Dead Ever After - I am going to forget this book ever existed *With Spoilers*

Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I feel disrespected and appalled at this last installment that Charlaine Harris somehow thought would pass as an acceptable conclusion to the series. And to say nothing about the editors who wasted the money on printing this thing. Quite frankly, I don’t think any of them cared. They knew the number of people, such as me, who love this series and were excited for the grand finale (or in this case, grand failure). Despite the last 4 books being increasingly bad, we held onto hope that CH would pull it together and send everything out with a bang. Instead, they played on the love of Sookie’s fans, knowing that this hope would lead to the purchase my so many of this mediocre crud.

Why? Let me count the reasons…

#1 – Continuity: I have read each of the books only once, so I missed a few things others have pointed out, but there was still enough that I caught to irk me. Sookie can all of a sudden only read the emotions of wares? Since when? Sookie knows a swear word worse than damn, and uses it? Since when? Sookie is a hypocrite who can’t stand the fact that vampire blood might be affecting whether she really loves Eric, but she is A-Ok with the Sam situation even though it was affected by the cluvial dor? HELLO!!!

#2 – Eric: I’ll admit, I love Eric (and not only because I love watching Alexander Skarsgaard play him, I actually like the book character too ). CH spent EIGHT books building up that relationship, and then threw it away. And not only did she throw it away, she didn’t even do it with an ounce of drama or respect. Literally, there were probably a total of 3 pages devoted to ending Eric and Sookie’s relationship after, again, EIGHT books of building it up. Whether you are an Eric fan or not, this is just stupid.

#3 – The whole dang plot!: Really?! This passes as a plot line that will be published by a major publishing company? Apparently you don’t have to have any creativity, or skill, in crafting an enticing plotline to get a book published. So on that note, I’ll be right back – need to pop in and tell the boss I’m quitting since I can certainly make more money as a mediocre author. Seriously though, this plot was full of holes, pieced together segments that ultimately meant nothing to each other, and the pacing was awful! I was reading this on my Kindle and at one point I looked down and saw “91% complete”. I frantically started thinking my KF must be broken, because there was NO WAY that everything that started would come to a resolution with so little left. But it did. And it did POORLY. Literally, this book when from a meander through the woods to the Olympic 100 yard dash in about a page. The last 10% of the book was so fast, so shoddily pieced together and too outright disappointing to even think about.

#4 – Lack of respect for readers: Yes, CH created her characters and it is entirely up to her what happens to them. Despite my disappointment with the ending of the series, I can respect that (though I do question the reason, given that she went against just about every review I’ve ever read and every fellow fan I know….). What I can’t respect are the things listed above. It is a sad thing when your readers apparently know more about the stories created than you do to catch continuity issues you have missed. Oh, they were on purpose? You changed things to make your ending work better and thought we weren’t smart enough to notice?

Since CH did not have enough respect for her fans to write a final book of any quality, I am not going to give her the respect of caring about her ending – I will have my very own sitting happily in my mind, blocking out all memories of her completely, utterly, and absolutely disappointing finale.

And publishers, shame on you. You had better believe I will be putting more thought into what Penguin books I actually spend money on for a while – you have some redeeming to do.


View all my reviews