Emily is our Goodreads pal and all-round lovely lady! 🙂 And, as you’ll know from our side-bar, her blog Confessions of a Bookaholic is one of our favourites. Throughout August and September, we will be featuring some of her book reviews on Aside from Writing so you can get to know her too!

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Cover Rating: 3/5 Stars
Overall Rating: 2.5/5 Stars

Synopsis: Sookie Stackhouse likes living in Bon Temps, Louisiana, and she likes working as a cocktail waitress at Merlotte’s. But she is having a streak of bad luck. First her co-worker is killed, and no one seems to care. Then she comes face-to-face with a beastly creature which gives her a painful and poisonous lashing. Enter the vampires, who graciously suck the poison from her veins (like they didn’t enjoy it).
The point is: the vampires saved her life. So when one of her bloodsuckers asks for a favour, she obliges-and soon Sookie’s in Dallas, using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire. She’s supposed to interview certain humans involved, but she makes one condition: the vampires must promise to behave, and let the humans go unharmed. But that’s easier than done, and all it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for thing to turn deadly…

I am really beginning to regret buying most of the series in advance now. The first book was quite good but in this one the little things began to get to me. The fact that nearly every character in the book is sexist, racist, homophobic and not very clever is just one of them. It seems the only people who sound slightly intelligent are the vampires so technically it’s species-ist too. All the discrimination may be normal for that part of the world but I hate it. The co-worker of Sookie’s that is murdered is a black, gay man and automatically that causes people not to care all that much but then when Sookie, a blond white women is nearly killed in the previous book everyone is all stressed out. It is fluffy but at the same time very crude. All that aside the book does have a few redeeming qualities. It is fairly entertaining and quite short so is good for a quick read.

I do not like many of the characters. Sookie is so stereotypical; blond, ditsy, waitress, relies on her boyfriend for everything. She is literally a feminists nightmare. Her stubbornness may make her a little more of a strong character except from the fact every time the author lets her do something that involves standing on her own two feet she is then captured, attacked or something along those lines. It’s as if the author is saying that every time our heroine does something that her possessive boyfriend doesn’t want her to do she is punished one way or another. Speaking of her possessive boyfriend, Bill is a pathetic excuse for a vampire. If Sookie was a smart girl then the moment Bill referred to her as his property she would have got as far away as possible but no, she thinks he’s sweet. The only two characters I like are Sam, Sookie’s boss who is sweet and loyal but also seems a little too obsessed with Sookie, and Eric, who is a way more badass vamp than Bill and I really want to see more of. It was Eric’s scenes that kept me reading. The only funny parts of the book belonged to him and I love funny.

Overall this is an average book in an average series but has a couple of entertaining elements. I’m going to carry on the series just because I already have the other books and it would be a waste not too. I would recomend this series to someone who want’s a quick read and doesn’t mind some offensive language and downright annoying characters. This is a very popular series but at this point I am at a loss to see why.

My Favorite Quote:
“You’ve reached Fantasia, where the undead live again every night, for bar hours, press one. To make a party reservation, press two. To talk to alive person or a dead vampire, press three. Or, if you were intending to leave a humorous prank message on our answering machine, know this: we will find you.”

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My blog: http://emily-confessionsofabookaholic.blogspot.com/