Bookalicious

I recently started watching True Blood on HBO on demand and heard about Charlaine Harris and her Sookie Stackhouse novels by watching the show. I thought the show was kind of campy but it had all the elements of great vampire stories from the blood tears to the can’t come out in the day light phenomena. I then decided to pick up all the Southern Vampire Series books and I ordered a box set from Amazon, and got to reading. The first book in the series is Dead Until Dark. I realized almost immediately that the show on tv was very loosely based on the book. If I thought the show was camp, I was in no way prepared for the novel.

Let me start off by saying, the book read easy and flowed well. There is a mystery to be solved and it was written well. I don’t want to give too much away on that, but the mystery was the only reason I could even continue reading this book. Maybe the book is supposed to be like a vampire romance novel, the kind of stuff where Fabio is on the cover only with fangs. If that is it then yes the book was inside it’s genre. I have been reading vampire novels since I was a teen, this had all the old cliche’s and the familiarity of that was great. I was very disappointed in the main character, I thought she was a bit slutty to be constantly throwing this purity thing around. Also as the series continues, Sookie, who doesn’t seem to be the brightest light in Bon Temps has way too many suitors to keep up with. While there isn’t much trashy sex and the word cock isn’t mentioned once (thank the gods) I felt the book had this childish theme.

Sookie is a waitress who can read minds, of course she can’t read vampire minds because they are dead. Over simplified concept yet again. I myself am a Southerner, I have a hard time with my vampires saying “Ya’ll come back now ya harr”, ok maybe it’s not that bad but its bordering. Sookie’s friends keep getting killed and Sookie is of course an apparent target of this, in the end boom mystery solved, you can kinda figure out about 2/3 into the book who the murderer is if you pay attention. The girlishness, the immaturity of Sookie is really my only problem with this book. Believe me it doesn’t get better as the series continues either. Sookie gets more supernatural suitors and there is too much supernatural stuff going on. Werewolves, Werepathers, shifters, vampires, witches, Weretigers, I was honestly surprised there was no Werepossum. Hey they are in the south. The vampire connections and world becomes over simplified while Harris fights trying to fit all these creatures into one 300 page novel. It’s really a bit laughable. If you like supernatural, mystery and you like it extra campy, than this is the series for you. If you are a Meyer, Rice fan, stay away this book will just piss you off.

(Possibly) Related Posts

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• Review: Beautiful Dead (Book 1 Jonas) by Eden Maguire