Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, Bk 1)
Author:
Genres: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Book Type: Paperback
Author:
Genres: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Book Type: Paperback
serinlea reviewed on
Warning: This will be surprisingly long for a book I didn't finish.
After pointing and laughing my way through "Twilight" (because "Twilight means never having to say you're kidding"--http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/630150.html), I was on the lookout for more goofy paranormal fluff. Alas, "Dead Until Dark" had all of the terrible writing with none of the inadvertent hilarity. It read like an emo middle-schooler's tale of vampires. Every other sentence started with "I", and entire paragraphs were devoted to describing people's appearances and clothing. Really, how many times do we need to hear that Sookie has long blond hair, and that her work uniform is a white t-shirt and black shorts?
There were also a few horrifically stereotyped minor characters, including a black, female cop named Kenya who was "built to weather hurricanes", and whose inner monologue at a murder scene was described by the narrator as "...she felt sorry for anyone who ended up with flies crawling on her face. Kenya was thinking she was sorry she'd eaten that extra doughnut that morning at the Nut Hut because it might come back up and that would shame her as a black woman police officer."
Really, Harris? REALLY really?
Sadly...yes, really. Harris earlier makes a point of how "funny" Kenya and her cop partner Kevin look together -- "When the town police chief had partnered Kenya and Kevin, he'd been indulging his sense of humor, the town figured". Why? Because she's a tall heavy-set black woman, and he's a short, thin white man. HIGH-larious, don't you agree?
Ugh.
Then there was the gay, fey "swarthy, maybe Latino" man, who -- OMG! -- turned out to have "sino-AIDS". Couldn't have been any of the other four people who dropped by to visit - no, it's the queer POC.
I kept hoping it would get better, but instead it got worse with each page, until I gave up at page 120 or so, after the following sentence, during the scene in which her coworkers are collectively disapproving her choice to date a vampire:
"I thought you were going to say you were dating a black, but you've gone one better, ain't you, girl?"
The only thing that kept me from literally throwing the book across the room at this point was knowing that the noise would wake up my husband. Instead I settled for picking my jaw up off the floor, and putting this book back on the shelf.
I think this book wins the Most Racist Book I've Ever Read award (Most Sexist goes to Where the Red Fern Grows).
Just...wow.
After pointing and laughing my way through "Twilight" (because "Twilight means never having to say you're kidding"--http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/630150.html), I was on the lookout for more goofy paranormal fluff. Alas, "Dead Until Dark" had all of the terrible writing with none of the inadvertent hilarity. It read like an emo middle-schooler's tale of vampires. Every other sentence started with "I", and entire paragraphs were devoted to describing people's appearances and clothing. Really, how many times do we need to hear that Sookie has long blond hair, and that her work uniform is a white t-shirt and black shorts?
There were also a few horrifically stereotyped minor characters, including a black, female cop named Kenya who was "built to weather hurricanes", and whose inner monologue at a murder scene was described by the narrator as "...she felt sorry for anyone who ended up with flies crawling on her face. Kenya was thinking she was sorry she'd eaten that extra doughnut that morning at the Nut Hut because it might come back up and that would shame her as a black woman police officer."
Really, Harris? REALLY really?
Sadly...yes, really. Harris earlier makes a point of how "funny" Kenya and her cop partner Kevin look together -- "When the town police chief had partnered Kenya and Kevin, he'd been indulging his sense of humor, the town figured". Why? Because she's a tall heavy-set black woman, and he's a short, thin white man. HIGH-larious, don't you agree?
Ugh.
Then there was the gay, fey "swarthy, maybe Latino" man, who -- OMG! -- turned out to have "sino-AIDS". Couldn't have been any of the other four people who dropped by to visit - no, it's the queer POC.
I kept hoping it would get better, but instead it got worse with each page, until I gave up at page 120 or so, after the following sentence, during the scene in which her coworkers are collectively disapproving her choice to date a vampire:
"I thought you were going to say you were dating a black, but you've gone one better, ain't you, girl?"
The only thing that kept me from literally throwing the book across the room at this point was knowing that the noise would wake up my husband. Instead I settled for picking my jaw up off the floor, and putting this book back on the shelf.
I think this book wins the Most Racist Book I've Ever Read award (Most Sexist goes to Where the Red Fern Grows).
Just...wow.
