Final Sookie Countdown #13... Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris

                                                          

There is no doubt at all that this final book has stirred up emotions amongst the devoted Sookie Stackhouse fans.  Some didn't want it to end...  others knew it had too...  and we were all a little nervous at how it was all going to be pulled together.  I do feel that this particular installment was definitely better written than the last three books.  I could tell that more "heart" went into this one and even though there will be multitudes of fans who will not be satisfied...  THIS fan was OK with Sookie 's final choice.  Having said that... I wasn't necessarily satisfied with how this came to be.  There were definitely some things that I wish had been done differently. 
The action and the murder mystery were good.  I liked the devil aspect...  not THE devil but A devil...  :)  You'd think people would learn not to mess with the big D...  but, there's a sucker born every day I suppose.  And, I loved re-visiting with some of my favorite characters like Amelia, Barry the Bellboy, Diantha and Mr. Cataliades. 
I did not like what happened to Claude...  didn't we close the door on the fairies already??  I would've preferred to have left out the fairy element in this final book.  In fact what we needed more of in this book was vampire time.  We only got bits and pieces of information about what was going on with Eric and the gang and I think the readers needed to be more intimately involved in that so we could better understand Eric's choices.  I didn't like how Eric was portrayed.
Completely and totally happy with the closure we had for Pam...  yay for Pam!  She had the best closure out of all of the characters. 
Bill got nothing really...  just meh...  seemed like he deserved something. 
Loose ends were being tied all over the place...  some were good... some weren't and then there were still some that were left wide open...  including Sookie's love life.  Well, it felt a little open-ended to me.  Others may feel differently. 
I have loads of opinions on how this series ended but I can't really express too many of them without revealing big spoilers.  Perhaps I'll re-cap my thoughts again later after the book has been out a while.
 I do applaud C. Harris for realizing that it was time for her to bring this series to an end and I respect her choice to end it the way she always knew she would.  If the magic is gone then it's gone...  and there's no reason to cry too much about it if you didn't like it because there is a whole other version on HBO.  Granted it bears very little resemblance to the books but hey, if you gotta' get your Sookie time at least you have somewhere to go. 
I really did flounder on my rating for this book...  so I think I'm going to settle for a 3.5 stars for now...  simply because it was better than the last two books but definitely not the best in series.  That prize will always go to Book Four! 

Bon Voyage Sookie!  Thanks for the journey! 

K~

If you would like to read the entire Sookie Stackhouse countdown click HERE to begin with Book one...  Dead Until Dark.