The Sookie Stackhouse Companion (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
The book starts out with a short story of Sookie going to Sam’s brother’s wedding. There was controversy because, despite Sam’s brother not being a shifter and his bride not being a shifter, people were protesting. The story was a lot of blah blah blah, but the point seemed to be to show that Sookie is no longer the same girl who was squeamish about blood and also give Quinn a happy ending (without Sookie). It seems that no man can move on from Sookie without her permission, so in this story Quinn was finally truly cut loose and found a tigress. The overall plot could have been interesting, but quite frankly it didn’t really make much sense as to why the wedding of two non-shifters was apparently decided to be the ideal battleground for a major anti-shifter protest. There was a weak attempt to explain it, but unless a crazy old man from a tiny town in Texas complaining on the internet about things he doesn’t like is more powerful than it sounds (given that the internet is full of people ranting about anything and everything, I just don’t see how this website was more powerful than any other – we were given no context) then it was just a weak cover-up. And old bad guy was brought back and taken care of, but no one you would have thought about had they not been brought back for this story. Bottom line, the story could have been half as long and still would have made its point – people are intolerant, but Sookie and her friends are better than them anyway. I honestly think the recap of the series was annoying and useless, but if I was reading the books as they came out instead of all in one shot, I may have appreciated it. The issue is that reading a recap is not the same thing as reading the book and the recaps were awfully detailed – to the point where they almost seemed to exist to take put pages and fill up the book. It was really only thanks to other reviewers that I even knew there were ‘secret conversations’ at the end of each recap because the first one was so boring I didn’t even finish reading it. The conversations between Bill and Eric were okay, quite frankly they were the same conversations that were described in the book, so first we read about the conversation in the original book and now the author really just transcribed the actual conversation, sadly there really weren’t any surprises. Mostly it was Bill and Eric trying to figure out how Sookie managed to get herself hurt this time or what trouble she had gotten herself into. I love getting recipes for things I read about in books, reading about food makes me want that food. That being said, I was a bit confused as to where the recipes came from, it seems like they were donated (?). I wish the book had specified where the recipes were used in various books, there are so many characters at this point that naming the dishes after them didn’t really help. It was also disappointing that the famous chocolate cake was made from a mix. Most of the rest of the book is a tribute to Charlene Harris, which wasn’t very appealing to me. Bottom line, this really is not worth purchasing, if anything just borrow it from the library, preferably when you have some time to do some actual cooking since some of the recipes actually seemed pretty nice. Cute book if you are a diehard Sookie fan (but even if you're a fair weather fan, it's still good reading.).The Companion is a compendium of interesting tidbits pertaining to all aspects of Sookieverse; maps, q&a, recipes (yes, the chocolate cake is in there :) ). My favorite bits were the short story, Small Town Wedding (has quite a bit of Sam, if you're a fan of him), the intro written by Charlaine, and the section titled Vampires, Two-Natured, Fairies Oh-My!. It's told from Sookie's POV and it gives a rundown of the different supernaturals and their respective 'quirks'. The only part I skipped was the Alan Ball/True Blood section - I've never watched the show and don't plan to. The maps were also nice. It's interesting to compare the actual setting as imagined by the author versus the one imagined by the reader. Bottom line - if you're a huge Sookie fan, I would recommend buying this to add to your collection. It's fun, it's different, it's a whole lot of extras that just add a bit more to an already fun series :)
What do You think about The Sookie Stackhouse Companion (2011)?
Some answers to questions. very good.
—markshawna1
