Club Dead

Despite some wariness after reading the first two books, when I start something, I'm usually hellbound to finish it, so I continued onward to book 3 of the Sookie Stackhouse series; "Club Dead".

This book starts out giving me everything I had to hope for, Sookie and Bill's relationship is on the rocks, and suddenly he dissappears without a word. In fact, Bill is absent for the vast majority of this book. As such, I don't have to suffer through the constant sex happening between Sookie and Bill. I don't know if it's just a general difficulty enjoying a book with a female protagonist or what, but there's a lot of "girly crap" in here that just keeps me flipping pages looking for anything else.

Due to their "break-up", which is for sure by the end of the book, this book has become less of a romance novel than the first two which is a welcome change. Sookie still obsesses over things I could care less about like hair, nails, and dresses, but at the same time, the romance from the mystery/romance equation that made up the first two books has been replaced by action, which is really great. Mystery does make for a page turning experience despite the slower parts, but I absolutely flew through the last few chapters of this book as the action was very riveting.

Another plus about Harris' books is that she keeps giving us more and more supernatural creatures. The first book was all about vampires obviously. The second book had a maenad, interesting choice being as most of us have never even heard of that, and the third book, while mostly focusing on werewolves and other shapeshifters, also has a Goblin. His name is Hob, so mayhaps, he's a hobgoblin. Anyways, he has an interesting and unique power I've never heard of of burning flesh with a touch. Indeed.

I still think I'd be hard pressed to get any of my guy friends to read this book, although I have been watching the TV show recently, and I'm thinking the book might be better.... so maybe I could. However, of the first three books, this book is showing more promise for the series to come, and it hopefully keeps up like this trend. Follow the Harry Potter motif of getting more "adult" as you go on, except in this case, focus more on the action and the supernatural to entice my reading appettite.