Book Thoughts: Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

[moonshayde]

So I just finished reading Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris.



It was okay. It was a light read and Sookie is a likeable character. Actually, I found all the characters pretty good, and unique, and the plot was decent. But I was surprised to find that I was more disappointed with it than I thought I would be. I think she has a great casual voice and I can hear her characters having that charming southern twang. I liked the atmosphere and the characters felt real. I just didn't get as hooked on it as I thought I might, given how many people love the Sookie Stackhouse books.

Maybe it's because I'm not a big vampire fan. Don't know. I thought Bill and the vampires were fascinating characters, but I wasn't sold on the romance between Sookie and Bill. It seemed more like just sex to me. Which gets me going on another topic.

The sex scenes were non-explicit and fairly tame, but I question the need for so many of them. I'm actually not against sex scenes. 99% of the time I think they are unnecessary because they hinder the plot, but I could see a couple of these as plot driven scenes. Others just seemed there for the sake of being there. So for me, the middle of the book dragged. I just wanted to get back to the murder investigation.

Also, I don't understand why female leads have to have like a half a dozen men falling all over them. I don't like it, and I haven't liked it for a long time. I understand there was rationale for it later in the book, after she had changed somewhat after consuming vampire blood, but I picked up on that vibe early on in the book as well. I think I would enjoy a book with a female lead who didn't have a bunch of guys panting over her.

So, aside from those issues, I thought it was an enjoyable book. I would probably read another, though I don't have the rush to immediately go seek one out. I'm actually far more interested in reading more of the Dresden series, as I enjoyed the first book of Butcher's series far more than I enjoyed Harris' first book of her series. Maybe the subsequent books are better.

So whenever I get around to the next one, I'll see if I like it better. I'm definitely in no hurry though, and I'm not enticed to watch True Blood from it.

Comments

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I read through the first three of the Stackhouse series, and I think I skimmed through two more (I picked them up at a used Library bookstore!).

I liked the voice, too, but as the series went on, I didn't like the increasingly unhealthy and twisted relationship between Sookie and her vamp-lover, and her other vamp-lover. The relationships are treated as unhealthy and codependent, but that doesn't mean they aren't fetishized at the same time, if you know what I mean.

I have the same complaints about female characters in urban fantasy and its variations. I think it's because of the Romance origins of much of vampire/urban fantasy lore. Not all urban fantasy (at least, the "legitimate" urban fantasy of the type written before this kind took off). Why do they have to have tons of guys falling over them and panting after them? ALL.THE.TIME?

I actually wrote a vent-post on this about urban fantasy a few months ago. I'm also sick and tired of the dom-sub relationships that uf tends to reiterate until it's dead in the water. (maybe that should be the title of the next Stackhouse book...)

I can see this variety of urban fantasy having a large crash in a couple of years. It'll always be *around*, but not in force the way it is now.

I hate to sound sexist, but uf should be labelled as "urban fantasy ROMANCE". I really am not overly fond of Romance weaseling its way into my fantasy books. I hates it.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

Oh geez, she gets another vampire lover?

What gets me is that I don't mind romance. I don't even mind a good romance triangle. And I don't mind romantic elements in my fantasy or whatever I am reading.

I just get tired of seeing female leads being this major object of affection for a large number of guys. I don't care if they are pretty or not. It just rubs me the wrong way. Can't there be something else? I don't see this as much with the male characters.

Because instead of seeing strong, female character . or normal female characters, I see women fetished as overly sexual beings, even if they aren't meant to be that way.

This is my genre. This is what I hope to be querying in by the end of the year.

And it just makes me pull my hair.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I should amend what I said a little bit. I don't mind some romance in my fantasy; but I think my views are closer to yours than I thought at first (we tend to have something of the same tastes, I think, or at least the same definitions of "good").

You're absolutely right: female protagonists are often fetishized--on the covers, in the text...

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

With Bill's boss, or, um, superior. There's a lot of titillation that goes on. Sookie DOES "take charge" at the end of one of the books, but that doesn't negate all the sadly codependent, abusive relationships that go on in the meantime.

Makes you genuinely appreciate YA fantasy books.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

Is it that Eric guy? Or someone else I haven't met yet?

I think this might be why the YA books have more range. They tend to have larger appeal in terms of finding something anyone can like.

I find myself getting so annoyed with many of the current fantasy tropes.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

You know, I practically have nothing to say now, because you've basically said it all.

I used to love Urban Fantasy to death. I loved how it wasn't bound by genre conventions, and was free to mix and match tropes to its heart's content. It made things interesting, and less predictable.

But then at some point all the other genres moved in, so instead of having a book that was "kind of this, with a bit of that, and also some of this" you had "romance novel, except he's a VAMPIRE!" and "chick-lit book, except she now can see GHOSTS!" and "Spy thriller, except with FAIRIES!" They just were all the exact same things they always were, just with the monster of the week copy-pasted in.

And with the way things are marketed, it's so hard to tell them apart from the real deal until you actually start reading them.