Goodbye Sookie Stackhouse, I Will Miss You.

It is a bittersweet place where I find myself right now, the minute after I finished  reading  Dead Ever After, the final book in the Sookie Stackhouse series. On the one hand, I am very happy with it ending the way it did, the way I knew it would, the way I knew it had to since I read the very first book. On the other hand, Sookie and crew have been my friends for nearly a decade. I have waited with baited breathe every spring for the next book in the series to arrive on my doorstep so I could catch up and visit with old friends. But all good things must come to an end. This is especially true for book series.

It has been proving a few too many times that a good book series turns bad when the author and publishing house tries to drag the cash cow out one time too many. Thank you Ms. Harris for being the true professional you are and knowing when to call time. Thank you for sharing your characters and their stories with us. Thank you for providing me with years of entertainment and fantasy. I know some readers are not happy with you right now, and that is unfortunate but I am definitely not one of them.  I have enjoyed your humor and style these past ten years and I hope there is good fortune enough in this world to allow me to enjoy your wonderful writing again. And thank you, especially, for bringing this series back to the place I thought it was going in the very beginning.

Some of you may notice I am not really reviewing the book. It feels too personal to me right now to provide a critical analysis (even the shallow type of review I usually do seems too intimate to share right now, after all I just said goodbye to some friends). I am experiencing that emotional cliff that follows on the heels of completing a book that draws you so completely into its world. The Sookie Stackhouse books may not be classic literature material but they will always have a place in my personal library. Over the years these books crafted by Ms. Harris have have made me laugh. They have been the reason I have stayed up late into the night trying to read one more chapter (which ends up always to be twenty or thirty more). They have even made me shout out in frustration a time or two and tear up for a brief moment here or there but they always left me with a warm and fuzzy place that I could revisit time and time again. A place that feels like I imagine Bon Temps feels like to Sookie; a place like home. 

I hope in time I will be able to reread these books and recapture the enthrallment of life in Bon Temps.  I guess there is but one more thing to say tonight: Goodbye Sookie Stackhouse, I will miss you dearly.

Spoilsports, Spoilers, and Just Plain Crazies

*This post was to be a Misanthropic Monday post but I really went on a rant and decided it was best to let it sit a day before letting it out to breath.



I have been reading Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series since the early 2000s. I have enjoyed every book. I have not always liked the turn of events that occurred in the books but I have been thoroughly entertained by each and everyone of them. I have loved and hated the choices made by the main character. These books have made me laugh, cry, laugh some more and also shake my fists at the turn of events (I liked Alcide from the first moment, to see him turn into a lesser character was not my favorite thing but you know, these things happen).

And like most fans, I have eagerly awaited the arrival of spring each year. Spring is a time when many things blossom and bloom; a time when new growth occurs, this holds true for many paranormal/ urban fantasy series. Spring is a time of year when I save up my hard earned money (and Christmas gift cards!) to splurge on buying the next installments to many of my favorite series, including Ms.Harris's Sookie books. In short, I have been emotionally and financially invested in following this series, just like many of its other fans. This past week, I have learned that the book world is in an uproar because some "fan" managed to not only get a hold of a copy of Dead Ever After  early but they also proceeded to post the ending of the series online before the book's release date. Now, I understand being upset when a series ends in a way that you really did not want it to; see the a fore mentioned emotional and financial investment. What I cannot understand is taking your emotional revenge out on others who are eagerly awaiting the last book of the series too. By posting a spoiler, you do just that, you spoil everything for those who have not yet been able to read the book. I have names for people like this "fan" but I will not post them here and will just call these types of people spoilsports. Spiteful Spoilsports.

However, this spiteful act of one spoilsport does not stop there. No, of course it doesn't. The internet being the internet, other haters and emotionally unstable people who are strengthened by their anonymity have dog piled on the spoiler post to vent their spleens to the world and blame Charlaine Harris for their many woes.  Those truly unstable have even threaten Ms. Harris' well being. This is disturbing to me. Ms. Harris has shared her creativity with her readers for decades. As a writer she has created many characters and story lines over the years. Created as in meaning she is their source of origin, their creator, the well spring from which they well, sprung.

She was the person driving the bus we were but passengers along for the ride. While it is true most passengers have opinions about which route would be best to take, ultimately we were not seated at the controls and the big decisions were the driver's to make, you know, like which radio stations we listen too on the road trip. We passengers buy our tickets knowing that we have no input in the final destination of the trip, in fact that is part of the thrill for many of us, the wonder of where it will all lead in the end. For some, however, it appears that their purchasing of a ticket means they are entitled to dictate the path the driver will take and take control over the radio.Perhaps the driving analogy was not the best choice here because I know someone can make the passenger as navigator argument.

Either way, in my personal opinion I do not think readers get to dictate how a story ends, the writer does. Yes, I agree that readers can be disappointed in how a story ends and yes, I do agree that we can voice why we are disappointed on forums, blogs, emails, etc. Doing so by purposely ruining the ending for everyone else is just childish and mean. Voicing your opinion on a book or the outcome of a long series by name calling and/or sending threats is more than childish and mean, it is a sign of ignorance and mental instability.

To these people I say get a grip, take your meds, and go see a mental health professional post haste...

...and above all else, don't breed!!!