Dead until Dark
Ratings366
Average rating3.5
This was such a dry book. I hated how Sookie and Bill practically went from just knowing each other to dating and sleeping together. Towards the end it got much better, I hope the next book picks up a bit.
DNF'ing at 40%. This is so bad, I can't even. I was never fan of the TV show (though I did watch the first 3 seasons) because I was never sure if I was supposed to take it seriously, but this book...Yikes.
I think Sookie is supposed to come across as quirky, but to me she just sounds, well, dumb. She has no personality and she lets people walk all over her. I kept rolling my eyes at everything she said.
Bill is just as boring and creepy.
This book series is definitely not for me.
Every now and then I like to revisit titles I once really loved, my rereading of this book was such an instance. I find it hard to believe that as some point I loved Sookie so much that I named my dog after her, but I did. Somehow I remembered her as being way more bookish and less horny.
I didn't hate my time with this book but it was kind of cringy and just ok.
This is a good example of a book that performs better as an audiobook. I originally tried to read this a few years back, and just couldn't get into it. However listening recently on audio really helped me understand the tone of the story. Its very southern, in the best way possible, and acts similarly to a vampire romance parody without actually being one. It's really just a slightly kinky & unsettling mystery that doesnt take itself too seriously.
3.5 ⭐️
Pretty enjoyable story and it made me appreciate the show even more. The show mostly stayed true to the book but made all the characters more fleshed out and the bad guy was more interesting. I think this is a good book 1 but I would expect the next books to be better to keep my interest.
Audible members can get this whole series for free!
All I have to say right now (because I just finished this book and it's almost midnight) is Team Sam.
I'm experimenting with audio books. They don't usually work very well for me, but I'm starting with re-reads of fun & easy reads and we'll see where I go from there.
I read this book because I needed a book set in Louisiana to fulfill a challenge prompt. I had also watched a couple seasons of True Blood on HBO, so I was curious to see what the books are like. I found it to be good, but not great. It's what I expect from this kind of vampire story. It's easy to read and the plot line is easy to follow. Some of the characters are fun and entertaining, while some are just annoying. It's not a book that's going to stand out to me or that I will want to reread, but I do not regret reading it. I enjoyed it just fine.
I read this book while also watching the 1st season of “True Blood” and both are great! Characters are very good and Sookie's romance with the vampire is well defined! David N.
This book was an easy and fun read! Nevertheless, I guess I'm a bit spoiled by the HBO show – I really missed all the other characters' storylines. On the other hand, this different direction makes me really look forward to the next book!
I'm a huge fan of the True Blood series. It's one of my most rewatched tv series. It was amazing how familiar it was to step into the world when I picked up this book. I'm unsure on if I'll feel like I need to read the rest of this book series as I know there's some major differences involving certain characters. But this first book is a simple gem in my heart.
So... this is a story of an unusual girl who falls in love with an unusual boy. And other unusual boys also fall for her, because she's SPECIAL. And people get murdered. They solve the murders. But - I don't think they'll live happily ever after, because issues.
Pretty basic paranormal romance, nothing special. If you like paranormal romance, and are normal, you'll like these books. I'm not normal, and her reactions and reasoning are baffling to me.
What did I like about it? Er... Sam. I like Sam. (Bonus points for her saving herself.)
What I didn't like about it?
I think Sookie is a bitch. A whiny, self-centered, conceited bitch, and I don't like her.
I am really put off by the misogyny in this book.
“That DeeAnne”, Gran said, “she's been pregnant one time I know of. You just take care she doesn't have one of yours, you'lle be paying the rest of your life”
Way to go, Gran! Slutshaming and manwhore-endorsing at the same time! Yay.
Somehow I don't believe her equalism. I don't think she sees fang-bangers as her equals.
The virgin myth and virgin trope.
1) she's a virgin, he's experienced.
2) first time hurts. No. If sex hurts, you are doing it wrong, even if it's the first time. Or there's something wrong. Like physically wrong, something that needs medical attention.
3) this inexperienced girl is a sex goddess who intuitively knows exactly what to do in bed. (Now, sex isn't really that complicated, basically all that's needed for good sex is two people who want to have sex with each other and who like each other. Foreplay and lubrication helps, In this book there is no foreplay. It's in-out, explosions, best sex ever!
4) Best sex ever. Of course it's best sex ever, it's the only sex ever :-D What is she comparing it to? :-D So when she says “all that talk about amazing vampire sex is all true”, I say “how would you know. Have you ever had sex with an ordinary guy?”
Also, the cat. Why is it even there?
She just told him she was molested as a kid, and what does he do? Has sex with her. No.
Telling Sam “you never got in line” as a response to him being upset because she went to Bill even though he warned her, and told her that he wanted her... cold, bitch.
And then she breaks it off with Bill, because of exact the reasons Sam warned her of... bitch!
