book 11: dead until dark

Book one of the Sookie Stackhouse Novels is kind of sweet and chatty and rambly, and follows the same basic path as the first season, but doesn't quite take the same path to get there. Things are rearranged some, and happen in different ways, and it's entirely inside Sookie's head, whereas the show gets the luxury of being in other peoples' points of view as well. Most of what I thought about the book was in the Notes I posted about it before, but here's a bit more, now that I've reached the end and I've had an hour or two to go over it in my head:

- I don't really understand what Sookie and Bill see in eachother, other than the fact that she wanted to fall for a vampire and they were obviously written to be together. Book!Bill explains much less to her than TV!Bill does, and so we never really know what he's doing, what he means when he says things, what he's thinking-- this last is part of why Sookie likes him, but it makes it a little frustrating in the reading, when we can know everyone else so much deeper, and it makes me wonder why it doesn't bother Sookie more. On top of this, Bill treats her like a doll and an invalid through most of the book, and that doesn't seem to bother her much, either, which annoys me, and when she does complain, she sort of still lets him be like that, so it's a moot point.

- I'm not sure why Vampires would want to be in the South; there's so much sun here. It's like vamps in LA or the Mexican desert. It makes no sense. Vamps in Alaska or Sweden? That makes sense.

- The ending of the show is more effective, I think, but both sort of come out of nowhere. I don't know how long ago this book was written, and how early in her career it was, but there wasn't alot of foreshadowing-- which might have made it feel more like it makes sense.

- I missed all the side characters that were much more fleshed out in the show, which I think benefitted from being visual instead of just trapped inside Sookie. Especially Sam and Hoyt, who are some of my fav characters in the show.

- Okay, if vampires cry blood, does blood replace other fluids in their bodies? Sex with them must be really gross, and the biting is kind of weird even as it's hot-- and Bill's pillow talk better get more tender and less clinical or I'm going to wind up checking out of this series before the end.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, but I think I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn't already seen the show-- and maybe if I hadn't already read a book that was much tigher in plotting and pacing than this one. But Sookie is pitch-perfect as a character, even when the plot has no idea what it's doing and even when various motivations are suspect, and she sort of wins me over when I'd otherwise have gotten bored with the book. And I'm actually looking forward to the next book, though who knows when I'll get to buy it.