Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My definition of a superbly enjoyable book is one that lets me get so lost in the author's world that I am unable to put the book down and must continue reading into the early morning hours. To do that, the characters, the plotting and the continuity must be believable to the extent that the author's world comes "alive." That's a tall order, and Charlaine Harris's SVM series did that for me for many years. I'm grateful to her for providing me with several hours of reading pleasure. That said, I experienced extreme disappointment with this final book in the series. Disappointed posters elsewhere have eloquently pointed out the several reasons for such disappointment and I won't restate them here, other than to say I completely agree with them. I've always been Team Sookie, which is why the following quote says so much to me: "If Charlaine Harris had written the Harry Potter series, the end of Deathly Hallows would have Harry sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs with the spiders and no magic. While Voldemort would move in across the street, taunt him daily, and dispense life advice. All of Harry's friends that he made at Hogwarts will be either dead, betray him, or not allowed to visit. Ginny would be married to a Death Eater in order to save Harry's hitherto miserable life. But he'll be okay with that, `cause he's been thinking for some time they are too different to have a life of it." ([...]) What was going on in CH's mind? Only she can answer that, but I suspect that when she signed over her SVM to Alan Ball of True Blood, her taste for writing the series began to increasingly go downhill. The books began to decline right about when True Blood fever caught on. Unlike the Twilight and Harry Potter movies, which closely followed the authors' series of books, CH's experience with True Blood was to watch her characters warp out of recognition beginning with the second season. To lose control of your characters and watch what happens to them has to be painful. Alan Ball even let slip that CH was asked NOT to kill off Bill, even though she revealed in this week's Entertainment Weekly that she had had a wonderful death scene already written for Bill. I imagine that other than the gobs of money CH earned from Mr. Ball, CH tremendously regrets selling her characters to True Blood. In addition, CH's extending her series to several more books than she originally planned must have affected her as well. I can't read CH's mind, but DEA certainly made to clear to any reader that she no longer cares about her characters. I was hopeful that she would end the SVM series with a tremendous bang, but alas, it was a painful whimper. ******[EDIT: new comments added below]****** Some have expressed curiosity as to what exactly I see wrong with DEA (see my "won't restate [the reasons] here" above). I'll point to Nora E. York's excellent review, "Disappointing ending to an amazing series **SPOILERS**," listed just above mine, as one of many great reviews outlining the troubling issues with this book. I am not a "shipper" nor have I ever have been. I don't read or write fan fiction, and I don't belong to any CH or TB forums. I just want a well-written book that makes sense! That's why I wrote my review in the first place: I am struggling to understand how such a wonderful writer as CH could write such an unsatisfactory book with which to end her much-beloved SVM series. There is no "hate" involved; just bewilderment and disappointment, and even some sympathy for CH's situation (i.e., losing control of her characters with regard to TB). Let's face it, CH is not alone in causing her own predicament. Both her editor and her agent failed her.