Review: Dead as a Doornail

Dead as a Doornail, Charlaine Harris
Southern Vampire Mysteries #5 (aka the Sookie Stackhouse novels)
E-book
Rating: 3.0/5.0

If you haven't been reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels or watching True Blood (the show was inspired by these books), you are missing out. I'm not normally a fan of the vampire or supernatural genre but even I managed to get myself hooked!

Sookie Stackhouse is a bar waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana. She's a nice, good looking Southern girl who also happens to be a telepath. Her "disability" leaves Sookie without many human friends, but with an inconvenient tendency to get drawn into the dealings of other supernatural beings in the area. In Sookie's world, vampires exist and are "out" to the general public. As the series progresses, we meet more "supes" but the main focus is usually on the vampires. Also, there is sexy time. In this installment, Sookie has to adjust to her brother's newfound supernatural tendencies and we learn more about the politics of shapeshifters. I'll leave it at that because I don't want to spoil the first four books.

These novels are meant to be light, easy reading and with your expectations calibrated accordingly, they are quite satisfying. Actually, up to this point, I thought Harris' writing was steadily getting better with each book. From that perspective, this one fell short. It felt like filler; things did happen but not as much compared to the previous novels. The pacing felt off. It was also shorter than I expected, which was great since things have been so busy, but also a little disappointing.

So, Dead as a Doornail is not my favourite in the series so far. But it's still a fun series and worth a try if you're looking for something easy and different.