n1383651

My Take In Brief: For pure enjoyment, my favorite one so far, although I do sympathize with those who felt it was a mishmash.

Series?: Yes, this is number 5 in the Southern Vampire Mysteries, of which there are 8 in print at this writing. Check the reviews page on the sidebar to read my reviews of the first four books in the series.

Plot: Sookie stays in Bon Temps, and trouble comes to her in the form of the return of Alcide, who wants Sookie’s help in his father’s bid for pack master, Tara’s creepy vamp boyfriend, a new bartender at Merlotte’s, on loan from Eric’s bar, who may not be what he seems, and her brother’s new life as a were.

Word on the Web:

The Romance Reader, 3 hearts

[Criticisms: too much backstory, unsuccessful mystery, slow start, feels transitional.]

All About Romance, B, in which Nicole M. sounds a very common note of complaint about this entry in the series:

The man situation and the exploding paranormal aspects of Sookie’s world have me a little concerned that the series may be headed down the path of some other popular paranormal series. Love triangles are interesting for a short time, but in my opinion a love pentagram is way too much work – for the reader and Sookie. It becomes a distraction from the main storyline, which I hope will remain Sookie.

SFSite, positive

The Book Smugglers, Ana, 6 and Thea 7, with Ana sounding a familiar complaint:

I will probably sound quite sour, but really, how many times can Sookie get hurt and how many men can be attracted to her? I feel like I should start a chart for every book from now on. Sookie gets shot (tick), Sookie bleeds (tick) , Someone ( a male) sucks Sookie’s blood and finds it unbelievably good (tick), A male wants to get into Sookie’s pants (tick, tick, tick, tick, tick).

Lovevampires.com, “another gripping installment”, with this interesting factoid:

My only gripe about this story was the author recycling of two characters from her previous books.  The private detectives (Lily and Jack) that question Sookie about the disappearance of Alcide’s ex-girlfriend are the central characters from Charlaine Harris’s Shakespeare novels.

Confessions of a Convicted Bibliophile, Bella Lee,  positive

[although Bella Lee took it on the chin from reader Janette, who opined: "I have to disagree with your estimate - IMHO - this book (#5) is the weakest of the series, designed to be a transitional book ... The characters feel a bit stunted and Sookie is not at her brightest..." ]

Scooper Speaks, positive (but views it as transitional, like others above) [with links to three other reviews]

Rambles.net, positive

Debbie’s World, 3.5 stars

Greenman Review, positive, with this interesting comment:

there’s something that just doesn’t sit right with me. In this book alone, Sookie has to deal with interest from not one, not two, but FIVE guys. Whether she’s snogging one in the closet, fending off marriage proposals from another, rebuffing an ex-boyfriend over here, or playing hard to get with another, it seems as though she can’t turn around without someone else sidling up for a little action. I think I can say that this series has officially turned from “Southern vampire romance mystery” to “Southern vampire soap opera mystery” …

Wicked Melody’s Tavern, mostly positive

Amazon.com, 4 stars after 170 customer reviews

The Racy Romance Review:

I’ve let myself get behind on these reviews, and as I type this, I am nearing the end of Book 7, All Together Dead. Looking back, I mark Dead As A Doornail as the first book where I felt kind of bad for Sookie. This continued throughout the next book, which was real torture for Sookie fans like me. DAAD begins around New Year’s, and Sookie is already bucking herself up:

I gave myself a mental shake. Snapping out of a slump, that was what today was all about. No more worry! No more fear! Free and twenty-six! Working! House paid for! Money in the bank! These were all good, positive things.

When Sookie was in love with Bill, I understood her cautious entry into the vamp world. And, despite the dangers he put her in, their love was a bright spot in her life. Since the demise of that relationship, what has gone well in Sookie’s life? She had a brief bittersweet affair with Eric, and is now alone. She killed a were in self-defense, and struggles with the aftermath. Her brother Jason, always a taker, is off enjoying his new shapeshifting life. She does have a few friends, like Tara, but although we have been told over and over that Tara and Sookie have been friends since high school, not one of their encounters is warm or fun.

Sookie’s killing of Debbie Pelt, Alcide’s abjured ex, continues to plague her, both for internal reasons (her conscience) and external ones (police and P.I’s question her). Sookie tells herself:

“She was bad.” I said out loud. “She was mean and bad, and she wanted me to die for no very good reason at all.”

She decides, ultimately,

“I hadn’t been prepared to let her kill me just because it suited her to have me dead. To hell with the whole subject.”

Another heroine might have skipped right to self-righteousness. But Sookie knows that she has cut a life short, and that life is valuable, however bad the choices that have shaped it. Although paranormals are rife with heroines who excel as guiltless retribution, I was glad Sookie felt like a normal person would who had to shoot someone at close range.

I think that for Sookie, there’s a very interesting parallel between conservative Christian morality and traditional feminine norms. As the books progress, she is moving father away from both, represented in part by her rejection of the Fellowship of the Sun, and strongly in the next book with her rejection of her local priests. An emotion which signals this shift for Sookie is anger. In the first several books, she either didn’t anger, or reflected that anger was not her usual style. In later books, she’s more angry and more comfortable with it.

