Dead Until Dark

I finished reading my 17th book of the year just yesterday.  (Read my 2009 Resolutions page to find out what that means.)  I read Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. For those who don’t read much, but maybe watch HBO, this is the first book in the series that the show True Blood was based upon.  J and I missed Season 1 but caught it on DVD just in time before Season 2 started a few weeks ago.  We love the series so much I decided I wanted to read the books so I bought Part 1 and 2 in a bookstore last week. 

Obviously, there are some differences between the book and the show which I’m going to discuss in this post, so beware that there will be spoilers.  First, I was surprised to find that Tara is not a character in the book.  Perhaps she pops up in a later book, but she was not in the first one.  Lafayette also has no major role in the book.  He’s just the gay cook.  Bill didn’t kill the vampire that attacks Sookie either, Eric did.  So, the whole episode with Bill going to trial is not in the book.  Rene is the bad guy in the book but is extremely underdeveloped. And while Jason is presented as a sex machine, the events linking him to the murders are a bit different in the book.  Readers will also be surprised to find Elvis is a vampire in the book who guards Sookie’s house for Bill while Bill goes off to stay in a vampire hotel in New Orleans and run for a vampire office position to protect him and Sookie against Eric.  None of this happens in the show. Also, the synthetic blood in the book is not called True Blood; it actually has no name. And while Sam is revealed to be a shape shifter there are not enough hints given that it’s him so you’d never guess, unlike the show that really focuses in one strange things happening with him and the dog. In some cases, I thought the plot twists in the series were even better than what’s in the book, but it was still a good read.

Charlaine Harris writes in a very simple manner that’s easy to relate to, sometimes too easy if you are a more complex mystery reader. I am not. I finished this book in just 6 days. I stumbled on some of the dialogue in some places and found several instances where the editing could have been a little better, but overall I’d still recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a good, light, but juicy read…especially for anyone who likes vampires.

You can’t help but compare Charlaine to Anne Rice since her story also takes place in New Orleans. Charlaine even mentions Anne’s vampires in a few places in the book, paying tribute to them. But Charlaine’s cast of characters are completely different and are more like real people who could exist in the world today. So overall, in the story itself there’s no comparison.

If you haven’t watched the series and know nothing about True Blood, you’ll definitely eat the book up! For those who are reading the books for the first time and have watched the show, just be warned…it’s close to being the same, but there are indeed parts and characters that are completely different. It’s still a “bloody” good time though!