 "4 5 Stars for these books? What?" | 2008-10-05 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3S6Z40B05K64H |
| I'm giving this book the same review I gave the first book in the series... I'm going to give the books time to grow on me only because the show on HBO is great and I can't wait to see what happens. People keep telling me to stick with it because the later books are better reads , and I'm going to try my best, but good gosh the books are not that great. Conversations and actions are choppy, and the story just doesn't flow right. When I'm done reading the entire series and if I change my mind I will also change my review, but as of right now this series gets a 2 Star from me. |
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 "Read with caution - This series is addictive" | 2008-10-04 |
| - Reviewed By User: AWZFZI6GWSMZ5 |
| I read the first in this series, "Dead Until Dark" and loved it. This installment "hooked me". br /br /Sookie finds herself seriously attacked by a "creature" and is saved from a certain death by the vampires by a quite unusual approach. Sookie and Bill find themselves with a job to do for Eric (Bill's Vampire boss). This job takes Sookie and Bill to Dallas where they try to locate a missing vampire. They end up finding quite more than they bargained for including a church against vampires.br /br /There's also the murder of her co-worker that she needs to get to the bottom of and she finds herself in a very interesting sitution with Eric. And he's quite different than her vampire Bill boyfriend. All I can say is "wow". I definetly want to see more of Eric. (which is surprising because I Bill is a great character, and Sookie's first love.)br /br /Another super installment of the Southern Vampire series. If you weren't hooked after the first one, this one will definetly pull you in. |
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| "Thanks, HBO" | 2008-09-30 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1XCSAX4BRT89Y |
| If it hadn't been for the HBO series TrueBlood I probably never would have started this series. I enjoyed this book as much as I did the first one - Sookie is probably one of the most likable characters I've come across in ages. Charlaine Harris writes clever dialogue and I was hooked from page one. Looking forward to reading the next in the series... |
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| "#2 Indeed" | 2008-09-24 |
| - Reviewed By dcrazmo |
| In so many ways, this second of Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries is a huge step down from the first. Having established an atmospheric small town existence for protagonist Sookie Stackhouse and her vampire boyfriend, Harris promptly takes them out of that environment and sends them to Dallas for a dull, seemingly endless adventure. I can see shaking things up a bit and changing a series' venue, but not in the second installment. And the Dallas episode is bookended by a murder mystery so lackluster and pointless that I'm not sure why it's even part of the plot to begin with. First of all, Harris kills off one her more interesting characters, one with whom she could have gained a lot of future mileage if she'd just kept him alive. And by cramming two plot lines into one book, Harris end ups undermining both, to the point that we care about neither. I also wish Sookie were more of an amateur detective; she "solves" the crimes by reading people's minds, which happens to be a particular ability of hers. This feels like cheating to me; I prefer my sleuths to use their innate intellectual and intuitive skills. Imagine if Hercule Poirot had simply been able to read minds, rather than figure things out by using his "little grey cells." Harris has a terrific sense of humor, and has invented some fun characters here, but what makes a good mystery for me is the actual mystery; if the rest of the series is as dissatisfying and sloppy as "Living Dead in Dallas," I don't see any reason for sticking with it. |
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| "A wonderful follow up to the debut story" | 2008-09-17 |
| - Reviewed By robertwmoore |
This is the second of the eight Sookie Stackhouse novels that have been published so far. I've made my way through the fourth and will start the fifth next week. I ordered the first four novels in the series after seeing them praised in a literary bibliography of vampire novels. The annotator liked them more than the comparable series by Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton. Having read half of the novels in the series, I completely agree that this is the best vampire series of novels taking place today. There is sex in this series as in the other two, but at no point does the story get bogged down by it. (I'm not prudish about sex; I just don't think that many people can write well about it. Harris writes about it better than Rice or Hamilton, but as with the others it isn't the books' strong suit.)
In the second novel Sookie is sent to Dallas to help the vampires there by the vampire Eric. Bill goes with her and between the two of them they manage to make use of themselves. Although the book changes locations it feels pretty much the same as the first, with nice variations. New supernatural entities are encountered, the ways that vampire and shape shifter societies differ are noted, and Sookie meets another telepath. That constitutes the A plot. The B plot concerns the death of the Merlottes' short order cook, who is discovered to have been a participant in Bon Temps underground group sex community. The two stories are meshed together better than one might anticipate.