But she’s still the good girl, as her differing relationships with vamps from her friend Tara reveal. Tara used her vamp boyfriends to gain material possessions, and Sookie makes it clear that this is no better than fangbangers using vamps, or vamps using humans for blood. I have some mixed feelings about Sookie’s judgmental attitude towards Tara, actually. Sookie is developing a bit of a hard edge, which becomes clearer in later books.

Sookie’s house is burned down, bringing her quality of life even lower.  Her connection to the South, Bon Temps (surprisingly, the community that shunned her), and her ancestral home, inhabited by Stackhouses for generations, has been her anchor. The scene where she walks through the house, opens drawers to see keys melted together, the curtains her grandmother sewed after a pattern in JC Penney tattered, broke my heart. When a member of the local were community offers to kill the "sunbitch" who did it,

I looked at what remained of my kitchen and could almost count the feet form the falmes ot my bedroom. “I appreciate that most of all”,  I said, before my Christian self could smother the thought."

I know people are getting sick of all the men who are interested in Sookie (Bill, Eric, Sam, Calvin, Alcide), but when you get hilarious scenes like Bill and Charles trying to wrestle each other to the ground in front of Sookie’s house and Eric and Bill sizing each other up after the threat of Tara’s boyfriend has been dealt with (to which an exhausted Sookie responds by suggesting a “cock off”), it’s worth it. I think it’s normal to be sexually attracted to a number of different partners, and I think it’s normal for a friendly, beautiful, young single woman to attract a lot of suitors. And it would be like Sookie to be sexually attracted to men who might make good partners, or who at least to whom she has more than a sexual connection.  Her morals won’t allow her to have a one night stand with a stranger.

As usual, Harris weaves details about class into the story in a fascinating way. When Bill’s polished new girlfriend, Selah Pumphrey, sizes her up, Sookie reads Selah’s mind and discovers that Selah thinks Sookie must be great in bed because she’s poor and uneducated. Sookie thinks,

I’d have to tell the other poor people in Bon Temps. Here we’d been having a wonderful time screwing one another, having much better sex than smart upper-class people, and we hadn’t even appreciated it.

Sookie actually shares a very sweet and tender scene with Bill, who visits her in the hospital when she is shot, apparently by the sniper who has been taking out the shifter population in Bon Temps.

I love the way Harris drops new little details of her world into each book. In this one, we first hear about the radio station playing at Eric’s bar in Shreveport, Fangtasia. It’s WDED and it pays songs like Bob Seger’s Night Moves.

This book also made me laugh out loud several times, and since I was listening to it, this caused people next to me on the highway or on the elliptical trainer to give me strange looks. The brief passage in which Sookie calls Fangtasia, and sweater-set loving Pam answers, “Fangtasia. Where all your bloody dreams come true” in a bored voice, doesn’t know how to transfer a call, and treats Sookie to a string of epithets hurled at patrons unlucky enough to be in her way as she bring the phone to Eric, is but one example.

And there’s horror: in every book, there has been a scene of horror that has stayed with me. Sookie’s visit to Calvin’s house in Hotshot, when she realizes everyone has one of two last names, and one of two phenotypes, is quite chilling. But the big one, of course, was the conclusion of the were competition for packmaster. I loved this scene. Sookie is there to help Alcide’s father, and she does, by discovering that his opponent is cheating. But the upshot of her intervention is the worst possible outcome, a perversion of justice and the death of one competitor.

Sookie has done the right thing, but has harmed a person she meant to protect. Morally, she is blameless, but causally, she is tainted by her actions.  Just like shooting Debbie Pelt, good intentions and right action can create disastrous consequences and subsequent moral distress. This is a painful lesson, but a crucial one, IMO, and it’s a lesson that literature communicates so much more effectively than didactic prose, in my opinion. Sookie reflects, “I tried to live in my niche the best way I could.”

There were a couple of niggles: I thoroughly enjoyed Sookie and Eric’s interactions, especially now that the imperious yet mischievous Eric is back, but his appearances seemed gerry rigged at times.  Also, the sniper mystery fell completely flat for me, and the denouement felt a lot like the conclusion of a Perry Mason episode when the criminal has the soliloquy that explains what he’s done and why. And, yes, Sookie is constantly in peril, and constantyl suffering in some way. If it were me, I would have changed my name, relocated to Tampa, and taken up work in an office. But then I wouldn’t want to read about her!

But overall, I just thoroughly enjoyed this installment.

Related posts:

  1. Review: Club Dead, Charlaine Harris My Take in Brief: A terrific third installment, although I was slightly less enthralled this time out. This review contains...
  2. Review: Living Dead in Dallas, Charlaine Harris My Take in Brief: A terrific second installment. For background on this series, and introductions to the main characters, see...
  3. Review: Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris ←Cover comment: I love these covers. Whimsical, gothic, and reminiscent of the old PBS Mystery series. The cover reflects that...
  4. Review: Dead to the World, Charlaine Harris - My Take In Brief: Surprise! Jessica loves another Sookie Stackhouse book! Note: This review contains spoilers for this book,...
  5. A Change in Blog Policy Readers of this blog know that one of my goals is to link more reviews together than is usually done....
  6. Review: Blood Ties: The Turning, by Jennifer Armintrout My Take in Brief: The worst book I have read since I started this blog. But see below for a...