WARNING: Spoilers
The Plot Points:
- Sookie is back and this time she’s taking a trip to Dallas.
Sookie is sent down to Dallas, Texas in order to help find a missing vampire.
- A new creature has emerged from the shadows
A maenad (a worshiper of the God of wine) has come out of the forest to deliver a message. Sookie is forced to be the middleman.
- The Fellowship of the Sun
This mysterious church (cult) has a hatred towards vampires and wants them to pay for their sins.
The Tolerable:
- Making fun of Americans.
This is the only funny/ironic sentence in the book. Although it’s Sookie saying this in her head, the author makes fun of Americans saying “God bless the American spectator” (176).
Sookie thinks this when she becomes surrounded by those who witnessed her car crash. The witnesses all interjected with their view of what happened. They made it so the members of the church, who caused the crash, were unable to get a word in. True Americans always voice their opinions and do so loudly.
- The connection making and adding to the background of characters.
This isn’t a huge part of the story, but it is found out that Bill Compton, Sookie’s vampire boyfriend, has relatives who are alive. Since he turned into a vampire after fighting in the Civil War he lost all contact with his family. Bill learns that the sheriff is his “great-great-great-grandson” and those in the Bellefleur family are related to Bill (289).
Although it’s not super important in this book (it might be in the books following), it does add to who Bill is as a character.
The Rage Fuel:
- The way characters are described…
When describing the cook at the bar who was murdered, Charlaine Harris decides that it’s super important to express just how gay the cook, Lafayette, is. He’s said to be “flamboyantly gay, makeup-and-long-fingernails gay”, because simply being gay isn’t enough (9). This is one of the worst ways a character is described, but of course there are more examples.
Just like in the first book where Sookie is said to have a “substantial bosom” she is now said to have a “voluptuous body” (40). At least the author is consistent in the way Sookie is visualized, but that doesn’t mean it’s any better to read about.
- Sookie Stackhouse is just as awful as in the first book.
Sookie still has the same awful traits as she does in the first book (consistency is key), but she’s even more of an annoying character. Bill buys a whole clothing store so she can get as many clothes as she wants/needs without having to pay for any of it. Sookie is somehow upset by this. She throws a whole tantrum about how she wanted “some damn flowers… [or] some candy”, but is really just showing how ungrateful she truly is (28).
Another example of Sookie’s ungrateful behavior is when she’s on the verge of dying from poison and a dwarf doctor is trying to save her life. Instead of thanking the doctor she, in her head, is “trying to think of an objection that wouldn’t sound homophobic or sizist” (40). She should be praising this doctor for being so generous and instead she’s more worried about the fact that she’s shorter than average.
Not only is Sookie not appreciative, but she also cheats on Bill which he never really finds out about. She kisses not only her boss but Bill’s boss as well and brushes it off as if it were the normal thing to do. Sookie and her boss gave the kiss “everything [they] had, until [she] came back to earth” (54).
Moving on to another time she cheats, is when Bill’s boss, Eric kisses her after protecting her from bullets (more will be talked about Eric in the next bullet point). Once they get up after trying to avoid the bullets, Eric tells Sookie her “lips are bloody” and then leans in for a kiss. Sookie goes along with it and poor her doesn’t “enjoy it more” because she’s finally worried about Bill (214). She’s not worried about him finding out she’s cheating, but worried that he got injured from the shooting. Which is a fair concern; however, she shouldn’t be enjoying anything unless it’s with Bill. She should also be busy trying to find Bill (if she’s truly concerned) and not getting busy with his boss.
- Men.
It’s actually bewildering how gross and disgusting the men are in this book; mainly towards Sookie. The author is trying to make it seem hot that all these men want her and how attractive Sookie is, but really it’s just disturbing.
As seen in the previous bullet point, Sookie gets in a lot of weird makeout sessions during inappropriate situations. In the first book, the reader got to see how creepy her boss was and now in this book there’s more on how Bill’s boss, Eric, is creepy.
Eric is constantly making comments about how he wants to get into Sookie’s pants. He told her, “I bet you are a treat, naked” in order to “boost [her] spirits” (186). Again Sookie brushes off these gross statements. If a man born back in at least the 1800s said anything like this to someone in real life there’s no way anyone would act as if it were normal.
So far in both books it’s seen as okay for the vampires to be overly sexual and predatory not only towards Sookie, but to others as well. It could be that this is just how the author wanted the vampires to be, but it doesn’t seem that way. The vampires only seem to act like this in order to be another reminder of how hot and attractive Sookie is. There could be better characterization of the vampires and Charlaine Harris doesn’t seem to realize this.
Another vampire Harris does this to is Godfrey. Although he’s at least paying for his sins, of “molesting and killing children” for centuries, by being a sacrifice for the Fellowship church, his crimes are just brushed off (202). Sookie is described as feeling sad when she witnesses Godfrey die. If he were a human Sookie wouldn’t have cared.
The Review:
- Bafflement: 4 out of 5 raised eyebrows
- Fast-paced: 3.5 out of 5 skimmed pages
- Disgust: 6.5 out 5 why would you do that?s and what’s wrong with you?s
- Overall: 3 out of 5 stars
