Charlaine Harris isn't your bitch

I know, I know... this is already on a bajillion and ten blogs and I'm ripping off the title of a blog written by a far more clever individual. I just decided I needed to come out of semi-retirement to post on this.

It seems that someone in Germany managed to get a copy of the final book in the Sookie Stackhouse series. Rather than quietly read it in secret and share the ending with only a few people, they pretty much broadcast the ending to most of the Internet, knowing that the pairing at the end of the book would probably piss off a lot of readers. Knowing that not everyone wants to know about the spoiler ahead of time and not wanting the flame fest between readers and towards her to continue, she politely asked for people to not talk about the book until it released.

Many readers respected this, but it seems like there were a ton of people that threw hissy fits about this and came up with various theories about why Harris requested this and other such ideas. Mary Janice Davidson wrote a rather informative blog about this, so I'll not bother restating it here although I will summarize some of it.

What irritated me the most was that people were saying that Harris was trying to stifle free speech and that she had no right to write the ending she did. While it's been a while since I've read the books (I lost interest in them a while ago for various reasons), she can write the endings any way she wants. Every author does. Does this mean it's necessarily the ending everyone would want or the best ending to the series? No, but it's their prerogative to write the way they want to.

It's just poor form for people to jump all over this the way they have.

Further Reading:
*The Bullying of Charlaine Harris and the Wisdom of Neil Gaiman

Charlaine Harris shows her grace while Entertainment Weekly shows poor taste

I'll admit that I don't really read Harris' Sookie Stackhouse series anymore. It's one of those series that I've drifted away from somewhere along the line and just didn't have the time or desire to pick back up again, although there is still an interest.

I remember hearing some disappointment over Charlaine Harris' latest book in the Sookie series, Dead Reckoning, but there was still enough buzz to where the book was relatively well received by a decent amount of fans and critics.

Recently Entertainment Weekly listed Dead Reckoning as one of the worst books of 2011, which to be honest I found in poor taste. Even Harris herself admits that the book wasn't her best, but she says that she had read worse this year.

I just found EW's post to be in poor taste because if they'd done any sort of research, they'd realize that Harris suffered a great loss during the writing of this book. Her mother had been suffering from a long illness and had passed away while Harris was working on the book, which had to have taken a huge toll on her. While this doesn't completely excuse the book (since it was published, after all), I would have thought that EW would have looked into Harris enough to see that there were external influences on her life beyond her control and quietly chose another author to lambast as the "worst of". It might not have made DR any better, but I think that it deserved better than this.

One of the Sookie/True Blood fansites has a picture of the EW article, which lists Harris' book among people such as the Kardashians and Snooki. I just have to say that most of the justification behind this nomination seems to be that people were disappointed with the book and underwhelmed, not that it was exceptionally bad. I've read the Snooki book and I can't imagine Harris writing anything as bad as A Shore Thing.

In true Southern grace, Harris took to her own blog to write about her opinions about the matter. She does admit frustration, but vows that she will work harder to put out better quality work. This is pretty much the epitome of a trooper in my opinion and makes me respect her that much more.

All I can say for Entertainment Weekly is that with so many other famous authors releasing books that have been sub-par (where's Laurell K Hamilton's vote for "worst of" for any of her previous or current books?), it's pretty poor form to choose a book that was written during the death of a loved one. Shame on you.