My Review of "From Dead To Worse"

Written by Charlaine Harris
Released in 2008

Hunter: “Aunt Sookie, you going? You coming back?”
Sookie: “Sometime, Hunter. Maybe your dad will bring you to visit me someday.”

After something of a disappointing seventh book, the one thing that cannot be denied about “From Dead To Worse” is the focus on several plot, so if there’s something here that isn’t engaging you for whatever reason, there should be at least several other plots that do, especially given that this book is more family oriented than before.

For instance, it’s not really all that much of a shock that Hadley left behind a young son named Hunter and while it isn’t until the last chapter that Sookie gets around to seeing the lad, it’s one of the strongest plots going. Hunter being of the same way that Sookie is another one of those things that you’ll see coming a mile off. It’s great because you know from the bat that Sookie would do anything in her power to make things easier for Hunter and his father, Remy given the years in which she’s had to hone her abilities.

But oddly enough, introducing one previously unknown relative wasn’t enough for Charlaine Harris in this book. Nope, she had to go and introduce Sookie to her fairy prince great grandfather, Niall and that opened another can of worms. Namely the ones involving her birth grandmother and the fact that Niall has both many enemies and a surprising desire not to make himself known to Jason.

And then there’s Jason as well. His selfishness really came to bite Sookie in the ass in this one. Organising it so that her and Calvin would catch Crystal in the act of cheating was a shitty thing to do, especially when sticking with were panther law, Sookie had to smash Calvin’s fingers as a result. That was one passage I actually didn’t want to reread in an immediate hurry.

If the family stuff wasn’t getting Sookie down, there was also the inevitable breakup with Quinn as well. Sure, it didn’t elicit a lot of emotional consequences as such but Sookie actually did come across as being rather selfish in her reasoning to ditch the were tiger, even if Harris spent more time on the book focusing in on Sookie’s growing bond with Eric.

A bond that ended up resulting in her saving Eric, Sam and the new vampire leader Felipe deCastro from Siegbert at one point. As wonderful as that scene was, I did think that Sophie Anne had been prematurely dispatched with and I’m still not totally bought on Sookie and Eric as a pairing just yet. Plus, I don’t see this new vampire regime not having even further problems down the line as well. I’m just saying.

- Sookie enlisted Calvin, Amelia and Octavia in order to stop Tanya from causing further problems with a little magic. That Sandra Pelt is just as bad as her sister, isn’t she?
- Arlene’s dating some guy from Fellowship and at one point; Pam and Amelia were enjoying each other’s company a lot. Plus Bob was turned back into a human by Octavia.
- We got a bit of an information dump on Sam’s family but the moments with him and Sookie in this book were brilliant.
- Alcide made amends with Sookie, unfortunately lost Maria-Star Cooper and became pack leader.

Definitely a massive improvement from the previous book, though with a lot of different plots going on all at once, it’s one of the few books that felt closer to the show as well but I’m noticing that in spite of his remorse for Sookie, Bill is getting naff all to actually do in these books anymore.

Rating: 8 out of 10.