From books to the small screen: True Blood

Since I mentioned the Oscars when it happened, I decided to start to write about book series that have been turned into television shows.

Since I’ve read a majority of the books (excluding a few of the newer books), I decided to start with True Blood or the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charline Harris.

All of the books I have of the True Blood series book wise, I also have the second season on DVD.

The series follows small town waitress, and telepath, Sookie Stackhouse. She lives in Bon Temps, a small hick town in Louisiana.

Recently in the series, vampires decided to finally step out of the darkness and tell humans that they live among them. Most humans are understanding, and embrace the culture of vampires. They are slowly being given rights that a human does, and even have the right to marry whoever they choose to.

But, as with anything new, it has a lot of people frightened. There is even a Church made of people who worship the sun, since vampires cannot go out into the sunlight. (Sorry Twihards, so sparkly vamps in this story.)

Sookie first is introduced to the vampire culture when Bill, the closest vampire to Bon Temps who inherited his home after his last surviving family member died, walks into her work, Merlott’s, and changes her life forever.

For the most part, the television series is true to the book. When reading the series, or watching the show, fans can hear and watch scenes directly taken from the books. Word for word, in some cases.

I found that the first book was dead on in the first series, with a few minor details changed every now and then. But, at the very beginning of the first season, a major detail is changed in the show. A minor character in the books, but a major one in the show, is killed off and no one but Sookie seems to care. Characters that exist in the book, coming and going depending on the time in the story, don’t even exist in the show.

Since I haven’t bought the new books yet, and stopped watching the series once I started to read the books, this review isn’t exactly up to date. Although, I plan on rereading and rewatching the books and show shortly for this blog. Keep a look out for those posts in the future!