Also -
“I would never see Bill in the sunlight. I would never fix his breakfast, never meet him for lunch. I could never have a child by Bill, which was nice at least when you thought of not having to practice birth control, but... I'd never call Bill at the office to ask him to stop on the way home for some milk. He'd never join the Rotary, or give a career speech at the high school, or coach Little League Baseball. He'd never go to church with me...“
Er... so what? you could fix him supper and midnight snack. You could meet him for stargazing and full moon watching. You can adopt. You can call him and ask him to stop by the allnight open store for milk. Why would you want your husband to join the Rotary, or give a career speech etc. Why? is that really any reason to break off a relationship? “all these other people getting up and enjoying breakfast together, and I can never have that, boohoo!”. Come on!
YOU COULD HAVE THAT WITH SAM.
I was so down by then that I had to think of an upside...
... he seemed to genuinely care for me. Sex with him was absolutely great. No one would mess with me. I could relax with Bill, a luxury so precious I could not put a value on it.”
YOU COULD HAVE ALL THAT WITH SAM.
But, no. I mean, she likes him as a person, she can't read his mind either, he likes her, she thinks he's good looking - but, alas, NO ISSUES, SO NO RELATIONSHIP. Now, they might end up together in the future, I don't know, I mean... I have seen the tv series, but that's not books. If this book is anything to use as base for speculations, I would assume they'll end up together, but develop some ISSUES, because there has to be ISSUES.
“Why can't you have a regular boyfriend?”
“Because no regular guy asked me out!”
They did. But you can't, because you can read their thoughts and that's SO HORRIBLE, that you want a boyfriend whose mind you cannot read, but - uh oh, that means that THEY CAN HAVE SECRETS FROM YOU!!! And that we cannot have! A serious problem! Nononono...
Bitch.
“I can't have you trying to fine-tune my day-to-day life. I'm gonna get mad at people, people are gonna get mad at me. I can't worry about them being killed. I can't live like that, honey. You see what I'm saying?”
So far you have had problems with people and Bill didn't kill them. The only people he killed were a couple of a-holes who tried to kill you, and would have managed if not for Sam and Bill, and an old great-uncle you haven't even seen for ages. How is that fine-tuning your life? There is NOTHING here to even imply he would go killing people you are angry at.
What's her problem with Harlen? And when Harlen dies - who cares. Good riddance. Harlen who?
And then she suddenly have all these feelings to Bill when the vampire nest gets burned.
I'm not buying any of it.
“I'm not stupid” One of the stupidest things people say.
When I was stumbling over all the tropes, I got the idea of doing a feminist movie evaluation on this book. It passes Bechdel test :-D But I can't say it presents good feminist values. She doesn't have any aspirations, goals, ambitions, dreams, anything. She seems to be totally happy being a waitress and not getting an education. The only reference to future was her woe list about dating Bill and not being able to be a SAHM. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, but... she doesn't have any hobbies, talents, interests... she sits and watches television on her days off. She doesn't do anything with “girls”. We are supposed to believe Arlene is her friend, but - they don't go shopping together, or have coffee, or visit each other - the only time was when she was babysitting Arlene's kids, and Arlene seemed to be more or less scared of Bill...
Oh, that, too! Arlene asks if she can babysit her kids, and she is happy to, but then Arlene asks if Bill will be there, and Sookie says “yes”, and Arlene gets worried, because she doesn't want to let a vampire near her children. And Sookie gets offended by it! Excuse me, bitch! You have known this guy for a couple of weeks, you know what vampires have done, and you can't read his thoughts. You don't really know if you can trust him. What you do know is that he can throw cars around, and if he decides to do anything, there is nothing you can do to stop him. And you have the gumption to get your feelings hurt, because Arlene doesn't trust your boyfriend. The worst part is that Arlene is the one who gives in, is ashamed and “apologizes”, by asking her to babysit the kids again, and doesn't say anything about Bill. And even when you know she is worried, you are only happy to let him in with the kids, and not just that, but when she comes to pick her kids up, there's TWO vampires there, and not even YOU trust the other one! I wouldn't even speak to you again if I was Arlene.
She gets anemic because Bill drinks her blood, but stops taking iron because Bill doesn't like its taste. Excuse me, WHAT?!
She drives drunk. Good job, Charlaine.
The discussion about the poor girl Eric send to Bill.
There were other things, too, but what ever.
Another thing that's good. The new covers based on the tv series are better than the old ones, because I really wanted to read these books because the original covers were so amazing and promised something very different.
4 stars because Twilight is obviously a rip off of this book but this one is infinitely better, especially since it is more humourous and because the main character is 25 not 16, so there isn't some pedophilic shit going on.
It could have been a lot better don't get me wrong but it was so cute and enjoyable that I thought it needed the slight push.
I am not going to lie though, it is so obvious that it was written by a white middle-aged lady.
I would easily do also without the slut shaming and the little bit of sexism but all in all it was forgivable (a bit).
