Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris - Book Review #37

Living Dead in Dallas

by Charlaine Harris

When a vampire asks Sookie Stackhouse to use her telepathic skills to find another missing vampire, she agrees under one condition: the bloodsuckers must promise to let the humans go unharmed.

From goodreads.com

It is amazing how writing style can improve with practice. The second book in the Sookie Stackhouse series - Living Dead in Dallas – is an example of such an improvement. Charlaine Harris’ use of the language has become significantly better and more enjoyable.

The composition structure of the novel certainly has some originality in it – one story wrapped up around another one. However, I’m not certan if it is working in favor of the novel. With the structure like this the book is losing its momentum, because at the point where culmination should exists, we have the end of the inner story and then we are picking up the outer story where we left it off at the beginning of the book. It didn’t spoil my impression, but left me out with a feeling that I’ve started to read one story about Sookie, left it unfinished, then read another one and finally finished the first one.

Sookie surprised and somewhat disappointed me by the sparks of the intellect she shown. However, mostly she is still dingy and emotionally unstable and I, surprisingly, still love her for that – I guess she entertains me great deal with her flaws. Bill is becoming more and more dull, creepy and annoying. I even have a thought somewhere during the book that probably Bill should have meet his unfortunate ending and Sookie can move on with Eric.

Eric was my favorite in this book. He was hilarious, especially in the orgy scene. I think this character has a great potential, if Charlaine Harris will decide to develop him. I was longing for more Eric, for more scenes with him and, hopefully, I will get it in the third book.

In general, I enjoyed the second book, much more than the first one and hopping for great things to come. Now I cannot wait for the shipment with third and fourth book to arrive, so I can lay hands on them.