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A review by aceinit
Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris
1.0
Sadly, I can pinpoint when most of my favorite series went to hell. I can remember a time when those series were good. Great, even. When I didn’t pick up each new volume with a sense of dread, wondering how characters I once loved so dearly are going to be butchered at the hands of their creators. But mostly, I look back to the good old days, and point to the moment where the series jumped the proverbial shark, and think “if only that hadn’t happened....”
For Anita Blake, it came when the titular character inherited the ardeur and the series gravitated away from solving supernatural crimes to simply leading our heroine from threesome to threesome...usually with new, oh-so-conveniently hot, more-than-likely mentally anguished, and otherwise utterly unremarkable hunks of supernatural manflesh.
In The Dark Tower it was when Stephen King, author of the The Dark Tower series, introduced the central character, Roland Deschain, to a character named Stephen King, who happened to be the author of the The Dark Tower series and the creator of Roland Deschain. That one still pains me to this day.
For A Song of Ice and Fire, it was when Tyrion Lannister was reduced to jousting on the back of a pig.
For Sookie Stackhouse, it was the introduction of two characters named Claude and Claudine, who just suddenly showed up at the beginning of one book, but who were written like they’d been there all along. Their sudden inclusion baffled me so much that I spent several weeks thinking I’d missed a book in the series somewhere, and telling my friends who insisted I had not that they were wrong because who the hell are these people? Remember when Dawn just showed up at the start of season 5 of Buffy and everyone acted like she’d always existed? For me, Claude and Claudine were exactly like that. Except without the awesome backstory that was eventually revealled in Buffy.
I never liked Dawn, by the way. The same can be said for the faerie population of Harris’s world.
Which is not to say that the faeries are solely to blame for the downfall of the Sookie Stackhouse. No. Eric asking to have his hair braided factored in, too. So did bringing in lost heirs to Russian dynasties. And the family that shares a bed together sends off super-creepy vibes together. Period.
There were a lot of things that contributed to the series spiraling from something I looked forward to reading into a hot mess, and then continuing on until it actually made hot messes look respectable in comparison. But the faeries started it. They brought the initial crazy that started this downward slide. Everything else was just a side effect.
When you get to that final volume in a series you once loved, but which has now derailed into something unrecognizable, you just want there to be that one moment. Just one. Where things go back to the way they were—not in a literal aspect—but where you can find some semblance of what once made that series so great, and its characters so fantastic, what made it fun and interesting. You want that spark that makes all that post-shark-jumping insanity worthwhile.
Suffice to say, that didn’t happen.
The actual review for this book will be contained under the following spoiler tag. It gives away everything. Including the ending. Consider yourself warned.
The simple fact of the matter is, that as a closing volume in one of the most popular series of modern fiction, this book is a gross disappointment. You want to go out with a bang, to have some great final battle against a wholly memorable villain. Which I guess was Harris’s intent by introducing the “Devil.” And that would’ve been fine if he wasn’t a bit player. Our main bad guys for this installment are a preacher we haven’t heard from since the early days of the series, a lawyer who was barely mentioned in one book and whose existence I’d forgotten about entirely, Amelia’s overly-ambitious father who’s pissed because he couldn’t steal a fairy artifact, Possessed!Alcee Beck, and Arlene. That’s not bringing your A-game. That’s scarping the bottom of the barrel for a list of people you haven’t killed yet.
Oh, and the evil mastermind of the while thing is Claude, who's whole SUper!Evil!Agenda! is to teach Sookie about what ultimately comes down to a prison metaphor. Remember that point I made about the faeries ruining the series? I rest my case.
There is the continued problem the characters readers have come to love now entering into book 3 or 4 of being nothing but pissy, moody bastards. Eric remains a barely-mentioned shell of his former greatness, who get the added bonus of behaving like a petulant child who’s had his favorite toy taken away. Bill only pops by to say hello on occasion and to drop a convenient plot bomb when it becomes apparent Harris has no other way to do it.
