Sunday 22 November 2009

Dead until Dark - Charlaine Harris

I wasn't going to bother, I had a feeling that these books would not live up to the hype (or compare favourably with Twilight or the Anne Rice books) - and I was right!

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it - in a sort of sugar rush, silliness, non-brain taxing way. But I found it very difficult to get over the writing style. I'm not sure if it's just written very badly, or if it's not been edited properly, but some of the sentences were so 'clunky' and their meaning so difficult to understand, even with rereading a couple of times it was very distracting.

I know it's a bit rich to say this, but I found the whole thing so damn 'unbelieveable' - bearing in mind that you first have to get over the idea that the lead characters are a mind-reading waitress and a vampire!

Some of the things that the characters did (particularly Sookie, the main character) were just weird - why would a waitress go into a car park at night with a piece of chain to defend a vampire and expect to survive - if the vampire can be so easily overcome by the attackers what hope has she?

The main problem was that I just didn't care about the Sookie or Bill, or any of the other characters - the writer brings no dimension to them, there is nothing to make me want to know what they are going to do next or even if they survived to the end of the book - I just went on reading as there was nothing else to read at the time.

I'm going to give the series a second chance, I've ordered the second book - but to be honest I'm not holding out much hope. Maybe I've been spoilt by Twilight (which I'll be the first to admit is not a piece of great literature, but is well written and engaging nonetheless) and Anne Rice (again, not stunning literature), when it comes to my vampire reading choices?

Bought on Green Metropolis
20th -22nd November 2009

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