The Sookie Stackhouse novels are the perfect vacation read: total brain candy, a little flash and not a lot of substance. I flip through them quickly and eagerly, and enjoy them for their tawdry entertainment, but don’t may them much mind.
In fact, I only realized after the fact that I somehow skipped book 11, which I already owned. I didn’t notice because it had been a while since I took a look at the series, and because Harris spends so much time painfully rehashing what happened previously that you can move forward and skip around and not miss much.
I didn’t love the character arcs this go round, and I’m about tired of Sookie’s boring day-to-day. “I got dressed. I had coffee. I walked to the door.” Yawn. And it seems like it has gone from a fun zany time to “this week, on a very special Tru Blood.” It is trying to be way to serious: I’m here for the flirty vampires, not for the political unrest.
I’ll probably go back and read 11, because I’m a completist like that, and of course finish the 13th and final of the series, but unlike some series I won’t be sad that it’s done, but happy to have put a bow on it.