David Caldwell's Reviews > Dead in the Family

I came fairly late to the Sookie Stackhouse stories. I have never seen the TV adaptation of the books and am not a huge vampire fan. i am basically reading all of the books back to back and truthfully they are starting to blend together so please forgive me if I start commenting on something for the wrong book.

My general take on the series (so far) is it is a mix of (vampire story) urban paranormal, mystery, and (smutty) romance. On a scale of 1 to 10, the smut level runs between a 4 to 7. While the romance element isn't bad, the smut (sex) sections really don't add anything to the story and usually feel separate from the rest of the story. Looking at the characters, I am of mixed feelings towards Sookie. She has some annoying traits. She blames herself for everything. if someone gets hurt while they are trying to kill her, she feels guilty especially if she hurt them while fighting back. She seems to pick her romantic interests for some pretty shallow reasons (she dates vampires because she can't hear their thoughts and they're 'pretty'). She is very thin skinned and never seems to let anything go and it keeps being brought up. (Of course, some of that is to let new readers know what happened in earlier books but some of it is repeated in the same book time and time again.) Bill never strikes a chord with me. I don't care for him but I don't actively dislike him either. He is very bland (almost cardboard) to me. Eric is pretty much a jerk but he is at least interesting. The more minor characters are more interesting but receive little time in the spotlight to really shine. The mystery element is usually decent if not terribly convoluted. The stories read quickly and do pull the reader along. Of course, you need to read the books in order to fully enjoy the series to its fullest. Overall, the series isn't bad but it isn't really that different from a lot of other vampire paranormal mystery series out there.

The vampire that created Eric shows up with his new "protege". Unfortunately the protege is nearly out of control and threatens to cause even more harm to Eric's precarious position in the new vampire regime of Louisiana. On top of that strange vampires and fae are wandering through the woods around Sookie's house. Then there is the body of the dead werewolf that is discovered in those same woods. Everything is normal, Sookie is in more supernatural trouble.