Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris

This series was recommended to me by a coworker. I had also heard about its television adaptation True Blood, but I feel that the books are always better because my imagination is a personal space where it's just me and the author, and I don't have to accept the additional interpretations of the director and actors. One of my friends also started reading this series, but she didn't like the main character, and so didn't continue. With all of this background and input from other people in mind, I started reading this book.

My first thought was brain candy. It has the feel of urban fantasy but is set in a rural town, where the protagonist is a waitress who thinks that vampires are fascinating. I have this thought that Asians are the vampires of reality, so I read the fascination and fear associated with supernatural creatures in books as misunderstandings and racism. And Sookie seems like such a sheltered, unassuming character. I found her likable right away, especially since she got into a fight to defend the vampire just on principle, and that banished any notions put into my head that Sookie might be a weakling.

It's true that she cried a lot, but given the handful of deaths of loved ones and people she knows surrounding her, I think it's only justified. She certainly doesn't resemble most noir protagonists, but since this novel turned out to be a mystery, she qualifies. As the murders went down, the case was complicated by the long list of suspects, racism against Sookie for dating a male vampire, and the complexities of the relationship itself.

The villain was very well crafted. Since he defended Sookie a few times against people who were hitting on her and such, he was subtly mentally labeled "nice guy," even though she couldn't read his mind. Everyone had a handful of motives, and since it was all around a bar dash coffee place, so many people showed up and left in a day that it felt hard to keep track of. That, added to the way no one suspects someone close to them, even though the majority of all crimes is committed by someone known to the victim. So everyone was pretty much a suspect for a while, and it was hard to put down the book and actually think it over when it was written to be so action packed and fast paced.

Almost everyone was ambivalent about Sookie and Bill dating. Anyone who has ever been in an interracial relationship would relate to this. In fact, interracial dating was referenced by the cook, who happens to be a black gay human. There's the grandmother, who's glad that Sookie is dating at all, but her brother pretty much said something like, okay, if that's what you want. Some from the vampire community felt that it was wrong to mainstream, that it was betraying the culture, so they pushed Sookie around to provoke Bill. Others who intend to mainstream want to use Sookie for her mind reading talents and also think that psychics' blood is very tasty. It's no wonder that she felt so alone.

Meanwhile, Bill and Sookie have a hard time communicating, because of cultural - well, biological - differences, where they have to work around each others schedules because he doesn't come out during the day time and she has leeway, but generally sleeps at night. The first few dates were punctuated by the very different mating practices and the fact that she has next to no experience. (Why do vampire novels emphasize virgins? Is this more about that racism thing again?) I also related to the whole thing where a relationship impacts both parties, but in a heterosexual relationship, I invariably feel that the female is judged far more harshly.

It turns out that beneath all the interactions of the myriad of characters, there is more depth and commentary on society than just a plain old vanilla vampire book cum romance. The mystery, for example, leads to somewhat unusual detective work where instead of talking to people about where they were at a certain time and why, Sookie just reads their minds. The style has the feel of urban fantasy, but with home town and Southern accenting and culture. I also thought the author was very adept at describing vampires in their bloodlust, but that may be why she chose this particular supernatural creature to work with. I was also surprised that Sam was outed so quickly, though I was not surprised that there is a love triangle already, because romance seems to be a staple of many fantasy series for women.