Morbid Romantic

Book Review & Personal Blog

Title: Definitely Dead
Author(s): Charlaine Harris
Genre: Fiction – Paranormal
Finished: May 21, 2009
Rating: 4 Stars

Definitely Dead is book 6 in the Southern Vampire Mysteries. Sookie, weary and battle scarred, once again has high hopes that her life can return to normal. She has enough stress as it is between her brother’s personal life, rebuilding her kitchen, Debbie Pelt’s family’s meddling, her broken heart, the dead demon left on her lawn, and the murder of her cousin Hadley. As it turns out, Hadley was a vampire and a favorite of the Queen of Louisiana. Sookie must go to New Orleans to clean out her cousin’s old apartment, which means entering the paranormal world of the vampires once more.

On the bright side, she has a new boyfriend. Her new boyfriend is a were-tiger named Quinn. Quinn is tall, bald, patient, and seemingly without drama. Unfortunately for them, they are attacked by crazed bitten weres on their first date. It is all downhill for Sookie from there. Weres and vampires attacking from all angles, oh my. Additionally, not only does Sookie want to clean out Hadley’s apartment, but she wants to find out what truly happened to her cousin. That opens up its own can of worms to add to the already smoldering pot of problems simmering.

I’ll be honest with you guys. If this had been the first or second book that I read in the series, I wouldn’t have continued. Though it was good, I gave it a lot more credit because I already know and love the characters. If Definitely Dead were my introduction to the Sookie Stackhouse world, I wouldn’t have thought twice about not picking up the next book. Don’t get me wrong, Definitely Dead is a good book, it just isn’t the type of book that would capture my attention and make want to read again.

A lot of the book just seemed to be… out of character. Sookie is slowly exiting the world of being your average every day telepathic waitress who is cutely modest to being a supervixen special something who has all the guys stare when she flips her hair. And Bill did a total 180. Only Eric was the same, which was a relief because I would take it too hard if he changed at all.

It is disappointing that there is such an influx of new characters because the old characters, the ones I enjoy, are being pushed to the wayside. I don’t need a whole new league of witches and boyfriends and vampire buddies to enjoy The Southern Vampire Mysteries. I just want to read about the world of Sookie and her close companions. Adding too many characters makes things overly complex and complicated. Of course, fresh blood is necessary to keep a book active, and new people are always coming and going in life, but within the limited confines of a book they only end up pushing out other characters since only so many can be in focus at a time.

Also, a word of warning. If you’ve ONLY read the books, you will be confused. If this book is to make sense to you from the start, I suggest you read the short story One Word Answer from Bite. The events of that story come to fruition in Definitely Dead and are unfortunately never mentioned anywhere else. So, if you haven’t read One Word Answer, you are going to be very confused about Hadley and the Queen and the Queen’s request. It doesn’t make sense that the story wasn’t included as a prelude or a first chapter, but I suppose it makes more money selling in parts.

I have high hopes for the next one and can only cross my fingers that Sookie and her world will return to how it was when I fell in love with it. I want Sookie to go back to being a normal girl with a special gift, not some half-supernatural creature like everyone else. How can I relate to her that way? And I want more of the old characters, more Eric and Bill and Sam.

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Disclaimer(s):

- More can be found in my Reviews section or on my Biblio page. If you would like to see my book list for 2009, go here.

- If you would like me to review your book, send an email to me at morbidromantic@gmail.com. Read my Book Review Policy for more information.

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