Dead and Gone

This novel also includes a description of a trowel of surely record-breaking length and staggering dullness. For aficionados of garden buildings the shed in which the trowel is stored is also described to a mind-numbing extent, as is the exact details of how Sookie weeds a garden. Why and how Harris imagines that anyone could possibly be interested in the fact that Sookie wields a trowel with her right hand and pulls up the weeds with her left is a mystery left unexplained.

Following this, Sookie kills yet another being by fortunate accident, thereby saving her life. Then two of her ex-boyfriends turn up at her home and beat each other up, due to them being idiotic obsessive Neanderthals. So greatly do they love Sookie that they manage to knock her out, meaning that we the readers miss the actual fight, but are treated to yet another sex scene immediately afterward, featuring Sookie and yet another ex, Eric. Charmingly, he waits until she is recovering from being knocked unconscious and stupefied by yet more of his mind-controlling blood before sleeping with her, making it strictly more of a drug-rape scene than a love scene. Fortunately Sookie is fine with rape, due to being an idiot whose author is a misogynistic bitch, so there are no consequences to these actions.

Then Sookie is nearly killed a few more times. A string of different supernatural beings are co-opted as bodyguards for her, in order that she can collect her dry-cleaning without fear of death. I myself would probably have abandoned the dry-cleaning in favour of my physical safety, but not Sookie. Eventually she discovers who the murderer is, which is in no way interesting because the fact that they were introduced and described in exactly the same way as all Harris’ previous murderers means it was less than a challenge to guess their secret identity. Sookie is then captured and horribly tortured for a chapter, before her boyfriend and great-grandfather save her. Then the usual battle concludes the novel; several characters die basically for the sake of Sookie, but all the main character are as usual fine. Then Sookie’s grandfather briefly pops up to tell her that the battle was a waste of time, as he’s decided that the now deceased leader of the opposition was right all along. Left alone, Sookie returns to her usual pastime: pondering her love life. The End.


Worst New Character Names
Devon Dawn
Whit Spradlin
D’Eriq
Duff
Antoine Lebrun
Ginjer Hart


Worst Musical Choice
Mariah Carey. Although I grant it is exactly the kind of crap you would expect Sookie to listen to.


Cruellest Post-Mortem Character Analysis

“I wasn’t amazed that someone would want to kill Crystal, but I was really horrified about the baby.”

“Yeah, it is. Cheating with your husband’s baby in your stomach between you . . . that’s just specially icky.”

“Our father, Dillon son of Niall, and his first wife, Branna. Our mother is Binne. If Niall goes to the Summerlands, Dillon will replace him as prince. But of course he must wait.” The names were unfamiliar. The first one sounded almost like Dylan.”

“Claude and I used to have Irish names. It seemed stupid to me. Why shouldn’t we please ourselves? No one can spell those names or pronounce them correctly. My former name sounds like a cat coughing up a fur ball.”