One of the reasons why I fell in love with the Sookie Stackhouse books was that there was an engaging, smart heroine, interesting romantic leads, and action-packed storylines. I recall in the first books that there were at least a couple mysteries and adventures in each book that kept me up at night, wanting to finish the book before I went to bed. So if there were continuity errors or spelling mistakes, I didn’t care. They were fun books and I read them over and over again. So it is with great sadness that I say I am totally cool with this series ending as soon as possible. In fact, Charlaine Harris could write a short story killing off all the characters and it would be cool with me. She clearly needs to write something else and let the fans just enjoy previous, better books.

I came to this conclusion after some thought. At first, Dead Reckoning was just disappointing. But then, after talking with other fans of the series, it became infuriating. Some of my favorite programs have had continuity errors and characters doing things that occasionally seem out of character. But what took place in this novel was completely out of bounds, where the plot direction has changed entirely so things that couldn’t possibly make sense happen for no discernable reason. (I think the biggest example of this is when Eric is supposed to have done something he couldn’t have possibly done because he had amnesia.) The only time this was not the case was when we were going over Sookie’s life like she was the star of a reality show, and it was about as boring as it sounds. I love Sookie, but I don’t care what cereal she chose to eat on Monday. I expected that any second Sookie was going to go over a grocery list just so Charlaine Harris could fill a page and reach her word quota. (Not that I don’t sympathize with meeting a word quota. Why do you think I have so many parenthetical asides?)

Dead Reckoning begins almost immediately after the last book ends. Sookie is living with Claude and Dermot in her house, and decides to clean out her attic. Then she goes to Merlotte’s where a firebomb comes crashing through the window and almost burns the bar down. Almost as soon as that happens, Eric arrives, makes sure she’s okay, and embroils her in vampire politics. Between a marriage that Eric mysteriously cannot get out of (I was pretty sure throughout ten books that Eric did whatever he wanted) and a plot to kill Victor, the Regent of Louisiana, there are a lot of vampire machinations going on. Sookie also discovers her fairy roots and finds out how it could be that her grandmother could be with a fairy, as well as how she came about her telepathic power. Ultimately, the firebombing is solved, we get a catalog of her attic, and we see cracks appear in her relationship with Eric.

What I find particularly infuriating was that during a book signing in New York, I asked Charlaine Harris if she felt that True Blood was altering the way she saw the characters because it has seemed like many of them were changing. And everyone laughed at me (including her) as she basically said no. (Then we went on to the rest of the questions asked by people praising her genius.) If that’s how it is going to be, then here is my definitive proof: Bill just got cooler, Eric turned into a taciturn douche, and Sookie became very stupid. Fortunately, Pam is still great, and became my only lifeboat in this sea of plot-driven madness. It also felt like Bill is making a comeback -- which I feel strongly that, after seven books of character assassination, it is impossible for him to ever recover enough to be the endgame. Judging from the fawning adoration displayed towards Harris, clearly there is no one in her life to tell her to shape up and give her characters some actual motivation instead of plot-driven nonsense.

This series is starting to remind me of other series like Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time where we approach the end, and yet the author can’t help but add in superfluous characters and new devices to the overarching plot that just gets everything tangles further. In fact, we see Jason for half a page, but get pages about Pam’s love life with a girl we’ve never met before. Instead of tying up loose ends, as I assume one would do if they had two books to go, she adds in things like the Cluviel Dor, a gift from her fae relatives that can grant a wish borne out of love and which I am hoping against hope is not a deus ex machina for Sookie’s love life.

Of course Robert Jordan died before even finishing his convoluted series. While I sincerely hope that doesn’t happen to Charlaine Harris, I do hope that she’s able to rectify all the missing links in her novels. At this point, I don’t see any satisfying ending to the series. I’m considering a moratorium on her further books until it can be proven she has her act together.

   -- Sara Paige