Rating:


Author: Charlaine Harris

Publication: January 1st, 2009

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Description: Except for Sookie Stackhouse, folks in Bon Temps, Louisiana, know little about vamps-and nothing about weres.

Until now. The weres and shifters have finally decided to reveal their existence to the ordinary world. At first all goes well. Then the mutilated body of a were-panther is found near the bar where Sookie works-and she feels compelled to discover who, human or otherwise, did it.

But there's a far greater danger threatening Bon Temps. A race of unhuman beings-older, more powerful, and more secretive than vampires or werewolves-is preparing for war. And Sookie finds herself an all-too human pawn in their battle.
Via GoodReads.

My Review:

I'll be perfectly honest with you. I'm getting sick of writing these reviews. I love reading the Sookie Stackhouse series, but by the 8th review telling you virtually the same thing (great story, read it, etc), I've gotten a little sick of it as you can imagine. I'm going to stick it out and write the reviews for all 12 of the books though because I'm a real trooper. But if my reviews sound a little bitchy, you'll know why.

Like other books, Dead and Gone had a lot of things going on in it. I can't tell you what exactly because it doesn't say much of any of it in the description, but let's just say you won't see it all coming and it makes Dead and Gone a very exciting read. I raced through this book as I was anxious to figure out what was going to happen to Sookie and the other characters. My favorite of the things going on was the war of "unhuman beings-older, more powerful, and more secretive than vampires or werewolves". While the "mutilated body of a were-panther" story was interesting as it went, I must admit that I found the end to that mystery pretty anti-climatic. Maybe that's just me though. Overall, I loved Dead and Gone.

You'd think that by the 9th book the characters and story would be getting dull, but they definitely aren't. Each book brings something fresh to the table, and how could anyone ever get sick of such awesome characters like the butt-kicking Sookie and the sexy Eric?

Out of curiousity, I was looking through the reviews on Amazon because I was wondering why the average rating for Dead and Gone was so much lower there than it was on GoodReads. I found that those with gripes against the book were largely those who were fans of the TV series True Blood and were upset that the books diverged from the show, wanted more "spice", or even admitted to not reading often (though they still knew all about how Harris should have written it). Okay, sorry for the sass, but that last category really bothered me. But anyway, I don't watch the show and can't compare. Is the show better or the books? Does watching the show make you dislike things in the books that you might not have minded otherwise?

One legitimate complaint that I found on my little review reading escapades on Amazon and GoodReads against Dead and Gone, and all of the other Sookie Stackhouse books for that matter, was the continuity throughout the books. Things like Bill's age changing from 30 to 28 between books and other minor details like that didn't always remain the same through the series. To be 100% honest, I have not once personally noted any of this discontinuities. I could care less how old Bill is or how many siblings he supposedly had etc. I only mention it at all because a good number of reviews did notice and I thought you should know, just in case you're OCD or something.

Summed Up:

Just like all the other books - Great writing, storyline, and characters. It also had a ton of exciting action from start to finish.

Sookie Stackhouse Series

Review for #1: Dead Until Dark
Review for #2: Living Dead In Dallas
Review for #3: Club Dead
Review for #4: Dead to the World
Review for #5: Dead as a Doornail
Review for #6: Definitely Dead
Review for #7: All Together Dead
Review for #8: From Dead to Worse
Review for #9: Dead and Gone
Review for #10: Dead in the Family - to come
Review for #11: Dead Reckoning - to come
Review for #12: Deadlocked - to come