I really, really fell in love with this series, and I had read each of the preceding books four or five times in the past 10 months. There were great books and some just "good" books, but I have to say, in my opinion, the quality of the writing and the plot and story of "Dead and Gone" fell way below that of the previous books in the Sookie series.
To be specific, like many of the other reviewers I do think the appearance and disappearance of characters was rushed, and Harris didn't adequately give Sookie time to make emotional sense of the many different events. It felt as if Harris was writing in shorthand - and while that may be okay for the introductory descriptions of characters and places at the beginning of each book, it does the reader a disservice for the substantive action. (SPOILER) Just one example was the moving out of Octavia - it was so stunted and never referred to again, an obvious device to get the room across from Sookie's empty again so Sookie could have more "intimate moments" shall we say...
I also thought Harris fell completely short in expanding the mythology of the series. In each of the previous novels we've found out something new about the structure of the supernatural world. There was nothing new in this book, and worse, Harris neglected the dangling issues from previous books entirely: e.g. the complication of Eric finding out that Sookie can read his mind intermittently (or of Sookie at least examining or enhancing that skill in some way or figuring out the origin of the ability - beyond the fairy blood), the expansion and increase of Sookie's telepathic powers (as we saw in previous books that she has tried to not just read minds but actually DIRECT them or speak to them) and greater telepathic powers that were hinted at in All Together Dead and other books, the greater mystery of pure shapeshifters (who can turn into anything) and the magic behind that, and, of course whether Eric and Sookie have an emotional connection beyond the blood bond or whether that can be broken, etc. Even that promised Eric backstory was just a little encapsulated drop into the book - no further development of Sookie even wondering, let alone discussing, more about Eric's sire and whether he's still around, etc, whether he ever tracked down his descendants, etc. It is also an amazingly short book compared to most of the others - like she reached 300 pages this time and simply said "Done"!
I think I'm being generous giving the book 3 stars, but I'm still committed to the series - now. After reading and re-reading all of the Sookie books and Harris' "Grave Sight" books I moved on to the Anita Blake series (by Laurel Hamilton, NOT Harris, but often recommended as similar genre reading) only to get more and more disgusted by the inconsistencies and poorer and poorer writing after the first book that I eventually didn't care anymore what happened to Ms. Blake and completely stopped reading after #12. Harris has a long way to go before anyone should give up on her - the books were getting BETTER from the first book with just a few dips along the way. That's why this one is such a disappointment for me. I'll be here for the next few books for sure, because I'm a glutton for punishment and Sookie hasn't been pushed off the rails yet. And yes, I would still recommend this to anyone reading the series just to bide their time until the next one (or the Harper Connelly coming out in the fall). I am just HOPING that the next books bring back the storytelling and plot structure we've come to expect from Charlaine Harris.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment