Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

***WARNING - SPOILERS*** Okay, wow...I honestly don't even know where to begin. First, I have to say what a huge fan I am of the SVM series. I have been desperately and eagerly awaiting the arrival of this final book. To say that I am disappointed is a massive understatement. While reading the book I found myself skipping and scanning through pages in utter disbelief. To be honest, it comes across as nothing more than substandard fanfic. The book was entirely inconsistent with the previous 12 books...like it was written by someone with a complete lack of knowledge and understanding of the characters and story lines. It was 300+ pages of absolutely nothing. No real story line was developed, at least no believable story line, and each character and relationship that had developed over the previous 12 books felt shallow, empty and dismissed. It is a rushed story that can only be described as bland at best. Every character in this book was totally at odds with the characters we have been introduced to throughout the series. Sookie became somewhat fragile, boring and subdued. Bill became a friendly neighbor who appeared to be nothing more than an old acquaintance. And then there's Eric...oh, Eric...I'm at a total loss. He began as a fierce hot kick-ass alpha-male vamp who, in my opinion, made the series so much more. He was relentless and fearsome, but throughout the series it truly seemed that he did love Sookie. He definitely wasn't someone to be messed with. In the end, he was a petulant, sullen & disconsolate vamp who was bullied into becoming a Queen's consort. I kept waiting for his secret plan of total annihilation to be revealed, but he does absolutely nothing. He literally walks away with his head bowed and his tail between his legs. I was dumbfounded. There was absolutely nothing about him in the end that could even be compared to the character we first met in "Dead Until Dark". I hated seeing his character disseminated in such a way. My issues with the book are not even necessarily related to the ending of Eric and Sookie's relationship. It's really more to do with how it ends...it was completely dismissed. I've read that Ms. Harris had originally planned this ending after the first few books and that was obvious after reading it, but I really thought that after choosing to extend the series to 12 books she would change her mind. The characters were not the same after everything that happened in books 4-12. The way this book pans out just doesn't coincide with everything that has happened until now. Honestly, I saw the whole Sam thing coming with the ending of "Deadlocked". But even the development of their relationship just wasn't believable and, again, it was inconsistent with the previous books. She suddenly can only read his emotions, not his mind and apparently she's wanted to be with him the entire time but was too scared to pursue a relationship in fear that it would damage their friendship. Seriously?? While she and Sam have had several (almost) intimate encounters in the past, there was absolutely nothing that would have suggested they were both secretly in love with each other the entire time. It just wasn't convincing to me. Eric is petulant over the fact that Sookie won't consider continuing a secret affair after he marries the Queen and Sookie appears to suddenly realize that maybe she never really accepted his vampire nature because in a moment of contemplation she suddenly has an epiphany that maybe she does have an underlying aversion to the fact that he's a vampire....what?? A relationship that gradually blossomed into something much deeper (and took 5 or 6 books to progress) was literally dismissed in only a few pages as nothing more than Eric's feeling of apparent "affection" because he truly only viewed Sookie as a possession he owned for a short while and Sookie's admission that their break-up actually " doesn't even hurt as much as her break-up with Bill". To be honest, I would have been more satisfied had Eric kidnapped Sookie determined to turn her against her will in order to keep her...at least it would have been more true to his character. Throughout the book, Sookie has 3 brief encounters with Eric and I believe 2 or 3 with Bill. The entire series is based on vampires and yet there is absolutely no interaction with vampires in this book...only a couple of brief humdrum encounters where nothing of significance happens except for the ceremony between Eric and Sookie. I could really go on and on, but it would be pointless. Everything about this book was off and left me disappointed with the entire series. In fact, it left such a bad sentiment that I've decided to just re-read the books and stop at 12 to get this final book out of my head. "Dead Ever After" is an extremely disappointing and inadequate ending to the SVM series.