Dead In The Family

Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Usually I jump right into a Sookie Stackhouse book and I don't stop until I reach the end. I'm completely satisfied and can't wait to crack open the next one. Sadly, I didn't feel that way with this one. For one thing the way the book began with the very short, choppy chapters I couldn't get into the flow until around page 92 or so. Once I hit page 100 I was off and running. The build up of tension went on throughout the book as it always does but the resolution felt too quick and left me feeling a bit disappointed.

I enjoyed the growth we saw in Jason's character and I hope that remains. Sookie's internal examination of her own character and how cold she's grown towards certain things was very well done. With so many different characters it's impossible to give everyone a lot of time on the page but there's never enough Sam to suit me. I think he's probably my favorite character in the series outside Sookie herself. Here's hoping the next book is a bit more enjoyable for me.

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Only 1 in May?!

I'm kind of ashamed. I only finished one book in May. I know, for many people this is absolutely nothing to be ashamed about, but I'm a bit prideful about how quickly I can read books. May was a busy month with several different things going on both at work and in my personal life (vacations...you gotta love them). I started 2 different books and I'm still reading both of them, but then I got the call that the new Sookie Stackhouse book was on hold at the library for me.

All other books were forgotten until I finished that one.

From Dead to Worse is the eighth book in the Southern Vampire series and it is an enjoyable romp, but a bit light on mystery (was solved by about page 150 if I remember correctly) which is surprising since Charlaine Harris is fantastic at writing thought out enjoyable and not too easy to guess mysteries. At least I'm not too good at solving the mystery before Sookie. Even still, this was a fun book. Ms. Harris gave us some great moments between characters and made me laugh out loud a few times too. I enjoyed seeing Sookie deal with the consequences of various actions, one thing she doesn't shy away from even if she wants to is taking responsibility for what she's done. I also really liked the fact that she made it clear exactly what she wanted out of a relationship.

Sookie had a lot of character development, in fact many of the characters did and I was glad to see it. The banter between Sookie and Eric was fun, but I've always had a soft spot for that character since the first book in the series I read was Dead to the World. The action in the book was almost over the top - at this point Sookie is involved in more fights and conflicts than one woman ought to be. But then when you consider that Sookie is also a telepath involved with both vampire & werewolf/shifter communities I think it's easy to see why she's caught in the middle so often.

From Dead to Worse is a great Summer read. Light enough to breeze through, but engaging enough that you don't want to put it down until you're done.

Now that June is here I'm still switching back and forth between the other two books I started in May - reviews will come once I've finished them. And I'm set to check out two YA books - the very popular Twilight & a new one called Beastly. On top of that I've got Don't Know Much About U.S. History for the Book-A-Month challenge. A challenge I totally failed in May since the theme was Mothers and I didn't read a book devoted to moms. Lots to read and only a little time. I'd best get to it.

Living Dead in Dallas

Another from my Summer of Charlaine selection! (I really didn't intend to have an over-arching theme for the summer, but what can you do?)


Second in the Southern Vampire Series, Living Dead in Dallas is all about how Sookie's gift of telepathy is used by Vampire regent Eric as a favor to his counterpart in Dallas. One of the Dallas vampires has gone missing and Eric expects Sookie to be able to help find him. Instead she makes an impression on the vampires, the humans that want to rid the world of vampires, and the shapshifters she didn't even know existed. No matter what, Sookie's life is nothing if not interesting.

This one is fun, but by taking Sookie and Bill out of Bon Temps, I lost a little enjoyment because the supporting characters weren’t there. Sookie is great in any setting, but Bill just doesn’t hold my attention and even still his screen time was very limited so I had to get used to a new set of supporting characters, which we may never see again. With Living Dead I discovered that Bill isn’t on my top three favorite characters list since he tends to be a bit too cold and removed from Sookie in many ways. While I think this works really well for this character that’s forgotten what it means to be human it doesn’t endear him to me that much. The fact that he tries to see things from her point of view and sometimes will react a bit more like a regular guy is interesting, but when he shares the page with the more outrageous and charming Eric, Bill simply pales. Perhaps if I’d read the first novel before Dead to the World I wouldn’t think so, but Eric won me over in the fourth book. Still, even with the sadly dull and remote Bill, Living Dead in Dallas is a fun and enjoyable book.

Quick Status Update: The past couple of weeks have been hectic and my promised review per week simply hasn't occured. This week I'm planning on catching up with all the June reviews so I can start on the July reviews next week. While I don't intend on flooding the blogosphere I do want to catch up so I can review the books I'm currently reading rather than wracking my brain to remember what happened and exactly how I felt with the last few. Two more reviews for June then it's on to July!

Dead Until Dark

Charlaine Harris introduces the world to a new reality with Dead Until Dark. The first of the Southern Vampire series, Ms. Harris tells us about how Vampires have always been all around us, but thanks to a Japanese creation of synthetic blood now they can come out of the coffin, so to speak. With that one detail readers are whisked away into the world of Sookie Stackhouse and the small town of Bon Temps, LA.



With the first novel of a series a writer has to throw a lot of information at readers while still gaining their attention and interest in the characters. Setting up a environment, a world so similar to the "real world" with only one or two differences could be glossed over, but that's not what happens. Instead readers are shown (instead of just told) the dangers to both vampires and humans. Along the way you meet Bill the Vampire, Sam Merlote - Sookie's boss and occasional star of fantasies, her womanizing brother Jason, and a cast of characters that you enjoy visiting in other books in the series. Sookie is a reluctant sleuth, but she is a brave one. She sets out to figure out who's causing a series of murders in Bon Temps with only the smallest hesitation. Her humor and outlook on life are fun additions to the story and will keep you coming back to the series.



Two books down, thirteen more to go before September 1st.

Dead to the World

June has been the month of Mysteries. Paranormal Mysteries in fact. In May I jumped back in time with Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, an old favorite, but I just had to step away in the middle of the 5th book. There's only so much historical fiction I can take at once, so I started looking for something completely different and found Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Series.

Since I was checking the books out from the library I started with Dead to the World, which is actually the 4th book in the series. The main character, Sookie Stackhouse is a cocktail waitress with an extra gift, the ability to read minds. She lives in a world, not much different from our own, except for the vampires that freely roam the earth and are out of the coffin, so to speak. Because of Sookie's gift she finds the company of vampires soothing since she can't read their minds the way she can regular...living humans.

Her optimistic outlook on life and her feisty nature make Sookie a great heroine and an intriguing woman to the supernaturals around her. Her love life is one that while prominent in the story, it doesn't interfere with the two mysteries she's trying to solve. One on behalf of the vampires and one that is much more personal, the disappearance of her brother. In a way the resolution to these mysteries seems to happen awfully fast, but at the same time, at 320 pages, there's not a way to draw out the conflict too much. Dead to the World was a good introduction to the Southern Vampire series and made me want to continue reading about Sookie and the rest of the characters.

Oddly enough, Sookie and her friends in Bon Temps, Louisiana reminded me of the cast of characters from Mitford, North Carolina found in the Mitford series by Jan Karon. Two extremely different genres, but the small town atmosphere, and camaraderie that comes from that small town (and small ensemble) comes through in both series. Since reading Dead the the World I've gone back and read the first two books in the series. Looking forward to getting the third in July.