Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris **Contains Spoilers**
The Nitty Gritty: Never a dull moment if you happen to be a telepathic barmaid in Bon Temps. Sookie has to deal with the vampire fallout after using her fairy grant a wish to save her friend and boss/partner Sam Merlotte.
You would think life would slow down for Sookie, but Arlene turns up strangled on the dumpster outside of Merlottes and Sookie is suspect #1.
Opening Line: "The New Orleans businessman, whose gray hair put him in his fifties, was accompanied by his much younger and taller bodyguard/chauffeur on the night he met the devil in the French Quarter."
What's the 411: We finally say good-bye to Sookie Stackhouse. though for me its been more like a beloved family member that has been in and out of hospice and I've just been waiting for the call informing me about the funeral arrangements. Sookie has been dying since Dead in the Family.
Is it just me or was she grasping at straws dragging up Amelie's dad? I mean who the hell even remembered the man!? I envisioned some Eric swiftness and a hostil takeover of Oklahoma and Nevada to kill two birds with one stone. Getting rid of Freya and Felipe. I mean I can't be the only one who that would have made for a blockbuster ending to this series. Instead we get Arlene's murder, as if anyone cared about her in the first place, even when he was just a dizzy barmaid at Merlottes.
I mean I was picturing Eric calling in all his chips, his favors, his children and staging a complete vampire/supe shakeup. Then I open up the book and I get Steve Newline (didn't give a damn about him during Living Dead in Dallas) so I certainly did not want to see him again. If she wanted to really bring the fairies back into play that would have been awesome I mean the little scuff up with Sookie's kidnapping it wasn't a successful resolution if you asked me in the first place. So there could have been some spillover with Eric's takeover as well. And Sookie still could have ended up with Sam at the end.
This plot was just so amateurish! It might have worked eight books ago, but not now. Not after everything we've been through with Sookie.
I mean she picked several characters that no one cared about in the first place and she chose to put them in the last book. The last Sookie novel that will be written, and after this I hope its the last. Harris lost Sookie in the shuffle of True Blood and fame and its a shame.
The Good: I can't believe that its hard for me to find something good to say about this book, but I am struggling for sure. Ok well the relationship between Sookie and Bill has gone into the friend zone comfortable. Yeah I know that's pretty lame but there isn't much I liked about this book and frankly I only read it because I couldn't not read it. I haven't bought the last two books in the series because they had been so bad.
So I guess another good thing could be that it has ended.
The Bad: Shepherd of Judah where should I start. I've got a bone to pick with Harris and her portrayal of black people in her books. I'm sorry but I'm a southern black woman and I find it a tad offensive how she writes black people. You got the singing chef at Merlottes, you got the angry at Sookie, Alcee who happens to be a dirty cop, then you got the Blade wanna-be and then the lesbian barmaid, then you gor the silent menace, but I dig skinny white boys Kenya. Oh and let's not forger the gay whore by nature first fry cook, Lafayette (who happens to be my favorite on True Blood).
Its like instead of asking questions or observing black people she took every negative stereotype she could think of and threw it into her books. Alcee is a cop that;s great, but he's a dirty cop. Well damn but wait a minute he only harasses other black people so we are supposed to forgive him for that, but then he hates Sookie because he know's she has dirty on her and the fact that she almost got his wife shot, but still we have to dislike him because he dislikes Sookie for no good reason.
People have been applauding Harris for her Rockwellesque southern towns that she had been able to create in all of her novels, but I say she does the black community a gave injustice and we make up nearly 50% of the southern population. We deserved better than what she gave us.
Ok *climbs off soapvox* Well first off let's start with the damn plot! Of all the people that Sookie has actually killed or hand a hand in their killing she gets arrested for a murder she didn't commit and the only reason being because Alcee was betwitched. Are you fricking kidding me?! Was that seriously the best she could come up with?! That is your whole plot for the last book of a series that launched paranormal romance back into mainstream and sparked a nerdgasm of a TV show with sexier than should be allowed vampires and enough sex to make the Pope salivate.
Next let's talk about the resolution of Sookie's love life. Well scratch that, her bed hopping. Now don't get me wrong I understand that in this sexual revolution we are going through that I should be celebrating Sookie screwing anything that smiles at her but I just can't get with that party. Sam even alludes to the fact that Sookie is selective in whom she takes to bed....where the hell did he get that from? I stopped being a Sookie shipper after Quinn. I mean seriously how many men was she going to go through? I frankly didn't want to see her end up with anyone. One minute she was upset that Bill had acted high handed by trying to buy things for her and take care of her, but then she gets pissed when he started lavishing money onto his family and buying them things without offering to take care of her. Are you serious? You're a barmaid and the man that you loved wanted to do something nice for you and you turned your nose up at him. Excuse me while I check back into reality.
Shippers wanted to see her end up with Eric and I ask why? When has Eric ever done or said anything that didn't first benefit Eric? Does Eric understand what love truly is? I serious doubt it. Yes he understand the mechanics of love. He;s has centuries to watch humans fall in and out of love, but I think in the end Eric only really loves Eric. Everyone else is just a prop on his stage. Eric wanted her to use the fairy Make A Wish because he didn't like being ordered about like he was a common vampire, not because he wanted to be with Sookie forever. He was going to change her against her will just as he had doen to Pam. That is not love. That is control.
The Bill ship had sailed a long time ago. Bill was just her introduction to the supe world. He was never going to be more than that and I actually liked his exit from her love life. It closed the door forever and he turned out to be a really good friend when she needed one.
I'm so glad Quinn had better things to think about than Sookie's honeypot. I didn't like how she thought Quinn should have chosen her over his family. If you love the man you take his family and you can't expect someone to just cut themselves out of their families lives because you are feeling possessive Let's not forget that she was sucking on Eric in a back hallway of a hotel and she expected Quinn to be alright with that. Harris never gave Quinn the proper chance to be the awesome character that he is and I hate that in the end she made him another background. I mean he snooped around her yard for a night before rushing off to do Eric wedding. Further reminding us that Eric is the star or the show.
And Alcide was another throwaway as well. Which was a shame, he was just a central figure in the earlier books that you would have that Harris would have spared him at least a whole chapter, but again he got to get naked in front of Sookie, whoopie, then he gets to sniff around her bedroom before leaving. What the hell was that! Was this not the man that hosted Sookie at his apartment, invited her to a packmaster selection, introduced her to his sister, took her to a werebar and protected her and all he gets is a snoop at her rug!
Now I am not saying that Sookie should have ended up with all of them, but what I am saying is that Harris could have done better by these characters.
Hell I forget all about Arlene and I'm upset that she got more screen time than Quinn and Alicide.
And though the sexual tention between Sam and Sookie has been building since Dead Until Dark their first sex scene was fade to black!!! Again what the holy hell!!! Really after all the sex scenes we've been through you can't even give Sam a proper sex scene? He's been there since day one. through the crazy girlfriends, grandma's murder, deaths, hospital visits, breakups and he gets a bikini and an orgasm with nothing in between?
Harris simply dialed in this book.
Final thoughts: I wish Harris had resisted when the publishers pushed her for more books than she had been planning. It through her off and made her scramble for things to write about, and it shows. I didn't expect this to knock my socks off but I did expect better....gotta give this
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