Monday, September 26, 2011

I read this (part II)

... continued from here.


So, like I was saying. Sookie Stackhouse! Good christ. These books are to literature what Pop Rocks are to dental hygiene. I actually tried reading these a couple of years ago (pre-Anita Blake, you know) and I got through one chapter before throwing the book in disgust. So that shows you that my tolerance for terrible writing has absolutely skyrocketed in my post-LKH world of shattered dreams and disillusionment. Oh, and sorry, Connie, for throwing your book that one time.

If you are like me and watch/ed True Blood before reading the books, then apparently you are a sane person and will be OK with the absurd amount of license Alan Ball takes with both the characters and the story. If you read the books first, you apparently hate True Blood and want Alan Ball to die in a fire. I mean, I get it – people always like the book more. It’s just a thing. You feel all warm and snuggly with these fake people who live in your head, and get all jacked up when someone goes and interprets them differently (WRONGLY) than you did. That’s cool, bro. No judgment.

BUT. I have to take a teeny moment to defend Mr. Ball, here. These fucking books are awful, you guys. It’s not like taking a piss on the Mona Lisa, OK? It’s a dude taking some rough source material, putting it in a Dior dress and sending it to fashion week. Or something. I apologize for the surplus of hazardously misshapen metaphors that are flying around here (idkwtf). Really, he’s just doing his thing. And while I think this past season was a clusterfuck of proportions like I don’t even know, it was STILL better than the last five books of the series all smooshed together. Because while the first 2/3 of the series is not exactly brain food, the last 1/3 is basically Charlaine Harris going to her fans HEY GUYS! WHAT’S UP! GO FUCK YOURSELVES, HOW BOUT IT! YEAH! YOU’RE A BUNCH OF ASSHOLES AND PS I KILLED YOUR GRANDPARENTS WHILE YOU WERE AT THE 7-11 GETTING A TAQUITO! HAHA! I’M AWESOME.

I was going to talk about how the show and the book series are different, but I started and? It would take me days. DAYS. They are different. Very, very different. Lafayette is dead by the second chapter of Book 2, for example. Jason turns into a halfass werepanther. Arlene joins the Fellowship Of The Sun – Jason does not. Arlene does not have Rene’s devil-possessed baby. Sookie kills Lorena. There is no Jessica. The Nevada king forcefully takes over LA and kills Sophie-Anne Leclerq, not Bill Compton (who is like whiny, and a big computer nerd). Tara is married, and has babies. And is white. Pam is British! And wears twin sets! SO MUCH ETC.

Anyway, should you read them?
Um? You know. Go ahead, if you want. They’re not good by any stroke of the imagination, but they’re fun, and quick. The series does go to shit around Book 8, but not in any shake-your-fist-and-cry-foul way. I mean, I was never invested enough to feel betrayed. I just sort of looked at it like “Oh … that was a pretty fucked up thing to do, author. You must not have much integrity. Oh wait. You wrote the Sookie Stackhouse books. Right. No worries. Moving along!”

5 comments:

  1. This is why you are my best friend/hetero life partner

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hearts & unicorns!!!! <33333

    And dude. Kindle books from the library, as of this morning. Fuck yes. Of course they had nothing I REALLY wanted available immediately, so I ended up taking out a really godawful sounding werewolf romance. Just to see if it worked. And like now I have to read it, just because, my bed, it's made, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Which awful werewolf romance? Please, I must know!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Lydia Dare Wolf Bundle.

    No, really. That's what its CALLED.

    http://www.amazon.com/Lydia-Dare-Wolf-Bundle-ebook/dp/B004FPZ2H2

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh, that's the Westfield Werewolves series, I read the first one. It's trashy and fun.

    ReplyDelete