Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Dead Reckoning

Minor Spoilers. I don’t think I really give anything away, but just in case…

Dead Reckoning is the latest (eleventh!) book in the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. Originally, this series was called The Southern Vampire Mysteries and when I reviewed each installment, even though it had become common to call them the Sookie Stackhouse series, I kept to the first series title. Today I don’t really want to. Where was the mystery in this installment? In previous books, though there are several different storylines, the main mystery has been something like, “Who killed Lafayette?”, “Who’s shooting shifters?” or “Where is Jason?”. I thought the mystery of Dead Reckoning was going to be “Who attacked Merlotte’s?” but that was discovered pretty quickly.

The book also wasn’t sexy enough. I know that’s not a complaint I often have about books, but this is Sookie Stackhouse. They’re the basis of the HBO series True Blood. There’s a reason the show is the way it is. This book lacked that sex appeal that the previous books had. It’s an aspect of the series I’ve come to expect. With the lack of mystery, the lack of sexiness was even more apparent

Dead Reckoning was all about enemies. There were past enemies, present enemies and dead enemies all causing problems for Sookie. Some were minor, some were major, in a terribly deadly way. Sookie spent the novel trying to figure out how to get rid of her enemies. There was a lot of death, gruesome bloody death, that was telling of how Sookie’s character has changed since way back when she dated Bill Compton.

One thing I did like is that we get to learn more about Sookie’s family history and where her telepathic gift/curse came from. We learn about her fairy heritage in some major ways. I also really liked the evolution of Dermot as a character. Though a fairy, I think he has the potential to be one of Sookie’s closest friends.

There were so many loose end at the end of this novel; Harris listed them all at the end. Sookie has to figure out a lot of different things. There were loose ends at the end of Dead In The Family that other readers complained about, but I didn’t mind the ending. I thought it was fine. It wasn’t a complete story the way some of the previous books had been, but I liked the ending. That’s not what I found at the end of Dead Reckoning. It ended with a checklist.

Though probably least favourite of the series, I still enjoyed Dead Reckoning. It gave me what I was in the mood for, supernatural mayhem. It took me only four days to read. There was a lot of action and adventure. The book was never boring. There is no way that a tangle of loose ends is going to put me off of this series. I’m itching to know what happens next to Sookie and the people in her life.


Other Reviews:
The Phantom Paragrapher  
All The Books I Can Read

If you have a review and would like me to add it, please leave a comment below.

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