Battle lines are drawn between Twilight and True Blood – warning if you haven’t read the books then don’t read on, I’m trying not to give a lot away.

I’ve now read both the Twilight series and the True Blood series.  I’ve seen the battle lines drawn in the tabloids over who’s the sexier vampire.  I read all of Twilight and had a few complaints about the books.  I knew these books were written for teenagers but my major complaint about the Twilight series is probably my complaint about teenagers-all the whining!  The first book was Bella whining about Edward.  The second book Bella whining still about Edward.  The third book was Jacob whining about Bella and Edward as well as Bella whining about Edward and Jacob!  Halfway through the second book as a married woman, and an adult I cried, “Oh for crying out loud, all the yearning!!!”  !  I know it’s a teenager thing but personally I think they could cut at least 200 pages out of each book if they got the whining under control.  In the book’s defense I have friends that are in their third time rereading the ENTIRE series!

My other complaint with the book is Bella’s confidence or lack there of.  I am a big fan of positive role models for teenage girls.  Others defend the series saying that Bella is acting like a typical teenager.  How can she fight bad vampires, risk her life and limb THEN still think she is not good enough for Edward?  If I were Bella after Twilight, I’d be saying, “What do you mean leaving me?  You owe me man!”  Rather she just cries until like a puppy he comes back to her side.  Pahleeze!    Of course the whole time everyone is lusting after her, she’s busy telling the reader what a plain Jane she is, I do have friends like that, but I shot them.

Feeling a bit of withdraw over vampire books, I turned to the Sookie Stackhouse series, the basis behind the True Blood hit series on HBO.  I picked this up in the bookstore on recommendation from a friend.  Reading the back I thought, “Hmmm, she can read minds but Bill the vampire is the only mind she cannot read?”  This sounds really familiar!  Halfway into the first book, this was a woman after my own heart.  She starts the book off by telling some customers off in the restaurant she works as a waitress.  Sookie is not only beautiful, tiny, well built, but she’s strong, brave AND knows that she’s tiny, beautiful, well built and strong.  She, like the real people I know, cries when confronted with a crazy situation and then tells the beautiful Bill to go to Hell when most of it is his fault!  She cuts off those that need to be cut off, then like some that I know still loves them anyway and welcomes then back in.  Charlaine Harris introduces werewolves into the book in a very funny way, there’s romantic tension but how is plays out makes you laugh!

The Stackhouse books involve some type of mystery, something to keep the stories moving as they explore the romance between Sookie and Bill.  Sookie is a grown woman so that romance also includes others that think she’s a pretty hot, smart, tough woman.  You follow the mystery while exploring the romance between Sookie and other characters.  The Twilight series spends most of the book on the romance of Bella and Edward, then the action starts in the last 100 pages of the book and is over very quickly.  The characters of the Stackhouse books are funny, imaginative, and not perfect.  The characters of Twilight are all perfect and beautiful except for Bella who things she’s none of the above. 

My favorite part of the Stackhouse books is that they are funny.  She talks about everyday life as it is not glamorous, she cusses like a sailor, and she speaks her mind.  A lot of times it’s pretty funny.  These books though are not for teenagers, there is explicit sex in the books, so readers beware or enjoy.  This sex is part of the story not the major part of the story.  Partially through the Twilight series after all the yearning, I sounded like an old matchmaker, “Oh get on with it already!!!”

I watched the Twilight movie and actually enjoyed it, probably because they didn’t have time in two hours to incorporate all the whining Bella does.  I’ve waited on watching True Blood because I’m enjoying the Sookie Stackhouse books so much that I don’t want to spoil my reading.  The best part about books is if you read, then you are already ahead.  Whatever your choice, enjoy the journey and wear that garlic around your neck!