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incrediblemelk 's review for:
Dead Ever After
by Charlaine Harris
Never fine literature, these novels have been getting more workmanlike, less surprising, as the series has progressed. In this final one I could tell that Harris was really not that into it any more. The gears were showing. Characters who haven't been seen for several novels suddenly pop up for spurious reasons, seemingly just to do a victory lap. And for the first time that I can recall, Harris departs from Sookie's first-person perspective to adopt an omniscient third-person narration. It really jars, since one of the best things about this series is Sookie's voice: her wry folksiness; her pleasure in her terrible, trashy dress sense; her pride in organisation and domesticity; her opinions about those she encounters.
The plot seems to be in a holding pattern. Sookie goes to work, there's a showdown at Merlotte's, she goes home, she gets visited by vampires, she goes to Fangtasia, she goes home, someone attacks her at home, she gets her supernatural friends over to protect her, she gets attacked again, some more vampires come over. Despite the fact that Sookie attracts an implausible number of enemies, and gets wounded and arrested at various points, she never feels in any real danger. The whole plot is a McGuffin because the real business of this novel is tying off the ends neatly and determining which of her various love interests Sookie will end up with.
I know the answer has been a source of angst for longtime fans, but honestly I was pleased on this front. I feel as though Harris's ultimate choice of partner for Sookie was flagged as early as the very first novel. It feels satisfying and true to character, and gives Sookie more agency and dignity – too often she's been treated as a fetish object. Perhaps my brain has been addled by reading too much of [a:Laurell K. Hamilton|9550|Laurell K. Hamilton|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1352276598p2/9550.jpg]'s faerie porn, but there seemed to be hardly any sex in this book, and not much sexual tension either. Both have been a successful part of the earlier novels, and it seems a shame to ease up on them now.
It's fascinating how much the novels have diverged from the TV series True Blood. The show is absolutely ridiculous, and as a fan of the novels I've felt annoyed by the directions in which the writers have taken Harris's characters, but I like knowing that someone is still writing adventures for Sookie and her friends and frenemies, even though Harris's series is now finished.
The plot seems to be in a holding pattern. Sookie goes to work, there's a showdown at Merlotte's, she goes home, she gets visited by vampires, she goes to Fangtasia, she goes home, someone attacks her at home, she gets her supernatural friends over to protect her, she gets attacked again, some more vampires come over. Despite the fact that Sookie attracts an implausible number of enemies, and gets wounded and arrested at various points, she never feels in any real danger. The whole plot is a McGuffin because the real business of this novel is tying off the ends neatly and determining which of her various love interests Sookie will end up with.
I know the answer has been a source of angst for longtime fans, but honestly I was pleased on this front. I feel as though Harris's ultimate choice of partner for Sookie was flagged as early as the very first novel. It feels satisfying and true to character, and gives Sookie more agency and dignity – too often she's been treated as a fetish object. Perhaps my brain has been addled by reading too much of [a:Laurell K. Hamilton|9550|Laurell K. Hamilton|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1352276598p2/9550.jpg]'s faerie porn, but there seemed to be hardly any sex in this book, and not much sexual tension either. Both have been a successful part of the earlier novels, and it seems a shame to ease up on them now.
It's fascinating how much the novels have diverged from the TV series True Blood. The show is absolutely ridiculous, and as a fan of the novels I've felt annoyed by the directions in which the writers have taken Harris's characters, but I like knowing that someone is still writing adventures for Sookie and her friends and frenemies, even though Harris's series is now finished.