the latest season of "true blood" will kick off this coming sunday, and in honor of the occasion i thought i'd share my thoughts on the latest installment of the sookie stackhouse-southern vampire mysteries, dead and gone. since i first read the first eight books, i've gone back and re-read several of them...okay fine, i'll admit it, i've read dead to the world and from dead to worse multiple times solely because of the eric and sookie relationship. i have no problem confessing to the fact that i'm obsessed with eric! not only the fictional book character, but also the actor who plays him on tv: alexander skarsgård is freaking hot!!
anyway, the latest installment of sookie's story begins on the night that were-creatures and shifters come out of the metaphorical closet, an announcement that seemingly upsets the balance between the supernatural and natural worlds. surprisingly this isn't the chief conflict of the book. instead the supernatural populace currently tormenting sookie are the fairies, and even as her great-grandfather niall does all he can to protect her, she finds herself in the thick of it as per usual.
meanwhile sookie is also juggling her relationship with eric, which has been complicated by the fact that he has regained his memories of the time he spent with her during dead to the world. and she struggles with his need to protect her, her uncertainty about his real feelings, and her own uncertainty regarding her feelings. there is a really nice scene between the characters that gives us some insight into eric's character--where he comes from, who he was before he became a vampire.
ultimately i felt like the book didn't spend enough time with the characters we all know and love by engaging in all the nonsense about the fairy kingdom and its strange war with humans. and i think the issue of the were-creature and shifter reveal really got the shaft in this volume. hopefully now that the fairy story has been seemingly resolved, we can focus on the weres and vampires, and more specifically on sookie and eric.
they make huge strides in their relationship in this book, but these strides aren't given enough time to really sink in. not only do the readers not have enough time to absorb it, but sookie herself doesn't seem like she's really tracking what's happening. in some ways, in this book, sookie is given to more lassitude than usual, she doesn't seem to react as strongly or as viserally to things as she has done in the past. in some ways it's like she's wandering around in a bit of a daze. one can only hope she snaps out of it soon enough.
so overall i liked it, i loved the sookie and eric moments, and i can't wait until the next one. which needs to publish pronto!!
photo courtesy of filmonic.com.
anyway, the latest installment of sookie's story begins on the night that were-creatures and shifters come out of the metaphorical closet, an announcement that seemingly upsets the balance between the supernatural and natural worlds. surprisingly this isn't the chief conflict of the book. instead the supernatural populace currently tormenting sookie are the fairies, and even as her great-grandfather niall does all he can to protect her, she finds herself in the thick of it as per usual.
meanwhile sookie is also juggling her relationship with eric, which has been complicated by the fact that he has regained his memories of the time he spent with her during dead to the world. and she struggles with his need to protect her, her uncertainty about his real feelings, and her own uncertainty regarding her feelings. there is a really nice scene between the characters that gives us some insight into eric's character--where he comes from, who he was before he became a vampire.
ultimately i felt like the book didn't spend enough time with the characters we all know and love by engaging in all the nonsense about the fairy kingdom and its strange war with humans. and i think the issue of the were-creature and shifter reveal really got the shaft in this volume. hopefully now that the fairy story has been seemingly resolved, we can focus on the weres and vampires, and more specifically on sookie and eric.
they make huge strides in their relationship in this book, but these strides aren't given enough time to really sink in. not only do the readers not have enough time to absorb it, but sookie herself doesn't seem like she's really tracking what's happening. in some ways, in this book, sookie is given to more lassitude than usual, she doesn't seem to react as strongly or as viserally to things as she has done in the past. in some ways it's like she's wandering around in a bit of a daze. one can only hope she snaps out of it soon enough.
so overall i liked it, i loved the sookie and eric moments, and i can't wait until the next one. which needs to publish pronto!!
photo courtesy of filmonic.com.
I devoured all the Stackhouse novels about a month back and I definitely agree with your take on this one. I'm an Eric girl myself and I am hoping that she lets them stay together for awhile. I don't trust that though, Bill kept getting pimped and it made me quite angry.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the faeries, what was the point of all of that anyway? The one I liked, Claudine, got killed and Naill was kind of a jerk. And now she can't see him anymore. Thanks for sharing.
I know, I find the pimping of Bill so annoying. Especially since Eric has been so amazing in the last few books. I honestly don't understand all the Bill love. Eric has been more developed as a character throughout the series. It's totally a Dawson and Pacey situation, and I'm just praying that Eric is Pacey in the situation.
ReplyDeleteWhat also weird about all the fairy stuff is that it is first explained in a short story, so when it's first mentioned in the books I was so confused. And Claudine was the only cool one. Hopefully it's all done for.