]].
** One Website/YouTube user has even taken to making [[https://www.youtube.com/user/minaminokyoko#grid/user/DB6BE820E1E84CFC Anita Blake in 5 Seconds]] videos.
** [[http://eternaleve.wordpress.com/ There's now a blog reviewing the series, each book, chapter by chapter, generally raging about it.]]
** There's a [[https://www.youtube.com/user/minaminokyoko#grid/user/77CDFFA2C4B1B84F YouTube series]] where Tropers/{{Kyoko}} does dramatic readings of the books after the series SeasonalRot... with humor, of course.
** [[http://killeverybodyinthewholeworld.blogspot.com/2008/03/anita-blake-books-by-laurell-k-hamilton.html This]] "loving" parody. And [[http://www.womanist-musings.com/2010/12/spark-of-wisdom-predicting-next-anita.html this one]]. Both are actually pretty accurate recreations of how most of the recent books have gone.