Dead in the Family... by Charlaine Harris

My first of the Sookie Stackhouse series... this is apparently number 10. I've not read any prior ones. Actually I've not heard of this series till after I had completed this book and Googled for the book. And wa-laaa, a whole list came out!

Anyway, it's vampire flavour now.... Twilight series and all that. In this book, vampires, shape shifters, were(s) or werewolves, faes have now 'integrated' into the Earth's populace. Some of them are even religious! How accommodating can it get some more? Signs of the permissive times we are in? I thought vampires are supposed to cringe at the sight of crosses or Holy Books! I must be old fashioned in my imagination! But in the book, vampires and humans, humans and faes, shape shifters and humans, etc, etc fall in love.

Since vampires are dead, and so if they want offsprings they must get a surrogate... artificial insemination, implantation (??). And oh! Did I mention that faes (fairies) can be gay. Gone are the more innocent images of fairies, pixies, gnomes of Enid Blyton. The faes are sword wielding in the book. They kill without so much as batting an eyelid! Shape shifters co-exist with humans, run their businesses and pay taxes. It's accepted that vampires sleep in their coffins (in their houses) during the day and 'come out to play' during the night. And oh yes! They have this 'pseudo blood' called True Blood to quench their bloodthirst!

But killing in cold blood, the mad streak and freakiness associated with this supposedly netherworld-associated-creatures are still hallmark of their true characters. Vampires still kill humans and other vampires or whatever creatures in cold blood and in full brutality. And we're supposed to be rooting for the vampire, half-human heroes and heroines in the novel. I find that disturbing, because the process of 'ridding' the 'bad' elements reek of worse....

The morality line seems still to be an important essence in the story but it's a very gray one; one that seems to encourage us to embrace that good and evil are almost the same, with evil just crossing the line a teeny wee bit.

And reading this got me thinking even more... imagine how subtly our young who read such kinds of books get twisted into accepting the gray lines... the novel romanticizes the 'what used to be thought as evil' long time ago into something very desirable.

This being book 27, and it also reminds me, how books play a role in subtly shaping or perhaps more suitably the numbing down of morality and thinking of our young. We are dumbed down and numbed by a lot of things around us these days and books like this is one of them.