Dead in the Family

Well, for once Harris' title actually made sense. Dead in the Family was quite a bit more cohesively themed than the last few books, and for that, I was thankful. While I wasn't absolutely in love with the story, I certainly enjoyed it. Not only did we get to venture more into the world of actual murder mysteries (though I was a bit put off by the fact that Harris makes a distinct impression to make the murder victim interesting and made me suspect a significant role in the rest of the book, only to kill him off a few pages later), but we also got some vampire resolution. The issue of Bill's infidelity with his maker was finally addressed via the introduction of Eric's maker. Sookie finally seems to be calming down over Bill's "betrayal", and for that, I'm glad. While I certainly like her relationship with Eric more (though that may be simply because I absolutely in love with Pam, and any chance to get her into the scene is awesome in my opinion), I still did enjoy the triangle between Eric and Bill, with Sookie actually not being a judegemental pain in the ass. Both male love interest are really falling in my opinion, unfortunatley. Bill is a controlling, whiney ex-boyfriend. In this book, he decides to try the emo look, only to be rewarded with a girlfriend by Sookie (what?). Eric, on the other hand, continues to refer to Sookie as "lover" which gives me all sorts of icky feelings. Plus, Sookie is constantly denying the fact that he TRICKED HER INTO MARRYING HIM. Uh, what? Wake the heck up and notice Sook!

Uh, anyways. Back to the book. Overall, this was pretty average.  Not a mystery I solved right off the back, but it was still comfortably predictable. I enjoyed the fairy intervention, and the time Sookie spent with her little cousin, Hunter. I enjoyed Bill being reunited with his "family"- both his vampire and descendents. I didn't enjoy any of the scenes with Eric- they seemed awkward and unrealistic. Jason has finally grown up and is helping Sookie out. While the werewolf plot seemed reasonably planned out, the vampire plot came out of nowhere. I really wish there could have been more of a buildup there.

I don't know, the entire book felt rushed. That's why it really wasn't one my favorites. It was definitely a lot better than the last few though!

On another note, this post was brought to you by the parenthesis symbols. I only used about a thousand!

(3/5 stars)