Sookie Stackhouse Dead in the Family Review

Well I know that I decided to make my blog about my life and old memories but I wanted to submit a review of an advanced book I just read and seeing as how it's not out in the stores and I have no where to bitch about it, I thought I'd take to my dying blog to make me feel better, LOL.
So I bought an advanced copy of the newest Sookie Stackhouse book 10 Dead in the Family. I couldn't wait to read it and in fact read it in one day. I stayed up till 3am reading it. I just discovered the series of books a few months ago and yes I've seen the True Blood tv show. I actually had watched it way before I even realized there was a book series. So once I got on the book bandwagon, so to speak, I was hooked. I finished book 9 a few weeks ago and then realized my timing was perfect because book 10 was set to be released in May 2010, what luck!!! Well, as everyone does now adays, I took to the internet to read up on book 10. It sounded so good!!!
Ok wait one minute, let me step back a second. Just for anyone who doesn't know, book 9 was very epic. It left you with all these new questions and possibilites. I was so excited after reading book 9 that I was just dying to find out what happened next. So you can tell that by knowing there was a book 10 with my answers, I spared no expense to have those answers, thus my advanced copy (wink).
Anywho, back to the present. So there I am, with book 10 in my hot little hands and all my answers.....well shit!!!! Not only did I not get my answers but I was actually left with a hole in my heart and more questions. I was actually totally depressed, baffled and dismayed.
So now I'm going to vent here with no compunction about spoiling anything because no one reads my blog anyways. So if you want a spoiler alert, I guess this is it.
In book 9, just to sum it up and get my thoughts flowing. Sookie is captured, tortured, people who she loves have died and at the very end, she's told by her great grandfather that one of the two vampires she's involved with actually deeply loves her and is a good man but she forgets to ask which one. So depending on which team you're on (team Bill or team Erik), you're left wondering which vampire is the one she should end up with. Also at this point Bill is poisoned and Erik has some other connection to her or so Pam hints at it. Don't ask, this has been food for fotter among us who have nothing else to do but tear words apart, LOL. Oh and she decides to ask Amilia to look into severing the bond between Erik and her.
Anywho, so if you're a fan of the books, this is a lot of questions to leave open at the end of the book and there in lies book 10.
So book 10 starts off with Sookie recovering from the torture. She's bitter, she's got an edge to her and she's miserable. All understandable of course. Sookie is still dating Erik, although it doesn't seem to be a very happy relationship at this point. She is just going through the motions with Erik although the bond thing is very pervasive. Erik reveals why he wasn't able to rescue her in book 9 but there after the fact. We then see that Sookie is really only holding on by a thread. Unfortunately the book does become a bit political with the Were's coming out and the backlash from that but because she's so engrossed in her own issues, she doesn't see the situation around her. She then meets Erik's family who kinda pop in on her and it's not a pretty family, in fact it's down right ugly and nasty. We are also introduced back into the Long Tooth pack business and Alcide wants more from Sookie, even though he knows what she's gone through, he could care less. And all the while, Sookie is dealing with her own Fae family crap and Bill, who rescued her from the torture is the last person on her mind.
I found through the reading, that I didn't care about Erik at all anymore and maybe that was the point? I found that he was still him and he was doing what he could but that he was so full of his own baggage that I couldn't see anymore why she chose him above all her other suitors. I found myself not caring at all about him.
I found myself actually caring what happend to Bill then and like all the other books, he's more of an after-thought. It's almost the middle of the book before Sam suggests that she go see him (I guess she hadn't seen him since the end of the 9th book) and it's not till she sees him that she takes pitty on him. I found this profoundly appauling. After the end of book 9 when she decides that she loved him again and he had risked his own life time and time again for her, that he becomes a footnote in the next book, while Erik and his sick family take center stage. Then she basically fixes Bill's medical issue by finding his "sister" and then in a more twisted fashion, it turns out that Lorena turned this girl because she looked like Bill's old wife, so that Bill would have a mate who reminded him of his old wife and Bill then rides off into the sunset with her.....freeing up Sookie to be with Erik......EWWWWW! I felt like the author just put a bandaid on the whole Bill thing as a footnote. I was upset at this because of the grand gestures and her feeling toward him in the 9th book. I felt he deserved better. Not to just be shoved aside and passified.
As for Erik, well hell! He is reduced to muck in this book. He's so under the influence of his maker and his "brother" that he's totally helpless. It takes Sookie telling the viking to freakin' buck up! She's the one towing the line. He leaves her for days on end because she really wants to kill his maker and he ends up in worse trouble. It's a really stupid turn of events and really is more about his "brother". I almost felt as though the author thought it would be cool to introduce someone from history and how she could work it in rather then stay true to the story and characters. Of course, Erik leaves after all is fixed to check on Pam and you almost want to say, good!
Then there's the wolves again, Alcide is blinded by his pack. He's the head hauncho and asks to borrow Sookie's land for the monthly run where mayhem ensues. It seemed really stupid he'd ask her but whatever. They do tie it up with a nice ribbon at the end of the book but not after Alcide drags her into more Were shit, even gets her to do some drugs, professes his love or hope they would have been mated and then never even says thanks. Whatever!
There is a fun side to the book when Hunter, Sookie's 5 year old cousin comes to spend the night. You get to see a maternal Sookie and how much she really would like to be a mom one day. Her cousin Claude is also staying with her. She's very bitter still about the Fae and her Fae cousin. She is very abrupt with him but he's no picnic. She also finally meets Dermott who's her unstable great uncle. Well through a series of events, you find out he's not crazy and he's under a spell that is making him crazy. He also is trying to protect her I guess and does suggest that one of the vamps loves her more then the other but it's glossed over. We also meet the villan in this book who is Claudine's baby daddy. Again, more choas and at the end of all this chaos, I ended up totally grossed out in a family way. Yuck!!!!
So where am I going with all of this.......
Well let's see and again this is just my summary of my feelings (hell it's my blog). I am no closer to knowing who she'll end up with. Bill is off making whoopie with his "sister" after again professing his love for Sookie. Sam is dating a blood thirsty Were. Erik is free from his master and again, all about him. Sookie is back with Fae family and the FBI is spying on her even though they were told to back off from the powers that be. Pam is on the mend. Jason is in a good relationship and on the mend. Alcide, who knows? Probably celebrating again in that Were way. All in all, nothing was answered. No bond was broken. No Bill/Erik answer. No nothing that was left open in book 9 was really ever answered except why Erik wasn't there to rescue her. Bill get's a footnote of her time, Sam is pretty absent in the book and Jason is in a responsible relationship and on his way to manhood.
All I can hope is that with 3 more books coming because the author is contracted to 13 for now, that this book will become a footnote in the series and just considered one of those backstory books that once read, you sort of gloss over when you're considering the series.
Totally frustrating~~~~