Sam…well, I reckon after what happened in the last book, Sam’s allowed to be pissy and moody, so he gets a pass even though I really don’t want to give him one because of the way he rolls over and takes the whole situation between him and Eric that's happening in the background. Eric’s a childish brat behaving like a childish brat, even more so than he ever has before. That’s about all you need to know.
But mostly, there is Sookie, who is so caught up in her every-day banal activities such as food prep, cleaning and shopping that, when we do get some action, it’s quickly dismissed to go back to the mundane existence of her daily routine. If Harris spent half as much time actually plotting as she does describing Sook’s day-to-day existence, we might actually end up with a story worth reading.
There is a conversation with Sam that is so horrendously awkward that I physically cringed several times. Because if you want to start a relationship with the newly-discovered yet oh-so-obvious love of your life, talking about all the psycho exes you used to screw while trying to ask the new girl to be "yours"—and don’t even get me started on all this damn possessiveness in regards to how Sookie’s men consistently regard her—is not the opening gambit you want to go for.
Actually, you know what, that scene and everything after it where Sookie and Sam are together is just downright embarrassing to read. If this book isn’t nominated for the annual worst-written sex scene in literature award, I will be severely disappointed. It’s that bad. It’s worse than that bad.
And, while we’re at it, if Sam is so busy admiring Sookie’s ass while she’s line dancing, how does she manage to get kidnapped in the first place?
But it doesn't really matter, because we've devoted all that time to cooking and text messaging so we kind of need to get to the point now. So, only a few pages after our intrepid heroine is taken hostage by the villains who have been conspiring against her, the day is oh-so-dramatically saved by…queue the heralding trumpets…homophobia.
What the actual fuck, Harris?
You know, until that moment I might’ve given this one a two-star review despite its multitude of flaws. Now, I’m just wishing there was a rating below 1.
Oh, and we never do find out who the “devil” is that two people sold their souls to. Unless you can sell your soul to Claude. I’m guessing not. Apparently, who said devil is is not supposed to matter. At all. Which is bullshit after all the attention paid to him. So I am just going to assume the devil is Mr. Cataliades, because he’s the only demon standing, and that he’s been playing both sides for reasons that make about as much sense as hating the gay guy suddenly becoming more important than murdering our heroine.
At least, at the end, even the characters themselves have to admit that the entire plot they’ve been caught up in is “a bit convoluted.”
And disappointing. Very, very disappointing.
For Anita Blake, it came when the titular character inherited the ardeur and the series gravitated away from solving supernatural crimes to simply leading our heroine from threesome to threesome...usually with new, oh-so-conveniently hot, more-than-likely mentally anguished, and otherwise utterly unremarkable hunks of supernatural manflesh.
In The Dark Tower it was when Stephen King, author of the The Dark Tower series, introduced the central character, Roland Deschain, to a character named Stephen King, who happened to be the author of the The Dark Tower series and the creator of Roland Deschain. That one still pains me to this day.
For A Song of Ice and Fire, it was when Tyrion Lannister was reduced to jousting on the back of a pig.
For Sookie Stackhouse, it was the introduction of two characters named Claude and Claudine, who just suddenly showed up at the beginning of one book, but who were written like they’d been there all along. Their sudden inclusion baffled me so much that I spent several weeks thinking I’d missed a book in the series somewhere, and telling my friends who insisted I had not that they were wrong because who the hell are these people? Remember when Dawn just showed up at the start of season 5 of Buffy and everyone acted like she’d always existed? For me, Claude and Claudine were exactly like that. Except without the awesome backstory that was eventually revealled in Buffy.
I never liked Dawn, by the way. The same can be said for the faerie population of Harris’s world.
Which is not to say that the faeries are solely to blame for the downfall of the Sookie Stackhouse. No. Eric asking to have his hair braided factored in, too. So did bringing in lost heirs to Russian dynasties. And the family that shares a bed together sends off super-creepy vibes together. Period.
There were a lot of things that contributed to the series spiraling from something I looked forward to reading into a hot mess, and then continuing on until it actually made hot messes look respectable in comparison. But the faeries started it. They brought the initial crazy that started this downward slide. Everything else was just a side effect.
