Living Dead in Dallas

 This is book two of the Southern Vampires series, and the continuing adventures of Sookie Stackhouse.  Things get a little more complicated for Sookie this time, but she handles it with her usual intelligence, spunk and aplomb (I loved the part where she just stuck it to Portia Bellefleur and never gave her a single inch).  
There are two plots (story a and story b) and I just love how Harris has woven them together to make a really good story.    After reading the first book (which I had taken out of the library after  DS#1's brilliant, lovely and  beautiful girlfriend recommended it to me), I promptly went and bought the first eight books (sold in a convenient eight pack on Amazon.ca), and rapidly ripped through them. I am really fond of Sookie and her world so I am most anxious to see what will ultimately happen. This time around I am keeping an eye out for the little things and trying not to miss something because I was too eager to find out what happened the first time.  I am savoring all the moments.
The over-all story doesn't progress too far, but lots of things happen to keep it lively and Harris has a real talent for telling a story and keeping you interested which I think is rare (there are many series I have attempted which have just become so incredibly boring or far-fetched after a few books and you can just see that the author has over-extended themselves and lost the plot).
As usual the television show True Blood blew this book all out of proportion in an extremely stupid and pointless way.  It reminds me of the (ahem) 'storyline' to a porn movie, where the writers just sit down together and brainstorm on how they can optimize the sex or depravity to the utmost, and the more boobs and butts the better!  I hate what they have done to Sam's character, and to make something bad even worse, they destroyed Sookie's house which is such an anchor in the books.  I know that people really enjoy the show, and even Charlaine Harris has nothing but good things to say about it, but I'm just really glad that I read the books initially because I would not have given them a second thought if it had been the show I had encountered first.

*Spoiler Alert*  I am going to keep a tally of how many times the girl gets beaten up.  It was twice in the first book, once in this book...  I am amazed at how often she gets hurt by people, and so far it has been because of her involvement with vampires.