Thursday, February 12, 2009

Cannonball Read #10: Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris



I swear on all that is pure and good and sparkly, I do not have a weird obsession with vampires. A number of Cannonball members have read the Stackhouse books, and since I'm a fan/kinda fan/non fan/this show makes me want to punch koala bears but I CAN'T STOP viewer of HBO's True Blood, I was curious to read these. Plus there's the added bonus of not having to endure Anna Paquin's unicornicide-inducing portrayal of Sookie. YAY.

It's basically what I expected; the plot mirrors much of that in the first season (girls being killed, Sookie romanced by Bill), the characters ditto. Tara isn't in the first book at all, which I found refeshing even though I generally enjoy her in the show. I missed Jason, he spent most of the book showing up long enough to refute Sookie's claims about her abusive great-uncle and to flirt with the girls at Merlotte's. The biggest and most welcome disparity is the characterization of Bill. He's...kind of a dick. And I like that. Call it the Mr. Darcy Syndrome. He's a fucking vampire, so it's nice to see him acting as such instead of the eternal polite southern gentleman. What I did find lacking was the depth of the main characters...they're interesting and compelling, but they don't quite resonate emotionally as they do in the show. In a way that makes these books perfect for a translation on television. The characters are there in the most elemental of ways, so they're easy to build on in a serialized drama.

So...yeah. Funsies. No sparkles. Not well-written, but didn't leave me huddled in despair at the bottom of my tub bemoaning my increasingly terrible taste in books.

2 comments:

Mike Reyes said...

Ma'am, I'm contacting you on the Coalition of Justice for Koala Bears, and I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to cease and desist any harm on those cuddly little creatures. They're already in enough shit with the wildfires in Australia and the heatwaves, and I'm sorry but I'm just trying to help the poor little things. Instead, I must ask you to punch Michael Bay in the face, is that an alright substitute?

Julie said...

Can't do it, Mike. Must punch koalas. So cute and fuzzy. Must destroy what is pretty.