Sookie and I Love Libraries

When Sookie Stackhouse has a day off or time before work, she drops by the library to return books and pick up another stack.

When she gets shot in the library parking lot (sorry for the spoiler), her first thought is not to get blood on the books else she'll be charged a fine.

Okay she's slightly more hardcore than I. But we both love the library. I moved three times this year, from my apartment with Selena, to Jifo's house, to New York City, and back to Jifo's house again and no matter where I go, I carry a local library card.

In fact, I never would have met Sookie if I hadn't taken the 2009 Local Library Book Challenge. I just updated the list of 25 books and realized that I read the entire Sookie Stackhouse series and caught up on True Blood all this year.

I am utterly enamored with her. I don't care that members of my alumni writing group think that writing is pure drivel.

I've said it over and over and I'll say it publicly now: I'm a better person when I'm around Sookie Stackhouse.

When I see the way she reacts to miseries that would send the rest of us wussies into a neurotic depression, I'm inspired to stop being an emo high-schooler and face life with some dignity.

When I had one of my gazillion panic attack breakdowns during my short-lived grad school stint this fall, I had Jifo read me the last book out loud over skype to soothe me. (I actually had to devise a makeshift stand using candy bars and a Legal and Ethics textbook to prop the book up to the webcam so he could see it. Then I had to move it quadrant at a time. We did this until his eyes started to cross.)

Sookie reminds me to forgive when the time is right, and to move on when it's not. When she learns a lesson, I learn it. She reminds me it's a good life just to work hard for your money and have some time at night to work a crossword puzzle.

Being in her head is one of the most comforting feelings in the world. Spending time in Bon Temps this year made a lot of stress go away.

I even started re-reading the two books of the series I own, just to get some Sookie in my life until May 2010, when the next one comes out. And I NEVER re-read anything.

This whole year, whenever I went to Borders and saw someone looking at the Southern Vampire series, I butted in their face and told them to buy it.

I know Charlaine Harris is most likely ending it after her 3-book contract (which starts after the next one). Hopefully I'll be ready by then to let Sookie go. I know she'll help me be strong enough to.

Sookie Stackhouse is to my early adult years what Laura Ingalls Wilder was to my childhood and I'll never forget either.