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I finished this a while ago, actually, but things have been crazy here. First, the hard drive on my computer dies and that took a week to get fixed. Obviously couldn't update then (easily anyway). Then Binghamton gets hit with a massive flood, worse than the "100 year flood" of 2006. I'm OK and everything I own is OK, but they evacuated a ton of places (including our place, but I stayed home) and many roads and businesses are closed. It's been a few days of focusing on recovery. The worse thing that happened to me was the cable's been out for 3 days now, and I have to boil water to drink and such.

So, not much energy left for book reviews. *grin*

But back to this book. I read the first book and thought it was interesting. This one was a little strange. It almost felt like two books in one. It begins with a body being found in the back of the local police detective's car. This seems straightforward enough, and so one would think the rest of the book would revolve around this murder, or perhaps something larger that begins to be revealed by this murder. But then Sookie gets summoned by the local vampires and is attacked on the way there by a rather vicious creature. The vampires save her, and then tell her they need her talents to help out another set of vampires in Dallas.

Suddenly we're in Dallas and onto a whole other plot about finding a vampire who vanished from a local bar. Sookie is told to figure out what happened to him, which leads her to a local religious group intent on eradicating the vampires in their own little crusade against evil. We spend some time in Dallas with this plot and toward the end of the book return to Bon Temps, Sookie's hometown, and the original dead body found in the detective's car.

If there were some kind of connection between the two plot threads, I'd be fine, but they are completely separated. Nothing of the Dallas trip has anything to do with the dead body, and vice versa. There was nothing wrong with either plot, it just felt odd having both of them in the same book. Of the two, the more interesting one for me was the dead body in the detective's car. I really liked the resolution of that plot, since it tied in with the creature that attacked Sookie on her way to the local vampire lair. This plot also advanced Sookie and Erik's relationship, however strange that may be. This also provided some great humor, which was needed to counter the darkness of the resolution.

As for the Dallas plot . . . initially it was rough. The writing there wasn't as smooth and it wasn't as engaging to me, probably because it involved characters that were unfamiliar to me and so I wasn't as invested in them. We did learn more about the vampire culture and some of the rules and laws the vampires play by. And about halfway through the section in Dallas the writing smoothed out and I DID become engaged with the characters and the outcome. I especially liked the parts involving the vampire Godfrey. A truly evil vampire. And I liked how Sookie's moral resolve was also tested and countered by what happens in Dallas; she realizes that perhaps some things aren't as black and white, or as easy, as she might think.

So there were good aspects to both plot lines, which led to an overall good book. A little odd because of the two plots, but good.
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First off, I have not seen "True Blood" so I read this without any possible coloration from having viewed that first.

As everyone probably already knows, this is the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. The basic premise is that vampires have been legally recognized and so are now part of the world. Sookie, a waitress in the small town of Bon Temps, has been desperate to see one, so when one shows up in her town, she's instantly drawn to him, mostly out of curiosity. But when young women--all with jobs like Sookie's, and all who associate with vampires--begin turning up strangled to death, suspicions turn on this new vampire, who Sookie has now befriended. The rest of the book revolves around Sookie finding out more about the vampire world while attempting to figure out who is killing these young women, since she is obviously a potential target.

I can see why this book became so popular. It was one of the first forays into the field of urban fantasy, and it definitely has an interesting set-up and flavor. In fact, I generally don't like urban fantasy novels as they are written now, but I certainly enjoyed this book. It wasn't until chapter 2 when the book really took off for me though, when the other vampires were introduced. The first chapter felt like a regular old mystery novel with a vampire thrown in (not surprising since Charlaine Harris was more known for mysteries before this book was published), but when the additional vampires were introduced the book shifted from being a standard mystery to something very different. It introduced a darker element to the novel, one of violence and sex that wasn't present even with the first strangulation appearing in chapter 1. From that point on, the tone of the book changed and became darker and more sexual than I expected from that first chapter.

That said, I did have some issues with Sookie as a character. Occasionally, her emotional reactions to me didn't ring true. In some situations, she'd react far too strongly to something that, in comparison with some of the other stuff going on, was just over the top. And then when something truly bizarre happened, something totally outside of Sookie's experience up to that point, she wouldn't react much at all, just take it in stride. So the emotional balance threw me off a few times. Much of this imbalance came about when she was dealing with Bill, the main vampire, and their burgeoning relationship. Some of the "drama" in that relationship just felt forced.

In terms of the mystery . . . well that almost felt tacked on. The main focus for most of the book in Sookie and Bill, with the deaths and whodunit left off to the side. The ending was thus a little bizarre because so much time was spent on getting to know Bill, but he ends up not even being there when everything hits the fan. But the mystery isn't why the book is interesting and entertaining.

So, a good read, with an interesting set-up and an interesting world to explore. I'll probably go on and read the next few to see what happens, and I can certainly see why this caught the attention of readers when it first hit the shelves.

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Joshua Palmatier

April 2020

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