So I ran across this while looking at the Wikipedia page for the Anita Blake series, trying to figure out at which book I stopped reading so I could recommend the earlier ones to a friend:

"Life is too short to read books you don't like, so if you're not having a good time, stop doing it. I'm sure there are other books out there that will make you happier than mine. There are books with less sex in them, God knows. There are books that don't make you think that hard. Books that don't push you past that comfortable envelope of the mundane. If you want to be comforted, don't read my books. They aren't comfortable books. They are books that push my character and me to the edge and beyond of our comfort zones. If that's not want you want, then stop reading. Put my books away with other things that frighten and confuse or just piss you off."

- Laurell K. Hamilton, December 2006

It starts out all right, but then it takes one a hell of a left turn. I realize I'm a little late to the party on this one, but I'd like to make it quite clear that I didn't stop reading the Anita Blake books because they made me think too hard, and I resent the implication that I and other readers who skedaddled when they turned into "Anita Does St. Louis" were somehow intimidated or overfaced. I quit reading them when they stopped having plots that didn't revolve around the contents of Anita's underwear, because it was the contents of her head that I was interested in, and she seemed to lose those somewhere after book six. Did the sex make me uncomfortable? No, it made me *bored*. Really, really, honestly bored out of my ever-loving skull, because there is such a thing as too many love scenes. After a certain point it just gets old, and you're paging through waiting for the plot to pick up again, only eventually there was so damn much shagging-and-pathos that by the time I quit reading Anita's love life had become the lion's share of the plot, and not in a good way. The plots, and I use the term loosely, became bookends around one long string of rationalizations to justify the constant rotation through Anita's revolving door of a vagina, to borrow a phrase from my beloved sister. I don't watch soap operas, and I'll be damned if I'll pay eight dollars a paperback to read them. I do enjoy actual erotica, but if I want to read that, I'll buy it specifically- I read the Anita Blake books because I enjoyed the *story*, the combination of magic and detective work and interesting characters, all of which I saw increasingly less of past "Bloody Bones" until I gave up utterly on "Cerulean Sins."
I also resent the implication that anyone who gives up reading does so because they were frightened and/or confused. I consider that insulting. Frightened and confused by what? They're not dark enough to be frightening- the "monster of the week" tone takes care of that- and they're not complicated enough to be confusing. It amuses me to note that there appears to be no concept available of someone who dislikes the direction the series has taken and has signed off- according to this, you apparently either have to be squeamish, a prude, easily offended, or a fluffy bunny to give up reading Anita Blake, and there are no other choices. Bollocks. Some of us just lost interest when the plots petered out and we wandered off.
Next point- these are supposed to be *challenging?* They're supposed to "push you past that comfortable envelope of the mundane" ? Whoa, whoa, back up the bus- when did this happen? The Anita Blake novels were fun, interesting, and often witty, but they are not challenging, from a literary point of view. If you want challenging fiction, may I introduce you to Thomas Pynchon? How about Kurt Vonnegut? Julio Cortazar? Ever read the Illuminatus Trilogy? *That's* challenging. The Blake books are, or were, supernatural detective stories. They were fun and all, but not exactly classics of western literature. If the Anita Blake novels are the most envelope-pushing books you've read, I have a whole list of books to suggest to widen your world-view, but if they're also the darkest books you've ever read, you may want to be cautious about anything I suggest. Trust me, it gets a lot darker out there.