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368 pages, Hardcover
First published May 6, 2008
“If this was The Lord of the Rings and I had a smart British voice like Cate Blanchett, I could tell you the background of the events of that fall in a really suspenseful way.”
It commences in possibly the most boring way possible, with a long and details description of a wedding. Apparently it’s an Episcopalian wedding, but since I am nowhere near as interested in Christian denominations as Harris’ assumes, I have no idea what this means or why I should care. At any rate, said wedding is massively dull. It does however give Sookie a chance to re-describe every character in the series once again, including the compulsory mention of Sam’s “halo of strawberry blond hair” , which she has somewhat of an obsession with. She also has another opportunity to display herself as the woman-hating bitch she is, when her ex-boyfriend Bill makes some tacky gesticulation in her direction to indicate that she is still in his heart, or some such mush. This she finds very romantic, despite the fact that his current girlfriend, Selah is sat next to him at the time. Selah’s feelings on the matter go unrecorded.
A few pages later Bill creeps up on Sookie whilst she is getting undressed and declares that he would love to sleep with her again. She is mildly annoyed at this voyeurism, but since being called fuckable is the greatest compliment possible for Sookie, she forgives him. To be fair, by this point Sookie has been repeatedly sexually harassed by all her soon-to-be-, current and ex-boyfriends to a point where this sort of incident must seem rather minor to her. She seems much more annoyed at Selah’s temerity in asking her about this episode than she does the matter itself, and certainly neither shows her any sympathy or evinces any interest in her situation. This is because Sookie has absolutely no fellow-feeling with women whatsoever and the only emotion they inspire in her is jealousy.
Sookie’s problems with other women, prominent throughout all the books in this series, reach a previously unmanaged level of vileness in this volume. During a meeting with her previously absent great-grandfather Sookie is led to give a slight amount of thought (which is the most she can manage in any case) to her most recent ancestors. She recalls some problems in her relationship with her mother, adds this to the new information that her father was ¼ fairy, and concludes that obviously her relationship with her mother, who died when Sookie was seven, was strained because her mother was obsessed with her husband, Sookie’s father, and thus felt sexual jealousy toward her young daughter regarding him. Personally I would have at least considered the fact that Sookie’s mother would have been coping with a child who exhibited unexplained supernatural powers, which could have contributed to her difficulty dealing with her daughter. But not Sookie. Sookie’s mother didn’t adore her. Sookie’s mother was a woman. Ergo, Sookie’s mother was a bitch who was jealous of Sookie QED.
If this damning indictment of her own mother and females in general wasn’t enough, Sookie, learning of her grandmother having born children to a man other than her husband, then proceeds to make one of the most disgusting statements I have ever had the misfortune to read:
“He raped her,” I said, almost hoping it was so. My grandmother had been the most true‐blue woman I’d ever met. I couldn’t picture her cheating anyone out of anything, particularly since she’d promised in front of God to be faithful to my grandfather.
This is not the first time by any means that Harris has made light of rape, but previously I was able to temper my repulsion somewhat with the hope that she spoke in ignorance alone. However in light of these remarks I am forced to assume that she is in fact a contemptible, narrow-minded, judgemental bitch. There’s certainly plenty of corroborating evidence for this assumption in each and every one of these awful books.
After discussing such a serious and offensive matter my usual glib criticism seems rather shallow. But since Harris has worked so hard to earn my animosity so fully, I shall continue with the denigration she so richly deserves.
