Guilty pleasure

I have finally found a vampire series I can obsess about. I loved Buffy when it was on and before it went downhill, and despite my dad's conviction it's the devil's show, I thought it was funny and kick ass. So, my sister in law let me borrow her Southern Vampire series books by Charlaine Harris and I was totally hooked this past week. It's the weird combination of being NOTHING like Twilight, and yet I'm convinced that Twilight was a rip off of these books since they started long before that damn book was written. However, a lot of people tell me that Stephenie Meyer stole a lot from the Vampire Diaries which started in the early 90s. So here is my analysis and comparison with Twilight:

The short synopsis is that with the onset of synthetic blood, the vampires have "come out of the coffin" and into the life of Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic barmaid in Louisiana. Along with vampires, there are shapeshifters, were-animals, fairies, and who knows what else. Havoc ensues.

I like the main character, because instead of being a weak angsty little whiner (cough *Bella* cough cough), she's smart, hardworking, and more importantly, she takes care of herself. First book, she takes out of the bad guy by herself. She also isn't emotionally blackmailed by the cheating or controlling guys around her. Even with weird quirks, I find her more believable because she reacts just like a normal person would.

Unlike the omnipotent Eddie-kins (or as my friend calls him, Ted), the vampires in this series are some of the more flawed characters. Many of them have lost touch with what it means to be a human as many centuries have passed since they have been "turned", and laws and sense of morality has changed in the meantime or they didn't interact much while in hiding. The vampires are sometimes power hungry, not necessarily smart, and very entertaining.

I love Harris's writing style. It's clean, simple, and if there is an occasional big word, she blames it on Sookie's word-of-the-day calendar. Like Twilight, it's written first person, but unlike Twilight, it's consistent. Sookie is always thinking, always feeling, and always cracking wise. She could use some improvement on making sure different characters have different "voices" but dialog is entertaining. I worry a little because she seems to be indiscriminate about introducing, killing off, or villanizing characters. By the eighth book I was having a little trouble keeping everyone straight. She's also killed off a few pregnant women which I have issues with. Faith also loaned them to me with the warning that they're a little trashy. She was wrong. They're COMPLETELY trashy and all the better for it.

I have not watched TrueBlood because we don't have HBO, but I'm now very curious because I like Anna Paquin and now the books. I sometimes have a hard time with translations from page to screen, but I liked the Twilight movie more than book (mostly because I've never laughed so hard in my life). Maybe I'll buy it and review it. Now that I've finished all of them, I have to wait until May until the next book comes out. In the mean time, Go Team Eric!