100% a palette cleanser that can be useful to read in between epic fantasy or hard-hitting contemporaries. There's not much literary merit here, and Sookie is incredibly annoying.
This is 4-stars as a fun, light hearted read. A book for escape. To be read cuddled up in a blanket on a snowy night or sipping cocktails on the beach. It is pure fun and escape from the tough reality of our world.
I absolutely loved this book. I liked the idea of vampires trying to become mainstream and drinking synthetic blood. I was surprised by the whole mystery of the book. The whole time it really did seem like Jason was killing those girls. I didn't expect the killer of those women to be who it was. I was sometimes kind of thinking it was Sam, but he had dropped Sookie off the night her gran was killed. Overall this was a very interesting book and I look forward to reading the next book in the series.
Although I don't really know what I was expecting, I was really, really disappointed in this book. I was so bored reading it, I decided to take notes on all the things I didn't like about it while I finished up the last 50 pages or so. That was much more interesting than the climax of the book.
The characters were, for the most part, terribly flat and uninteresting. They added nothing to the story. Bill was my favorite character, which isn't saying much because I didn't have much to choose from. Charlsie Tooten, for instance. She had nothing to say the entire time. I literally do not remember her character doing or saying anything. Pure filler. Lafayette, too. Sure, he was an interesting addition because he was a crossdresser, but the only thing I remember him doing was reacting to Sookie's new-found strength in the kitchen. I have no reason to dislike him or Charlsie, but they just didn't do much of anything.
Bill had the most interesting things to say, and he had a better personality than any of the other characters. Ironic, because he's THE ONE THAT'S DEAD.
I wanted to like Sookie, but some of her choices were questionable (her fashion choices aside–BANANA CLIPS, HELLO?!). I was bothered by her reaction to Gran's death. She reacted correctly upon finding her, but I would have liked to see how it really affected her afterward. There was no indication that the death of her beloved grandmother struck any kind of chord within her. Gran was one of the best characters! Poor thing.
Something else I found strange was Sookie's reaction to the cat Tina's death. She says herself that she had owned Tina for four years, but it's obvious that this incident was more profound to Sookie. Again, that's fine, but I didn't see much character development in Sookie that would indicate her sorrow for her murdered grandmother and cat. I noticed throughout the book there were sprinklings along the lines of “I'm sad, my grandma's dead and so's my cat,” but she doesn't REALLY seem to be affected by either event. It's like she's lying to the reader to make it sound like she really does feel that way, but there's no evidence for it in her behavior. I thought that was weird, and it greatly slanted my opinion of Sookie altogether.
I could write an entire review about Sam and the shapeshifting thing. I had to stop reading a couple times and just sit with my head back, attempting to perceive the circumstances that would make someone craft such a thing on paper. Short story version: Sam, you're a pervert. Sookie, you're an idiot. WHAT AN IDIOTIC DEVELOPMENT.
Finally, the line that cracked me up (unintentionally): “I thought I might watch Braveheart again: Mel Gibson in a kilt is always a mood raiser.” In what world is that not a weird thing to say?!
Sookie's narrative introduces us quickly to her world where a mixture of romance, mystery, humour and the supernatural make for an entertaining and well paced read over twelve chapters.
Positives - The tone is lighter than the television series. The writing is fresh as well, Sookie acknowledges Anne Rice's success and “Bubba” gets a mention too.
Negatives - The chapters are quite long and at times it does feel like an advertisement for product placement.
I came to the source, via the inspiration in that I've watched and throughly enjoyed “True Blood” on the television. So if you've enjoyed “True Blood”, then you may enjoy “Dead Until Dark” - just prepare yourself for some differences, courtesy of Alan Ball and HBO.
I honestly started this series with very low expectations and was pleasantly surprised to find that I quite enjoy Sookie's candid naïveté and the pacing kept things moving pretty quickly. It certainly has its differences from the TV show True Blood but I'm finding that I prefer it that way. Meaning that, while the book does have its sex scenes, they're more watered down than the show makes them out to be. And while I don't mind a graphic sex scene now and again, I can appreciate how this glossed over version suits the more conservative Southern vibe that Sookie wears like a cloak.
The first book in the series that True Blood is based on. I've never watched True Blood and don't really consider myself that interested in vampires, but I gave the first few books in this series to my Grandma for Christmas one year, and in true Grandma fashion, she read them and gave them back to me. So in case you've been living under this rock with me, here's the scoop. Sookie is a telepathic waitress in a Louisiana bar, who ends up making friends with a vampire named Bill. There have been a string of murders in town, and the townspeople are convinced that one of the local vampires committed the crimes. Although Sookie has made it her mission to not listen into people's minds, her brother and Bill convince her that listening to her patron's thoughts may be the only way to find out who the killer is. I thought it was an interesting read that moved pretty quickly, and I'll probably read the sequel since I already have it.