The plot seems even weaker than usual, although perhaps that’s only due to it beginning to wear out through overuse. Once again Sookie is harassed, sexually and generally, by a variety of characters. The plot combines the mystery of her missing boyfriend, which goes nowhere, with the mystery of yet another random spate of werewolf attacks, which meanders through the first half of the book in constant danger of petering out. These plots eventually lead to yet another supernatural battle or incredible dullness. Meanwhile we hear a lot more about Sookie’s prowess at cleaning houses and her more limited culinary abilities, which is obviously fascinating. There’s also a spate of boyfriends and ex-boyfriends letting themselves into Sookie’s bedroom, often whilst she’s asleep. For some reason she’s not even slightly perturbed by this obsessive stalker behaviour. In other random events, Sookie confesses to murder several times to random friends and acquaintances, all of whom are similarly unperturbed, and the parents of Sookie’s murder victim suddenly turn out to have died together in a car accident, thereby allowing a boring plot from several books back to proceed. This is partially resolved when Sookie deals with a woman with whom she has a slight disagreement by having said woman’s current boyfriend (an ex love-interest of Sookie) kidnap her, and helping two witches to erase her mind of all thoughts that Sookie doesn’t like. This seems like the actions of a crazy, self-obsessed bitch to me, but as none of the characters other than the girl herself share my view the mind and character alteration proceeds. After this Sookie participates in catching her brother’s pregnant girlfriend cheating on him. Meanwhile Sookie’s flatmate has a brief lesbian relationship with Pam the vampire before deciding “Pam and I are more buddies than honeys” as soon as a man shows a sexual interest in her; this homophobic dismissal oddly earns her no apparent animosity from Pam, although it does save Harris from having to describe anything other than a heterosexual relationship. Then there is a random vampire-related attack which makes very little sense. Finally, Sookie decides to visit her long-lost nephew for some reason. This accomplished, the book ends. None of the various plot-strands are tied together, or at any point rendered interesting.
Stupidest New Character Names
Hamilton Tharp
Copley Carmichael
Octavia Fant
Remy Savoy
Niall Brigant
Corbett Hale Stackhouse
Police Chief Parfit Graham
Tyrese Marley
Dove Beck
Hunter Savoy
Most Worrying Inconsistency
Hoyt Fortenberry was previously described as Maxine Fortenberry’s grandson. He is now described as her son. There are three possible explanations for this:
1. The Fortenberry family is more inbred than I was previously aware.
2. Harris has been watching True Blood.
3. Harris is an idiot.
Most Unremarked-Upon Small-Minded Evangelism
Maxine Fortenberry on her son(?)’s new girlfriend:
“Holly’s not much of a churchgoer, but we’re working on getting her to come with us and bring Cody. We better get moving if we’re gonna be on time.”
“Eric took my hand as we walked across to the restaurant, and he ran his thumb absently across my palm. I was surprised to find out there was a direct line from my palm to my, my, hootchie.”
““So you’re breaking up with me because of my mother,” he said. He sounded bitter and I didn’t blame him.
“Yes,” I said after a moment’s inner testing of my own resolve. “I think I am. It’s not your mom as much as her whole situation. Your mother will always have to come first as long as she’s alive, because she’s so damaged. I’ve got sympathy for that, believe me. And I’m sorry that you and Frannie have a hard row to hoe. I know all about hard rows.”
…
“Yet, knowing all this, and knowing I care for you, you don’t want to see me anymore,” Quinn said, biting each word out. “You don’t want to try to make it work.”
“I care for you, too, and I had hoped we’d have a lot more,” I said. “But … your mom and Frannie , they’re . . . dependent. They have to have you. They’ll always come first.” I stopped for a moment, biting the inside of my cheek. This was the hardest part. “I want to be first. I know that’s selfish, and maybe unattainable, and maybe shallow. But I just want to come first with someone. If that’s wrong of me, so be it. I’ll be wrong. But that’s the way I feel.”
“Then there’s nothing left to talk about,” Quinn said …
I felt like a bad person. I felt miserable and bereft. I felt like a selfish bitch.”
“the Elvis Undead Revue with all‐vamp Elvis tribute artists.”
“I said the worst thing I could think of. “No wonder you lose all your babies.””
“This was totally unfair. I’d expected tons of sympathy when I finally confessed the reason for my bad mood. But now Sam and Eric were so wrapped up in being irritated with each other that neither one of them was giving me a moment’s thought”
” This was definitely an Oh, shit! moment. (An OSM, as I called them to myself .)”
” “I did an awkward sort of dip in the king’s direction (American! Not used to bowing!)”
”The security light made me feel safe, though I knew that was an illusion. If there's light, you can just see what's coming for you a little more clearly.”