I keep asking myself ... Brittany, why do you like these books? They are simple reads - I can usually finish one in couple days (roughly around 300 pages), and they definitely feed into one another. No book has a clear ending, and oftentimes you simply HAVE to pick up the next one to find some sort of closure on what the heck just happened (she just got stabbed by a stake, and almost got eaten to death, and her vampire boyfriend just cheated on her ... and WHAT? It's the end!!?? Oops gotta read the next one now I guess). It's almost like drugs, they get you hooked, but you still haven't reached your "peak" yet so you have to keep trying. Or at least that's what I imagine drugs to be like? Eh, now that I've ended that tangent, let me try again to explain the conundrum of these books to you. Sookie Stackhouse is the main character. She can read people's minds (but she hates having that ability). She falls in love with Vampire Bill because guess what? He's dead. He is dead and therefore she cannot read his mind which makes her happy, and apparently having sexual relations with vampires is awesome, so that's a perk too. Here's the catch. Since meeting Bill, Sookie's life gets turned topsy turvy, and she often finds herself getting hurt in pretty horrific ways, and as much as she wants to quit loving her vampire and quit getting involved involuntarily in nasty vampire/supernatural dramas ... she just can't give up the peace of not having to invade someone's thoughts... nor can she give up the good sex. And so she keeps getting pulled into all this crap, and it makes for a pretty entertaining, often very funny, and somewhat perverse story line.
Oh ... probably should have mentioned that the whole reason vampires are out and about in common society is because the Japanese invented a synthetic blood that satisfies vampires' nutritional needs and therefore they no longer need to munch on humans, which in their eyes made it safe to "come out of the coffin" and let humans everywhere know that "HEY! We exist!"
Should you start reading this series? I would say if you like the TV show then yes, you should. Generally people who enjoy also enjoy the books, although beware that there are some major differences between the two Sookie Stackhouse stories. HBO's skips some of the love affair business that the books dwell on, and some characters that are prominent on the TV show barely exist in the books. If you can love each on its own merits, then take a risk and go for reading the books. I saw the TV show first, and that's what piqued my interest in asking for the books. Also, be aware that there are quite a few novels, which is awesome because the story is prolonged - so if you like it, there's lots of it. The bad thing is (as I was saying) that once you get started it's hard to stop because each book ends in a cliff-hanger.
Overall, these books are not sappy like the "Twilight" books are, and they're not nearly as dark as Anne Rice's novels, but they stand on their own as an entertaining and ridiculous set of events that change a girl's world forever - not necessarily for the better, but definitely for the more "interesting" ... her life is yours to balk at, laugh at, dream of, and smile at. Enjoy (if you dare)!
So ... to wrap up ... I'm currently on book four - I will let you know (whether you want to know or not) how the rest of the books add up. And as you can tell by the HBO pictures and the book covers ... it seems the books are meant to be taken a whole heck of lot less seriously than the show itself (even though the show does have its humor). The show takes the books' plots and makes them deeper and darker, but still thoroughly enjoyable.
Book Four - Dead to the World
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