Book Review - Club Dead

Club Dead
Author: Charlaine Harris
Series: Sookie Stackhouse #3
Genres: Paranormal, Fantasy | Adult
Release Date: 1st January 2001
Publishers: Orbit
No. Pages: 274
Source: Purchased
Rating:
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Things between cocktail waitress Sookie and her vampire boyfriend Bill seem to be going excellently (apart from the small matter of him being undead) until he leaves town for a while. A long while. Bill's sinister boss Eric has an idea of where to find him, whisking her off to Jackson, Mississippi to mingle with the under-underworld at Club Dead. When she finally catches up with the errant vampire, he is in big trouble and caught in an act of serious betrayal. This raises serious doubts as to whether she should save him or start sharpening a few stakes of her own

The following review may contain spoilers concerning earlier books in the series.
If you have not read the previous installments, please proceed with caution.

Finally I'm liking the series. I had heard that it had picked up in this book but after the last 2 books I can honestly say I wasn't optimistic. From start to finish I loved the book, I felt like Harris had settled and was comfortable with where she wanted the story to go, and it showed. It didn't feel like it was all thrown together, the character development was spot on and I was hooked. I love Alcide. Like really love him. I did in the show and as most of my favourite characters have taken the back seat in the books I thought he would too. I'm glad to say I was more than pleasantly surprised. He was described just enough and for the first time I really felt like I knew one of the characters.

I still cant stand Sookie. Maybe more since reading this book. She's looking for her boyfriend who might or might not have been cheating on her and planning to leave her, only to fall in to the arms of both Eric & Alcide while on the hunt for him. I'm really misunderstanding what makes her so attractive. And to put it bluntly, in the words of Pam from season 4 of True Blood "Sookie, I am so over Sookie and Her Precious Fairy Vagina and Her Unbelievably Stupid Name Fuck Sookie!" (try to forget the 'fairy' part as technically I shouldn't know that bit already haha) Also.. I'm really not sure how I felt about Bill forcing himself on Sookie after she saved him and he was disorientated. That was something I felt the book could definitely do without.

All in all I really liked this book (for once). I saw a glimpse of the bad ass vampire that Eric is supposed to be, and wish I saw more of that side to Pam. Because I'm not really seeing it yet. Everything else was great though, and everything I hated about the last 2 books thankfully were fixed.