Annoying, boring, charmless, dumb. Since I was already on a roll of unpleasant books, I finally forced myself to read my second (her third) novel (the magazine SFX had made me import two with their misleading review).
After a typical (cold, boring) interlude showing how irresistable he is (he wears flanel and has hair), vampire Bill disappears at the start of the book and readers are supposed to be stupid enough to fear for his life. Even if Sookie's feelings hadn't been so badly written, I still wouldn't have cared. Bill, like the other vampires, embodies everything I dislike, but supposedly titillates the majority of readers, since vampire novels are now a genre of their own. There is the huge difference between the heroine and her super man that are meant to make it sexier, resulting in off-putting sex as the garnish on a deeply conventional reactionary relationship.
This time dear Sookie once again gets lusted over and groped by a number of men that are supposed to be erotic due to being supernatural. She is still the most beautiful woman, all natural, as she confesses, but the rubbing up to werewolves et al is only pretend sizzle, because she never has sex with anybody but her husband, whom she supposedly loves although mostly is just angry at or afraid of (which supposedly is meant to be erotic) - who btw isn't her husband so she misses cooking him breakfast and she cannot accept his money because they are not legally married. It's a constant praise of the simplest of minds, of the housewife that obeys all the traditional rules for women and gets rewarded by being the object of lust of "wild" (mostly just in their hair styles) men.
I had to stop reading now after she proudly Mary Sued that she got all her education from "genre reading" (although she likes to quote difficult words from her word-a-day calendar too) and toddled off for that wonderful luxury females indulge in, a beauty make-over.
*sigh* Once more into the breach, I go, once more into the breach ...
ETA: After various killings and threats of torture, lil Sookie seriously thinks the following: "Somehow, it had never crossed my mind - I guess since I'm an American - that the vampires who had snatched Bill might be resorting to evil means to get him to talk." AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH I would tear out my hair but really I should tear out Harris'.
FAZIT: A bloody Mills&Boone novel, the only difference being that the men alternately defending or threatening, but always lusting after the safely bland heroine are "supernatural".
BOTTOMLINE: the pervasive trend in current?genre fiction seems to be self-satisfaction. The heroines and possibly the writers night not even be aware of it, but OTOH I noticed it's no longer considered negative and egocentric but positive and strong to state how great oneself is. And never mind the obligatory asides meant to indicate self-doubt: the annoying women from the novels of e.g. Raybourne and Harris are 111 percent sure of their superiority, any lack of knowledge being part of that parcel of perfection.
But towards the end of the book, the reading was easier. That was partly because Sookie was badly beaten up (yay), partly because all the previous action or violence tended to be covered by one sentence, the rest was her moving between bars and flats and petrol stations and doing her nails. To top off the tedium, it ended in a bit of a cliff-hanger, with Eric (yes, he is a Viking) still in better graces than bf Bill, although the next novel might uncover misconceptions. Whatever *puts it up for mooching*