When you get to that final volume in a series you once loved, but which has now derailed into something unrecognizable, you just want there to be that one moment. Just one. Where things go back to the way they were—not in a literal aspect—but where you can find some semblance of what once made that series so great, and its characters so fantastic, what made it fun and interesting. You want that spark that makes all that post-shark-jumping insanity worthwhile.
Suffice to say, that didn’t happen.
The actual review for this book will be contained under the following spoiler tag. It gives away everything. Including the ending. Consider yourself warned.
Spoiler
The simple fact of the matter is, that as a closing volume in one of the most popular series of modern fiction, this book is a gross disappointment. You want to go out with a bang, to have some great final battle against a wholly memorable villain. Which I guess was Harris’s intent by introducing the “Devil.” And that would’ve been fine if he wasn’t a bit player. Our main bad guys for this installment are a preacher we haven’t heard from since the early days of the series, a lawyer who was barely mentioned in one book and whose existence I’d forgotten about entirely, Amelia’s overly-ambitious father who’s pissed because he couldn’t steal a fairy artifact, Possessed!Alcee Beck, and Arlene. That’s not bringing your A-game. That’s scarping the bottom of the barrel for a list of people you haven’t killed yet.
Oh, and the evil mastermind of the while thing is Claude, who's whole SUper!Evil!Agenda! is to teach Sookie about what ultimately comes down to a prison metaphor. Remember that point I made about the faeries ruining the series? I rest my case.
There is the continued problem the characters readers have come to love now entering into book 3 or 4 of being nothing but pissy, moody bastards. Eric remains a barely-mentioned shell of his former greatness, who get the added bonus of behaving like a petulant child who’s had his favorite toy taken away. Bill only pops by to say hello on occasion and to drop a convenient plot bomb when it becomes apparent Harris has no other way to do it.
Sam…well, I reckon after what happened in the last book, Sam’s allowed to be pissy and moody, so he gets a pass even though I really don’t want to give him one because of the way he rolls over and takes the whole situation between him and Eric that's happening in the background. Eric’s a childish brat behaving like a childish brat, even more so than he ever has before. That’s about all you need to know.
But mostly, there is Sookie, who is so caught up in her every-day banal activities such as food prep, cleaning and shopping that, when we do get some action, it’s quickly dismissed to go back to the mundane existence of her daily routine. If Harris spent half as much time actually plotting as she does describing Sook’s day-to-day existence, we might actually end up with a story worth reading.
There is a conversation with Sam that is so horrendously awkward that I physically cringed several times. Because if you want to start a relationship with the newly-discovered yet oh-so-obvious love of your life, talking about all the psycho exes you used to screw while trying to ask the new girl to be "yours"—and don’t even get me started on all this damn possessiveness in regards to how Sookie’s men consistently regard her—is not the opening gambit you want to go for.
Actually, you know what, that scene and everything after it where Sookie and Sam are together is just downright embarrassing to read. If this book isn’t nominated for the annual worst-written sex scene in literature award, I will be severely disappointed. It’s that bad. It’s worse than that bad.
And, while we’re at it, if Sam is so busy admiring Sookie’s ass while she’s line dancing, how does she manage to get kidnapped in the first place?
But it doesn't really matter, because we've devoted all that time to cooking and text messaging so we kind of need to get to the point now. So, only a few pages after our intrepid heroine is taken hostage by the villains who have been conspiring against her, the day is oh-so-dramatically saved by…queue the heralding trumpets…homophobia.
What the actual fuck, Harris?
You know, until that moment I might’ve given this one a two-star review despite its multitude of flaws. Now, I’m just wishing there was a rating below 1.
Oh, and we never do find out who the “devil” is that two people sold their souls to. Unless you can sell your soul to Claude. I’m guessing not. Apparently, who said devil is is not supposed to matter. At all. Which is bullshit after all the attention paid to him. So I am just going to assume the devil is Mr. Cataliades, because he’s the only demon standing, and that he’s been playing both sides for reasons that make about as much sense as hating the gay guy suddenly becoming more important than murdering our heroine.
At least, at the end, even the characters themselves have to admit that the entire plot they’ve been caught up in is “a bit convoluted.”
And disappointing. Very, very disappointing.