#74 Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress living in the small southern town of Bon Temps. She lives a pretty normal life, save for one “disability.” 
She can read minds, which makes it near impossible to do things that we would find normal, such as holding down a romantic relationship. That is until she meets Bill Compton, a vampire who is attempting to “mainstream” (become a functioning member of society), and discovers that his thoughts are completely closed off from her. After saving his life (and then him saving hers) the two begin a relationship, much to the dismay of many close minded people in town. Meanwhile, Bon Temps is also suffering from a series of murders where all of the victims are found bearing fang marks. When suspicious eyes are cast on both Bill and Sookie’s own brother, Jason, Sookie can’t help but get involved in the investigation.
I was hesitant to pick up the Sookie Stackhouse series, despite all of the good I’ve heard about it, because I’m currently following several paranormal series already (Women of the Otherworld, Darkest Powers, The Dresden Files, The Kitty Norville Series, The Mercedes Thompson series, Alpha and Omega, The Hollows etc.) and didn’t know if I wanted to commit myself to what has already turned into a nine book series. Now that I’ve listened to Dead Until Dark, I know I now have another book series to follow. Sookie Stackhouse succeeds by taking conventional paranormal elements (such as a Twilight-like human/vampire romance, and a murder mystery storyline), and breathing new life into them. The small-town southern atmosphere is a nice change from a genre populated with urban settings. Another strength is with the character of Sookie herself. One of the biggest drawbacks of the “normal girl/woman falls in love with dark/mysterious vampire” plot is that the reader is likely to become so fascinated with the romance and mythology surrounding the vampire, that the female lead is likely to fade into the background and seem dull and overly conventional by comparison. By making Sookie a mind reader, the author side-steps this problem, creating a fascinating back story for our heroine and placing her in the center of the plot. Sookie is very much an innocent in this volume of the series, and her development as a result to her connection as a vampire community, was fun to watch.
I’m glad that I experienced Dead Until Dark as an audiobook. The narrator did a great job of getting Sookie down. Although some of the male characters kind of blend together, she did well on creating a variety of voices for the female characters. I’m happy that I picked up this book, and am currently enjoyed volume two even more. I would recommend this for people looking for a fun, fast, supernatural read.
Rating: four and a half stars
Length: the print version is 336 pages
Source: theaudiolibrary
TBR Pile: 144 books
Similar Books: For other paranormal reads that often involve a mystery storyline, check out The Hollows Series by Kim Harrison, The Mercedes Thompson books by Patricia Briggs (see my review of Bone Crossed), and The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher ( my reviews). Stephanie Meyer’s The Twilight Saga, also has a romance between a vampire and a human where one individual is a mind reader, but Dead Until Dark is much more adult when it comes to sexual content and violence.
Other books I've read by this author: This is my first book, but I did read her short story "Tacky" in My Big Fat Paranormal Wedding ( my review)
Up next: In a paranormal mood. I'm reading The Outlaw Demon Wails by Kim Harrison and listening to Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
xposted to bookish and temporaryworlds
She can read minds, which makes it near impossible to do things that we would find normal, such as holding down a romantic relationship. That is until she meets Bill Compton, a vampire who is attempting to “mainstream” (become a functioning member of society), and discovers that his thoughts are completely closed off from her. After saving his life (and then him saving hers) the two begin a relationship, much to the dismay of many close minded people in town. Meanwhile, Bon Temps is also suffering from a series of murders where all of the victims are found bearing fang marks. When suspicious eyes are cast on both Bill and Sookie’s own brother, Jason, Sookie can’t help but get involved in the investigation.
I was hesitant to pick up the Sookie Stackhouse series, despite all of the good I’ve heard about it, because I’m currently following several paranormal series already (Women of the Otherworld, Darkest Powers, The Dresden Files, The Kitty Norville Series, The Mercedes Thompson series, Alpha and Omega, The Hollows etc.) and didn’t know if I wanted to commit myself to what has already turned into a nine book series. Now that I’ve listened to Dead Until Dark, I know I now have another book series to follow. Sookie Stackhouse succeeds by taking conventional paranormal elements (such as a Twilight-like human/vampire romance, and a murder mystery storyline), and breathing new life into them. The small-town southern atmosphere is a nice change from a genre populated with urban settings. Another strength is with the character of Sookie herself. One of the biggest drawbacks of the “normal girl/woman falls in love with dark/mysterious vampire” plot is that the reader is likely to become so fascinated with the romance and mythology surrounding the vampire, that the female lead is likely to fade into the background and seem dull and overly conventional by comparison. By making Sookie a mind reader, the author side-steps this problem, creating a fascinating back story for our heroine and placing her in the center of the plot. Sookie is very much an innocent in this volume of the series, and her development as a result to her connection as a vampire community, was fun to watch.
I’m glad that I experienced Dead Until Dark as an audiobook. The narrator did a great job of getting Sookie down. Although some of the male characters kind of blend together, she did well on creating a variety of voices for the female characters. I’m happy that I picked up this book, and am currently enjoyed volume two even more. I would recommend this for people looking for a fun, fast, supernatural read.
Rating: four and a half stars
Length: the print version is 336 pages
Source: theaudiolibrary
TBR Pile: 144 books
Similar Books: For other paranormal reads that often involve a mystery storyline, check out The Hollows Series by Kim Harrison, The Mercedes Thompson books by Patricia Briggs (see my review of Bone Crossed), and The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher ( my reviews). Stephanie Meyer’s The Twilight Saga, also has a romance between a vampire and a human where one individual is a mind reader, but Dead Until Dark is much more adult when it comes to sexual content and violence.
Other books I've read by this author: This is my first book, but I did read her short story "Tacky" in My Big Fat Paranormal Wedding ( my review)
Up next: In a paranormal mood. I'm reading The Outlaw Demon Wails by Kim Harrison and listening to Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
xposted to bookish and temporaryworlds