I can’t begin to explain how much I am enjoying reading these books. I love them so much that I am actually having to restrain myself from reading them all at a stretch, and instead trying to extend the fun a little longer. As you can see though, I am not too successful in the attempt :).
This post is less about the story of the books, and more of my impressions. I hope that will suffice because I really don’t want to repeat the story synopsis as so many blogs have already covered these books in quite a lot of detail.
Dead Until Dark: Reading this was very familiar to me because I have watched the first season of True Blood, which stays quite faithful to the book (except for the depiction of Tara and Lafayette). Reading this book just made me love the series all the more. The folks at HBO have done a truly awesome job bringing this to the screen. I really don’t have anything new to say about this book that I haven’t said already about True Blood. All, I can say in short, is that this book rocks!
Living Dead in Dallas: This is the second adventure of Sookie Stackhouse and her vampire boyfriend Bill. This time Sookie ends up in Dallas to find a missing vampire. As soon as they arrive, they are at once right in the middle of events and meet vampires, shapeshifters, another telepath and have to put up a fierce struggle to avoid being captured by the ominous “Fellowship of the Sun” an anti-vampire club. A second plot is the murder of Lafayette. This book didn’t fly quite as quickly as the first. Sookie’s relationship with Bill gets more complicated and you get to sense that something is not going quite right there. There are also more supernatural creatures
introduced, which brings a lot more interest. Then there are the complex explanations and devices needed to explain how vampires who can’t face sunlight travel to, for example, Dallas, which slowed the book quite a bit.
Club Dead: This book is similar to book 2, in the sense that Sookie travels quite a bit out of Bon Temps. She has to save her boyfriend Bill who has been kidnapped by some other vampires. Things get quite exciting here. Sookie’s relationship with Bill is on the rocks, and it looks like there are a couple of very hot love interests in Sookie’s future. All in all, a fun read, but I started wondering if the books were getting too be a bit too monotonous.
Dead to the World: In this book, the action moves back to Bon Temps, which I love. In addition, Sookie’s brother Jason has some more prominence. The adventure just leaps off the page when Sookie finds an amnesiac vampire Eric running on the roads, and her brother goes missing. Sookie again has to be the tough girl and save the day. This is probably the most favorite of my books so far. I really loved Eric, and I loved how the book flowed. I also started loving Sookie much more, I had found her to be getting a bit bland in books 2 and 3, but she really comes into her own here. I also liked that Sookie suffers a lot less physically in this book than in the others where she really gets beaten up a lot. There were a couple of loose ends though (for example, the fairy who seems very randomly placed in the book).
Last word: These books are not great works of literature nor even great fantasy novels. These books are for those readers who read the Twilight series and found them too wimpy. Let’s face it, Sookie Stackhouse is no Isabella Swan. She may not be as physically strong as the vampires, but she is one tough cookie who has her own skills that are very valuable in saving her and her friends from danger. The vampires have respect for her as a human being, which is more than what poor Bella managed to summon up from her little vampire coven.
What I also love about these books are that they are all fairly quick reads. The book is only as long enough for the story, Charlaine Harris has not made extra efforts to plump up the novels or try to make them more than they are. For some reason, this unpretentious writing style is really endearing to me.
What I must also mention is that these books are abso blush-worthy, by that I mean sex and promiscuity and plenty of it. If that bothers you, give these books a skip.
All in all, I am highly enjoying my participation in Beth Fish’s Sookie Stackhouse Reading Challenge 🙂
I’m glad you’re enjoying these books too! I have to say that I didn’t really take to the show True Blood at all, but I only gave it two episodes. I much prefer the books.
I watched only the first season. In the first season of the show, I liked the chemistry between Bill and Sookie. Eric was a very lukewarm character.
Once I realized from the books that it is not happily ever after with the two of them, I kind of stopped watching it.
I read the first 2 books. I really enjoyed them, I am looking forward to reading 3 and 4.
*** Spoiler alert ****
About the series, I LOVE IT, I am so glad Lafaytte’s character is very different than the book and that they did not kill him off.
I know…I really love how HBO has developed Tara’s and Lafayette’s characters so much beyond the book. They have actually improved on the books, in my opinion 🙂
I also really enjoyed these books, though I admit that I had some trouble reading the first one since I read it after watching True Blood and the events in the show kept superimposing themselves on the events in the book, which left me a little unsatisfied with the book. But in the end (I’ve read the whole series by now) I loved them all, except for the most recent which I found to be very disappointing.
I was curious to know how these were, thanks! 🙂