Series Review: The Sookie Stackhouse Novels aka The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris

    Two days in a row baby! So I watched True Blood and then knew that I wanted to give the books a try again. I did try a few years back when I was just in my teen fiction mood, and basically only wanted Twilight again. 

    I enjoyed the series and binge read them. I loved Sookie's strength, dedication, loyalty, and down to earth. The poor girl goes through a lot. I can't imagine being a telepath and then having to go through life like everything is normal. People guess at what is going on with her, but no one wants to really admit that it's possible. But with vampires "coming out of the coffin" it does open up minds a bit to the supernatural. Sookie meets vampire Bill, and throughout the series I had a love hate relationship with him, and to some extent she did too. 

   Since I did binge read, at times it felt like there were too many guys too close together, but she really did hint at who she will end up with, even though I did not agree. Harris defends herself against a lot of unhappy fans, saying that they are mystery not romance. And while I could sort of accept the way that things fell apart in the last few books, and that Sookie made a choice for herself, in some aspects I wish that I would have stopped reading at book 11, but that is just not in my nature, so I ploughed through, and at times wanted to throw the book or hit some certain characters upside the head. I guess that Sookie made the right choice for her given that (spoiler, highlight to read) she didn't want to be turned, and she loved the sunlight too much, but that is not the choice I would have made for myself. (spoiler, highlight to read) I adored Eric and the whole bad boy but his soft spot is Sookie. He really did care for her, and wanted to protect her though of course his methods often could be considered manipulative. It's not that I didn't like Sam, I do, but to me, it seemed that it should have stayed best friends, unless there was more lead up. Yes, she gave us plenty of hints, but it just developed in last book and didn't really give me a chance to really cheer for their relationship. I do kind of side with some that say that it felt like she gave up on the series and just kind of threw everything together in the last books. 

     Overall, 4, 7, and 9 were my favorites and if you've read that shows if you can't tell which team I am on. Oh, and After Dead was a huge disappointment.