I discovered these books independently of discovering the new Alan Ball series TRUE BLOOD, based on the Sookie Stackhouse books. (I had already ordered the first four novels when I learned that the books were the source material for the show.) I am thoroughly enjoying both the books and have been wondering to what degree they will overlap. TV series are usually better when they break away to some degree from the source material and find their own voices. So far TRUE BLOOD has been a pretty straightforward take on the first Sookie Stackhouse book. But one thing occurred in the most recent episode that pretty much guarantees that Season Two will not be a take off on this novel. The main bad guy of LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS and his wife die in a mysterious car wreck. The novels do not contain a political debate over the Vampire Rights Act, but this particular novel does contain a rabid anti-vampire group. The head of the Dallas chapter is the person who dies in the car wreck in this episode. So, clearly, the show is beginning to break a bit with later novels. That is a good thing.
All in all, if you loved the first book you'll love this one. If you like the TV series you'll love the book. While I like the TV show, my favorite thing in either is Sookie's narrative voice. |
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| "Great Book!" | 2008-09-15 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1LMVZT40KETGX |
| I love this entire series! If you like mystery with a little comedy and romance you'll love it! They are a quick read and they are great to read over and over, you can just fall in love with the characters! |
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 "Not quite one, but still good." | 2008-09-09 |
| - Reviewed By User: A38DGN2C1GJ9NY |
the night is dark and eerie when a cook is murdered and Sookie is determined to find the truth. Soon after she's on her way to Dallas to locate a lost member of the Vamps. But is finding Farrell going to be what Eric has out-lined? Or will some horrible secrets be revealed in the hunt? Well, this is a Charlaine Harris novel so I guess the answer is obvious....of course there will be trouble - and what trouble it is. We're given murders, kidnappings, deceit, dismay, threats, and shape shifting during Sookie's adventure to find the answer she seeks. Like some of the other reviewers, I, too, feel this is not quite on par with the first book in the series, but it's still worth reading.
Editor of the highly recommended novel: Fates by Georgiou Tino: Best of 2008 |
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| "Blue-collar romance/thriller with a healthy dash of horror" | 2008-09-06 |
| - Reviewed By glecharles |
| It's been a few years since I read Dead Until Dark (Southern Vampire Mysteries, No. 1), the entertaining first book in Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series, but Living Dead in Dallas works quite well as a standalone novel, with Harris weaving the key points of her background story seamlessly into the fabric of this fast-paced sequel that's more violent than I remember the first one being. Equal parts romance and thriller, with a liberal dash of horror, Harris makes it work on the strength of Sookie's appealing character, a blue collar, no-nonsense Southern gal who defies most stereotypes while knowingly indulging in others when it suits her purposes...and who also happens to be a telepath in a world where vampires live openly among the living, and werewolves and other supernatural creatures exist in the shadows. There's actually two unconnected stories here, but together they nicely flesh out Sookie's world and set the stage for what should be a long-running series, not just novels, but the upcoming HBO show, too. |
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| "Sookie Stackhouse is at it again" | 2008-08-16 |
| - Reviewed By tinkerbell21 |
| How much more danger and adventure can Sookie Stackhouse get into?? Apparently quite a bit! I'm not sure I enjoyed this book quite as much as the first one, Dead Until Dark, but it still was entertaining. The whole issue with the fanatical fellowship was really interesting, and was left a little open for further mention in other books. I did feel that the murder that occured in Bon Temps was wraped up too quickly and not really given much development. I also didn't think the introduction of the maenad was very developed as well, but hopefully that will be brought up in future books. Despite these flaws, I'm just loving Sookie and Bill and all the other characters and am looking foward to reading the rest of the series. |
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| "So-so" | 2008-08-03 |
| - Reviewed By User: A38VAF4S1DARTN |
| Better than the first, but still nothing exceptional. At best, Harris seems to be a developing author in this book. At worst, she's just bad |
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