Book #39

Definitely Dead
by Charlaine Harris

Our new Charlaine Harris book arrived in the mail -- yay Sookie! -- and so I had to start refreshing myself before diving into that one. Actually, that's a good way to describe these books: refreshing. They're light, they're fast, they're fun, and yet there's a real attraction to both the character and the story. Much of the action is taken up just with Sookie's life, so it's hard to say what the focus of the book is, because it's pretty much always -- Sookie. I realized this time through just how much time she spends at work, and us with her; I'm sure this is standard for slice-of-life books, for chick lit and such, but it never is for fantasy and science fiction. I guess that's the good part here: Harris has written a wonderful slice-of-life character, as Sookie searches for love and happiness and her place in the world, and combined it with this nice fantasy world of ghosts and goblins and ghoulies. Or, more accurately, vampires and demons and weretigers, which are the focus of the one I read, Definitely Dead, which is the fifth book in the series (And I had to look over at the shelf and count, because it's hard to remember what happens in which book -- slice of life).

Definitely Dead is a good one. Actually, I'm not even sure I have a favorite among the series; all of the books have elements that I like, all of them have occasions and circumstances that stick with me, like Bubba's character and his attempts to help Sookie out, or when Sam showed up at Sookie's house as a dog and watched her get undressed, or the maenad attack, or the time Sookie had to stay at Sam's rental -- I remember that, but I'm not sure which book it's in. Of course, now that I'm working on my third time through the series in, what, two years? I'm starting to remember what happens when, because I can recall more details.

Anyway, Definitely Dead is when she goes down to New Orleans to clean out her cousin Hadley's apartment and meets Sophie-Anne LeClerq, the Queen of Louisiana. It's also when she finds out the truth about her relationship with Bill, and when she starts dating Quinn. So I like the queen but Andre creeps me out, and I hate that Sookie has to pretend to have sex with him to cover their conversation. I love Quinn but I hate that he calls Sookie "babe." It's just a term, I know, and probably a Southern man thing, but still. It's annoying. I liked that they wrapped up the Debbie Pelt subplot, but I don't really like how it happened -- the Pelts got off too easy, in my opinion. And though I like Claude and Claudine, I'm not crazy about how long that story is being stretched out without giving us more of a lowdown. I get why Claudine is there to help, but why Sookie? How does Claude play into it? What exactly is Claudine trying to help Sookie do, or avoid, or get to? Oh, and Amelia the witch bugs me; I hate really forward people who act as though they are doing you a favor by being honest and giving their opinions. Not because I don't want to hear the truth, but people like that are so often shallow in the formation of their opinions, and yet so proud they managed to successfully form and share the opinion, that they rarely tell the deep truth and yet always act like they do. Like Amelia. And I like the plotting between the king and queen, and how it turns out, except I'm mad that Wybert was killed; I thought the twin Saxons were good characters. It is nice to see Sookie gaining the privileges of being a genuinely nice and friendly person: she is gaining connections, a network of assistance. She can get a doctor to help Crystal with her miscarriage, and she can get a moving van from the Queen of Louisiana, and she can get emergency rescue help from a half a dozen different vampires. I'm happy for her in this book -- other than that heartless bastard Bill, or course, which still gets me steamed -- and that shows why these books are so much fun.