Living Dead in Dallas (Sookie Stackhouse #2)
Author: Charlaine Harris
Published: 2002
On Goodreads
My Rating: 
Rated M for maenad madness.
All it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly…
Sookie Stackhouse’s life as a simple waitress is thrown into imbalance once again when a fellow co-worker and friend shows up gruesomely murdered in Merlotte’s parking lot, a maenad comes to Bon Temps, and she’s shuffled off to Dallas to help find a missing vampire.
Sure, having a vampire for a boyfriend was going to be tricky, but she didn’t think so much drama and trouble would follow.
Sookie Stackhouse Reviews
Things got a little extra goofy in this installment of the series. Though it reached some seriously strange and questionable areas, Harris kept the goofy and humorous front that allowed this to remain entertaining. This isn’t a series that requires much investment if any and makes for a quick read. You’ll get the well-known catchphrases and metaphors with a side of vampire melodrama that people secretly wish for in their fantasies.
I did face a few struggles as I read. More than once, the book felt all over the place or even just disorganized. Sookie gets attacked in the very beginning but is forced to leave what it could potentially mean for her friends and hometown behind for a vampire mission. Said vampire mission goes completely sideways with how questionable both the vampire was and the place he needed rescuing from was. Some of this just didn’t make sense to me. However, I was excited to the supernatural world expanded a bit.
Going to Dallas opened a new world for Sookie. I was mildly intrigued by each new experience she had. Though, when each one was approached in the same mild fashion, it became redundant. I get that she’s a small-town girl, but dang. You’d swear she knew nothing at all. She’s made out to be so ditsy that she possibly only has two brain cells. But, I try not to think about that too much. I am hoping that this isn’t a continuing trend with her.
Godric’s role in this book was dark and twisted. I couldn’t comprehend it with the Godric I fell in love with on the related show: True Blood. Just nope. Nu-uh. No way. This book’s take on him, though it came first, dirtied his memory. Now, Stan is a different story. LOL. I believe Stan would be such an ugly vampire as was depicted. This vision of Godric made my gut hurt and my face twist. The Fellowship of the Sun was disappointing, too. I guess I expected more from an anti-supernatural cult. Instead, it was unbelievable.
Eric and Sookie’s relationship grew in this installment and I was pretty giddy about it. I’m living for their back-and-forth banter. Bill’s sudden dominance over Sookie grew tiresome. I’m not into relationships where the girlfriend or boyfriend is treated solely as an object. Yet, Eric thrived on Sookie’s feisty side. He even came to her aid when she needed to handle the maenad problem. And let me tell you, picturing a Viking vampire in tight, form-fitting, lycra was quite the experience.
Speaking of, the maenad was a bit underwhelming. The fact that such an ancient being, a worshipper of Dionysus, would want to tussle with vampires was interesting and odd. My brain made that record screeching noise every time I tried to process it. LOL. I wish there had been more to her storyline because of how it bland and all over the place this was.
The world build was pretty basic. Harris took the advantage of Sookie’s small-town life and amplified it by one hundred. It seemed like the easy way, letting Sookie get all ditsy about being in a new place as if she were a newborn. I wasn’t too fond of it. With never having been out of Bon Temps, I hoped that Sookie would be in a bigger state of awe about getting out of there for a while. That just didn’t seem to cross over. The benefit of this series being placed in the world I know already was also beneficial.
Overall
Not overly exciting or memorable, a little outrageous, but entertaining. I found at least half of this book to be totally crazy, but it was just enough to finish it. I’m definitely wondering how much wilder the series will continue to get. While I’m coming to learn that these books come across as mediocre, it’s the kind I’m willing to let my brain be addled with.
Quotables:
“Vampires like to be humiliated about as much as people do.” (p. 85)
“Once a vampire, always a vampire.” (p. 215)
“…We can sometimes remember what it was like to be among you, on of you. But we are not the same race. We are no longer of the same clay.” (Bill to Sookie, p. 230)
More to come soon…
-K.
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The Scarlet Reader 
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