Title: Dead Until Dark

Author: Charlaine Harris

Series: Sookie Stackhouse #1

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

The Overview: Sookie Stackhouse is just a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. Until the vampire of her dreams walks into her life-and one of her coworkers checks out….

Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn’t such a bright idea. -Goodreads

.

The Review:

Well, butter my butt and call me a southern biscuit – I enjoyed the hell out of Dead Until Dark.

This was my second read-through of this book (I’d never continued beyond it last time), and it’s funny how time and reading experience can change how you feel about the same exact story. The first time I read it (3 stars) I was only just dipping my toes into urban fantasy. I’d no idea what marked a good one from a bad one and was kind of experimenting with them all. This time around, I’ve read (and loved) a fair few, and the quality of the writing and the richness of the story here stood out to me in a way it hadn’t before. I loved it.

What struck me is the complete immersion into Sookie’s viewpoint of the world. She’s such an atypical character – not the brightest, nor the most experienced, but loving and completely earnest in everything she does. I find her absolutely charming. Her character was strengthened even more by the exceptional audio narration of Johanna Parker – I highly recommend going the audiobook route with this one.

I remember discussing this book with my best friend early on, and she mentioned it had a lot of sex in it. I was surprised because I only remembered one sex scene in the whole thing. What I was actually remembering was an entire like 50 page chunk of the book! So yeah, these are a lot steamier than your usual urban fantasy series. However since the plot and overall focus of the book remained on the murder mystery and Sookie dealing with a bunch of external supernatural conflicts, the addition of all the sexual content did not make it feel like a paranormal romance. That’s a distinction I always find very important when evaluating these types of stories.

Overall, I’m thrilled I now have another excellent UF to keep me occupied for a while (as I am UTD on all things Briggs, Harrison, Butcher, and Andrews). I can totally see how the excellent storytelling here was picked up for a tv series. The books are so strong and vibrant that they really didn’t have to change much in the adaptation. At least not initially.

Recommendations: if you love UF but haven’t yet tried this series – give it a go! The mystery was a lot grittier than you’ll find in most and the characters are a hoot. One of the most delightful things I’ve read in a while.

Other books you might like:

by Niki Hawkes