The Anita Blake 'Hit List' Drinking Game

I can't do it. I can't do another straight-up review of an Anita Blake novel . . . it's too depressing. I need alcohol to get through this, the 20th installment of a once-great series.

Let the alcohol poisoning begin!

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Drink When . . . you read this common phrase / description;

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* Someone's hair is `spilled around their shoulders' - 1 drink

* Someone's hair isn't just black, it's blue-black - 1 drink

* Somebody asks the conveniently open-ended question: `what do

you mean?' thereby prompting Anita to spout a long diatribe, explaining everything that's happening and happened in the plot up to this point, including everyone's private motivations - 1 drink

* Anita says: naked puppy piles OR naked kitty piles - 2 drinks

* Anita says that someone has `kitty-cat eyes' - 1 drink

* Anita describes Jean-Claude as being femininely beautiful, yet still utterly masculine and male - 1 drink

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Drink When . . . during one of the (many) sex scenes

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* Someone says; "so tight" or "so wet" or "so warm" while they have sex with Anita - 1 drink per term or CHUG! if someone says all three at the same time.

* Someone is so big that Anita straddles the line between pleasure and pain - 1 drink

* Anita says, "I screamed my orgasm into his mouth" - CHUG!

* Anita calls all genitalia `bits', because deep-down she's still a country-girl prude, aw shucks! - 1 drink

* Anita orders someone to "just shove it in!" - 1 drink

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Drink when Anita . . .

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* Anita calls the cachet of men in her life her `sweeties' - 1 drink

* Someone comments on Anita's stunning good looks, and Anita deflects by claiming such praise is `girly mind games' or she is paltry compared to the handsome men in her life - 1 drink

* Anita meets an attractive and powerful woman, who is dead by the end of the book- 1 drink

* A white middle-aged cop infers that Anita is a wimp/slut, and Anita takes the negativity in stride, claiming it's a `guy thing' - 1 drink

* Anita is reluctant to have sex with a stranger because, deep down, she is still a country-girl prude . . . but she soldiers on and has sex anyway (*ahem*, to feed the ardeur) - 1 drink

* Anita blushes (usually in the prelude to sex) and a man is utterly charmed by her naiveté and ability to still be embarrassed, aw shucks! - 1 drink

* A guy compliments Anita on her large breasts (to which she all but replies, "what? These old things? Aw, shucks!") - 1 drink

* Anita tries (unsuccessfully) to justify sleeping with a sixteen-year-old boy (nope . . . still fantastically creepy and inappropriate) - 2 shots

* Anita is accused of becoming `one of the monsters' she was sworn to kill - CHUG!

* Somebody (often female) challenges Anita's status as tiger queen or Nimir Ra, and claims that Anita cannot take an animal to call . . . resulting in an orgy - CHUG!

* Anita adds a new `sweetie' to her harem (reluctantly, of course) - CHUG!

* Anita has sex with a gorgeous stranger because the ardeur needs to feed and said guy is somehow down-trodden/outcast/misunderstood etc, but he appreciates Anita's blatant arousal of him (she likes me, she really likes me!) - CHUG!

* Anita gets a new scar that she doesn't care about because she has so many already and they're proof that she survived something nasty, plus she's not a girly-girl to care about how pretty she is - 1 drink, or CHUG! if Anita recounts the story of how she got the holy-cross scar on her arm to some poor, unsuspecting paramedic who just asked her if she wanted an Aspirin?

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Drink when Edward . . .

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* Anita calls Edward `good ol' boy Ted', and mentions that he wears a cowboy hat - 1 drink

* Edward wonders who would win in a fight-to-the-death between him and Anita, but doesn't live out his fantasy because they're friends - 1 drink

* Discussions about how Peter wants to be a stone-cold-killer, just like his step-daddy - 1 drink

* Edward mentions that he has modified his weapons - 1 drink

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Drink when Bernado . . .

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* Bernado or Anita mention that Bernado has a big dick - 1 drink, 2 drinks if either of them use the phrase `hung like a horse' (because his name is Bernado Spotted Horse. Get it?)

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Drink when Olaf . . .

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* Olaf does something utterly creepy, forcing Anita and Edward to threaten to kill him if he steps out of line . . . without ever actually pulling the trigger - 1 drink

* Anita muses to herself that one day Olaf will go too far and either she or Edward will have to kill him - 1 drink

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Drink when, as a reader you . . .

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* Don't have a clue who half of Anita's sexual `sweeties' are. Domino? Nicky? Bobby who? When did Anita have sex with a married guy? Huh? - 1 drink per man you can't remember reading about in previous books, but who is now a part of Anita's harem

* You grind your teeth and keep muttering `where are Jean-Claude/Nathaniel/ Asher/Jason/Micah/Richard?' - 1 drink

* You don't understand why Anita claims to miss all her sweeites so much, but doesn't even take five minutes to make a phone call home and say `hey!' - 1 drink

* You had such high-hopes for the Marmee Noir storyline, thinking that she could be the big-bad evil to turn the series around . . . only to have all your expectations dashed in one hurried and anti-climactic finale that basically ends in `happily-ever-after' - CHUG!

* You sigh and wonder whatever happened to vintage Anita Blake. The non-slutty ass-kikcker of yesteryear - 1 drink