A few months before last Christmas I asked my mother for the book that had been on my 'to buy list' for quite a while, Dead Until Dark. I was still stuck in the recoil from reading the Twilight Saga and was eager to get my hands on another vampire novel. Christmas day came and somehow Santa knew what I wanted and when I woke that morning I was lucky enough to find it in my Christmas stocking. At the time I loved it, there were vampires and sex, what more could I ask for? Maybe some writing talent would have been good on hindsight. Not mentioning this at all to my mother for the rest of the year she took that as a green light to, very generously, buy me the rest of the series for me next Christmas. If it weren't for the fact that it was my mother who bought them for me I probably would not have read them but because she had bought them for me and I didn't want to risk her enforcing the guilt upon me, which she does so well, I had to continue reading them. Starting with the second one, Living Dead in Dallas.
Maybe it's that I've been watching too many Yahtzee reviews lately but whilst reading the book I realised I had a lot of critique to say about it. And so from 1.30 to 2 last night, when I had to get up 6 hours later (not that I did but that's an entirely different matter) , I decided that it was a good idea to start a book critique on it. So here goes nothing.
Much like any mainstream movie or book these days it starts of with a small town girl living in a lonely world, (excuse me, I had a brief moment of musical weakness) or more corporately, a small town. OK, it's how a lot of books start. She is a mind reader and one day meets a vampire, whose mind she cannot read much to her delight and so she falls desperately in love with him. Is it just me or is this starting to sound like a backwards Twilight? Much to my chagrin though I soon found out that Twilight was created after Dead Until Dark. The only difference is that Sookie isn't a fanpire that asks to be bitten every chance she gets.
While reading the book I would forget that I was reading a vampire novel and thought I had picked up a romance instead (you know, the kind with the ever beautiful Fabio on front.) But that's not to say I didn't mind it.
Sookie Stackhouse is one of the least likable heroins in a story I have ever read (right after Isabella Swan. What is it about fanpires that I find so detestable?). Before she even opened her mouth I hated her. She's blonde, thin and not afraid to flaunt her 'assets'. Already I feel like the tuba player in a school marching band compared to her. She's not the kind of person one can relate to and therefore makes it very difficult to get lost in the storyline. Not to mention the sheer irony of her name, Sookie. Another thing she has in common with Bella is that she whines at every chance she gets, some would think it's simply for the attention. (Sounds like most of the girls when I was at high school.) When a normal woman would practically pee herself with excitement when her brooding, chiseled boyfriend bought a mini mall and gave her free reign when it came to shopping, she simply chucked a tantrum over her pride. If I were a psychiatrist I would probably diagnose her as a 'Drama Junkie'. But maybe it's just that she has problems with saying thank you, especially to those who are constantly having to save her life. I don't understand why they don't just write her off as a liability and be done with it.
But that's not to say all the characters are unlikable. I can think of, well only one that I like so far but that's because I can imagine this Godfrey as a 17 year old Norse God with an accent, muscles covered in traditional tattoos, blonde flowing hair, walking around shirtless, carrying me off to th... sorry got a little side tracked there. Point is, she makes all of her characters very unlikable, especially Sookie. I mean isn't the whole to get you to like the main character? Or at least be able to relate to them. I guess you would if you were an undersexed housewife who escaped by putting themselves in Sookie's. Which just brings me back to the days of books with Fabio on the cover. Although maybe the author secretly hates Sookie and that's why she called her such a stupid name. She has everything the author wants and so she tortures her relentlessly to let out her own undersexed frustrations. And the vampires! I can't stand how they act. Buffy the vampire slayer made vampires sexy. Spike, Angel, Darla. Where as Charlaine makes me wants to line them up and take them out with a Gatling gun.
At one point in the book all the vampiers are assuming they've been betrayed, But Sookie has obviously done a detective course in her life and somehow knows that they've been bugged. She takes a look for 10 seconds underneath the table and finds it. Right. Not only is this improbable, but it's just plain stupid. Unless Sookie was a detective in a previous life I seriously doubt that a person of that low an IQ could even think of the idea let alone find the bug itself within 10 seconds. All throughout the book she thinks that, oh people will underestimate me because I'm blonde but doesn't mean I'm not smart. No, people are going to underestimate you because you're stupid.
That's another thing. All throughout the book the flow of the 'alright' plot line is constantly disrupted by her unnecessary thoughts of vanity and sex with her boyfriend. I mean really, they're not even funny, just pointless, mood breaking and annoying. I can't go for 15 seconds without hearing the high pitched Texan voice of Anna Paquin in my head. Who just in case you don't know, is Sookie in the TV series.
I did write down a lot of post-it-notes at 1.30 last night but just writing about little miss Stackhouse makes me annoyed. But I do have one other thing to say and that's the cover art. It's unimaginative. I liked the first one, it was sexy but every other one just looks like an albino with photo shopped lips.
I don't know, maybe you're supposed to feel sorry for her because she is so dumb and clueless and constantly getting herself into trouble but to be entirely honest I'd rather feel sorry for myself because for one she doesn't have to read the annoying story that is her life.
