Book Review: Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Okay, deep breath everybody, because I have been saving up this rant for quite a while now.
I love vampire stories, I watched every single episode of Buffy and Angel and have read copious amounts of vampire fiction (however I feel I should mention that I have not read and have no desire to read the Twilight series).
There are some proper die hard fans of the Sookie Stackhouse series, and I'd seen trailers for True Blood and thought it looked good. Maybe I shouldn't have had any expectations going into this, but I was expecting an edgy, gory book, filled with sexy vampires, lots of action and tension. What I got was a massive let down.
For a start, Sookie, although nice must have some kind of personality disorder (on top of her little gift) because she can't make up her mind and her reactions and emotions are all over the place. One minute she's in love with Bill, the next minute she hates him. There seems to be no flow of thoughts through her head that are connected. It's more off again, on again than Ross and Rachel and at least both of those characters were likable. She also gets angry at her friends without good reason. For example, Andrea wants her to babysit the kids, but doesn't want the vampire there. Having been to 'Fangtasia' (awful name by the way), she must understand why Andrea thinks vampires are horrible and instead of storming off in a huff, she should have talked to her.
The conglomeration of other vampires we meet vary in style and substance. We meet Viking Eric, with his long blonde hair (I liked the fact that vampires couldn't change their hair once they'd been turned) who seems a bit unrealistic, but hey, he's a vampire and Long Shadow, a Native American vampire. I thought that was a fantastic idea, maybe he should have his own prequel.
The actual plot running alongside all the vampire goingson is that girls are getting murdered for being associated with vampires. The murder mystery side is good and to be honest that was the thing that kept me going to the end of the book. In fact, I added a star back on when I found out who it was because I didn't see it coming.
I also have an issue with the style of writing as a whole, it seemed so clunky and disorganised, and did we really have to know what Sookie was wearing all the time? In fact, most of the residents of Bon Temps seemed to have a fashion issue.
I told you this would be a rant! On the subject of fashion (sort of), my one rule when reading vampire fiction is that no matter how good the vampire is, he still has to be sexy (which is why I refuse to read Twilight, vampires don't glitter). I get that Bill is a good vampire and doesn't kill people anymore. I'm not expecting to walk around in leather, but there was one line that made me laugh out loud and I don't think it was supposed to. Bill and Sookie were just about to 'get it on' and he 'toed off his sandals'! Haha! I mean seriously men wearing sandals is never a good thing, ever, and vampires should definitely not be wearing them!
So as I was reaching a third of the way through I wondered why people wanted to read this book, why they kept coming back, why on earth it was a bestseller. I thought, it must be the sex. Having read some reviews of the series True Blood I know that it features a lot and gathered that they had adapted that from the book. So, the first sex scene arrived and it was dreadful, as Sookie would say 'gosh darn awful'. There was no fizzle, no excitement, no chemistry between the two. And they seem to have sex at the most awkward of times. One moment their chatting, or arguing, or she's crying and then they're at it. At one point Sookie says something about Bill's 'personality' and I wonder if she's actually met him because he doesn't seem to have any.
Another reviewer said that Dead Until Dark is like a supernatural soap opera, and I definitely agree with that. Everything seems overly heightened, characters and dialogue are over the top and they even have the names to match. It's quite ironic that the vampires (who are called Bill, Liam, Eric, Pam...) seem to have the most boring names, yet they're supposed to be the interesting people.
Overall, this book started out a guilty pleasure and just turned guilty as I read on. I may read another, but I think I'll check out the series as I've heard it's good and much better than the books!


View all my reviews