Renee H. reviewed on 5/17/2010

I decided to get this book through PaperBackSwap, because I had watched and enjoyed the first season of True Blood on DVD.

If I hadn't enjoyed the show so much, I probably would have stopped reading this book after the first or second chapter. If you have already watched the show, but not read the books, there's a good chance that you will feel the same way.

Virtually everything that I liked about the show was absent here: the subplots and development of secondary and minor characters, the mystery/detective story feel about the murders (lots of misdirection thrown in), the cheeky social commentary about vampires seeking involvement in politics and the vampire rights movement.

The book is basically a romance novel with some vampire fiction packaging (women's vampire softcore porn?). It really shows up in the often clunky prose that Harris employs. All of the characters who aren't Bill or Sookie have virtually no dimension. They're cardboard cutouts. (On the show, Sam, Jason, and even Lafayette have really great side stories--not so here. Heck, Lafayette only exists in the book to be both a token black and token gay character. And to start every brief piece of dialogue he gets with, "Girl..." The show also had Tara, who doesn't exist in the book.)

I like schlocky vampire fiction. It's a guilty pleasure. I read the Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles as a teenager, well past the point that the stories got a little thin and boring and I probably should have stopped. I read all of the Twilight series, even though I rolled my eyes at the sexual morality messages that were jammed in there without any subtlety. But I just can't bring myself to continue reading the Sookie Stackhouse series.

I'll stick to the TV show, where the writers take some interesting plot ideas that Harris penned and expand and improve them into a truly enjoyable story.

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