I love Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries aka the Sookie Stackhouse books aka the True Blood books. I also love the HBO show True Blood. I will admit though that it took me a while to get into the show. I had heard about True Blood for two years and never really thought much about it since I did not have HBO. I thought it sounded like a cool show, but had no desire to ever pay to get HBO or download on iTune or whatever. And then I got HBO and Netflix. I didn't really have any desire to watch True Blood right away, but thought I might eventually. And then my mom bought the first couple Southern Vampire Mysteries before a trip to Florida. And all I heard about what how amazing the books were and that she had bought all of them. Which she preceded to send to me and force me to read! Well, force is rather strong as she lives 900 miles away. But she pretty much gave me no choice. Now, I tend to trust my mom's taste in books as we have very similar personalities, so I started reading.
I liked the first book, Dead Until Dark, pretty well at first, though it took me a few days to really get into it. By the end, I was completely hooked. It had taken me about a week to read Dead Until Dark. I think read books 2-5 in about the same amount of time. Books 3 and 4 I distinctly remember reading in one day each. I had to force myself to put down the book to go eat dinner. I spent my entire lunch break reading. I stayed up way to late at night to finish. Why yes, I do have an obsessive personality. Thanks for asking. Anyway, I absolutely loved the books. Loved. Obsessively loved. And in the middle of reading the series, I got the first season of True Blood from Netflix.
I watched the first disc with a couple friends, one of whom had read the books and seen season 1 of the show and one who had not read or seen either. And we all enjoyed the show. I thought it was ok, but was very frustrated about some things that were not like how I imagined them in the books. Mostly, I don't care when things change in the translation between books and movies (or tv shows), but for some reason, every change in True Blood drove me crazy. Small things that did not matter at all were upsetting me. I really wanted to love True Blood, but just wasn't. So I took a break from reading the books. I started reading something else and gave it a week or so and continued watching the show. And I loved it. There were still a few small things that bothered me about the show, but I was able to get over that. After I watched the show, I went back to reading the books and found that the show did not change my love of the books.
After finishing the books, I started watching season 2 of the show and I loved it. Things were way way different from the book and I didn't care. My obsession with the books translated to an obsession of the show. I just had to get out of my mind and remember that a book cannot be fully translated into a movie or show. And really, I wouldn't want it to.
In my mind, the Southern vampire Mysteries and True Blood exist as separate entities. The Eric in my head from the books is not the Eric on screen, but I like both. The plot of the book is not the plot of the show, but they are both amazing. A lot of people talk about a movie that was based on a book and how much they loved the book, but the movie changed things. Well, duh! Take the Sookie Stackhouse books or Harry Potter. Both are written from one characters perspective. Nothing happens in either book that does not directly involve the main character; they are in every scene. That doesn't work in a movie or tv show. Also, the length of a book doesn't really mesh with the length of a movie or tv show. If you translated everything from each Harry Potter book, the movies would be 12 hours long each. And things would drag. The important thing to focus on for a book into movie/tv show is the feel of it. The feel of True Blood is the same as the feel of the True Blood books. It is a comedy wrapped up in a drama and has that gritty feel of rural Louisiana. The show feels like the books. And really, a lot of the characters look like how I pictured them. Sookie, Jason, Sam, Lafayette...all exactly how I pictured them. (Eric...hotter in my head, but it would be hard to beat my mental image. Alexander Skarsgard is sufficiently hot).
Just remember when you are watching a tv show or movie based on a book that they are going to be different. They have to be different. It is nice that they are different. If you know exactly what is going to happen in the movie because you already read the book, what is the point of watching the movie? Just accept them as different beings and enjoy both.
(Also, the title of this post...I am pretentiously annoying about this. People ask if I've seen a movie and I tend to answer "Yes, but I've read the book too and the book was better". Yeah, pretentious and annoying. I can't help it.)
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