Charlaine Harris Archive

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

Posted November 4, 2011 By dorolerium

Title: Living Dead in Dallas
Author: Charlaine Harris
Publisher: Ace
Genre: Paranormal – Vampires
Pages: 279
How I Read It: Paperback purchased by me

Synopsis: When a vampire asks cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse for a favor, she complies.  And soon she’s in Dallas, using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire.  She agrees to interview the humans involved as long as the bloodsuckers promise to let them go unharmed.  Easier said than done.  All it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly…

My Review: Life with vampires is difficult for Sookie.  She used to spend all her time trying to stay out of trouble, being one of the most seemingly boring people you could meet, until a vampire walked into Merlotte’s bar one day.  And everything changed.  Now Sookie can’t seem to stay out of trouble.  I swear, every time you turn around, there’s Sookie in trouble again!

The second book in the series, like on True Blood, takes place mostly in Dallas where Sookie is helping to investigate the disappearance of a vampire.  And while the show does operate in parallel with this book, there are enough differences in this one that it kept me much more entertained.  There were times during the first book that I thought I was going to fall asleep because the TV show had mirrored it so closely.  The second one did not suffer from this problem, and I liked it a lot more because of it.

Some of the same issues that I had with book one, and with the TV series for that matter, remain in this book, mainly that Sookie is rather annoying at times, and Bill is just…ugh.  I am so not a fan of Bill Compton.  But there was a lot more Eric Northman in this book, and that is much more up my alley.  Ladies – we get a good description of Eric wearing a lycra outfit.  And since Eric is so yummy, well, it’s a pretty nice picture that I *wish* had translated over to television.

Although we’re dealing with supernatural beings throughout much of this series, the book did raise some interesting questions I hadn’t thought about in awhile in relation to the show – particularly along the lines of persecution and hatred of a type of person for something that is out of their control.  The Fellowship of the Sun, an anti-vampire church, is present throughout most of this book, and presents a somewhat sad mirror into what things can still be like in our society.  The book is worth reading for the view of these fanatics, if nothing else, at least in my opinion.

One complaint I do have is that from pretty much the start of the book, one of my favorite characters from the TV show, Lafeyette, is killed off.  That was a little bit of a slap in the face, I almost thought it was a joke at first, and it did take me some getting used to.  Even now, the knowledge that the book version of the series will have no more LaLa – it makes me want to cry a bit.  I’ll miss you, love!

Read this book if: This one is a significant improvement over the first book, but I will say that there’s enough back story needed that you shouldn’t just pick this one up.  Read the series in order, you’ll thank yourself!

My Rating: 3.5/5 – Two thumbs up, fine holiday fun!

 

Filed in 2011, Charlaine Harris, Royal Reviews | Tagged:

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Posted October 21, 2011 By dorolerium

Title: Dead Until Dark
Author: Charlaine Harris
Publisher: Ace
Genre: Paranormal – Vampires
Pages: 292
How I Read It: Paperback purchased by me

Synopsis: Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana.  She’s quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn’t get out much.  Not because she’s not pretty.  She is.  It’s just that, well, Sookie has this sort of “disability”.  She can read minds.  And that doesn’t make her too dateable.

And then along comes Bill.  He’s tall, dark, handsome – and Sookie can’t hear a word he’s thinking.  He’s exactly the type of guy she’s been waiting for all her life…

But Bill has a disability of his own: He’s a vampire with a bad reputation.  He hangs around with a seriously creepy crowd, all suspected of – big surprise – murder.  And when one of Sookie’s coworkers is killed, she fears she’s next…

My Review: This was my first foray into the Sookie Stackhouse books, all my previous experience with her was on TV in the form of True Blood.  I’ll admit that I was a little reluctant about this series because, if I’m being honest, I dislike the show more and more with each progressive season.  The only thing that kept me watching during the last season was naked men.

That being said, I didn’t like this book much at first.  I felt sort of cheated because…I’ve seen this all before.  It was hard for me throughout much of the book to set that aside because I kept losing focus, since I knew basically what was going to happen.

Somehow, about three quarters of the way through, something shifted for me and I started to like it a bit more.  Part of it was definitely because there were some things the TV show was finally leaving out, and that was making it more interesting to me.  And part of it was because I finally made it to the point where my favorite character, Eric Northman, was introduced.

I also received comments from people who have read the series and seen the show, saying the show takes a different path and the books get better, which has at least encouraged me to read further into the series.  That aside, while I still find Bill Compton to be incredibly annoying, Sookie was much more tolerable the further I got into the book.  Based on the TV show, I call her Sucky Shithouse in my head most of the time, but I was actually okay with letting her go back to her real name.

There’s a lot of vampire fiction out there these days, and I liked that this not only followed along more closely with more typical vampire lore, but it wasn’t just about “OMG I totally need to have that vampire RIGHT NOW!!!”  There’s a bit more substance to Sookie than that, and although she’s a little foolish at times, she’s much more agreeable as a heroine than say, Bella Swan.

I liked some of the characters better in the book than on the show as well, Sam Merlotte being the most notable.  He’s mostly irritating to me on the show, but more interesting in the book so far.  I thought I was going to notice the absence of Tara pretty seriously, but it turns out that she just wasn’t necessary in the books.  In fact, I think it does a better job of showing how alone Sookie really is before Bill comes along, because she really has no close friends in the book.  Somehow, having a best friend in the show takes away from that, and makes it harder to believe how wrapped up in the vampire world she gets.

I’ll be picking the second book up straight away, and keeping my fingers crossed that it continues to improve for me.  I do own the first four books in the series, so I’ll read at least that far, and we’ll go from there.

Read this book if: I think if you like vampire books, and haven’t read this one yet, you’ll like it.  If you’ve seen the show though, be prepared to feel like it’s a little boring for awhile, because season 1 of True Blood really does closely follow the book.

My Rating: 3/5 – Two thumbs up, fine holiday fun!

 

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