reVIEwed by theRealist
I read a shitload of books. Like seriously. I have a bookcase in my room that is stocked with everything from Nietzsche and Sartre to Roberto Bolaño and Kurt Vonnegut to Bret Ellis and Chuck Palahniuk, hell I even have books like, “The Zombie Survival Guide,” or the Gears of War book, which I still haven’t willed myself to read. What I’m trying to say is that I’m always reading and I’m always open to read something new.
So on to the topic of this post. Before I started reading Jeff Lindsay’s, “Dexter,” series I found the TV show online. I was addicted instantly and went crazy over the series. Then I found the whole thing stemmed from a book, which made me even happier. I ran out, bought the first two books (they were the only two out at the time, there are now four) and basically finished the first season of the TV show then moved on to read the first book. Needless to say the book was very different.
First of all, Jeff Lindsay is not one of the greatest writers out there. His voice is simple and sounds forced sometimes, which totally throws off the character for me. But I persevered and actually liked some of the differences that the book had to the TV show. I won’t give anything away just in case people are watching/reading any of this but there are a fair amount of differences.
So this continued for the first two books and then the third book came out alongside the third season. Suddenly, Jeff Lindsay had more and more similarities to the TV show, but he still kept it different (he had to, he’d done so many things different he couldn’t, well frankly, bring people back from the dead and so on). The TV show started to win huge points with me, first off because Michael C. Hall owns the role of Dexter and all the characters around him are amazing. The writers for the TV show are flat out, much better at their jobs than Jeff Lindsay is. I mean the storyline on the TV show is so capturing, so enthralling from the first episode to the season finale. There are pieces of the book that I wish were in the TV show, but I’m assuming the fact that we are sympathizing with a serial killer already, pushing the envelope with some racier subjects may be too much, even for Showtime.
But here’s my beef. I just finished reading the latest book (“Dexter by Design”) and I was thoroughly pissed off by the end. First of all, the character isn’t Dexter at all. He’s a blubbering idiot who kills one person throughout the whole book, and the dude ends up being innocent. The whole book is a cat and mouse race that is so utterly repetitive you want to just start skipping chapters. I’m going to throw out a little spoiler here, and say that in the TV show Dexter has a child with his wife Rita. In the fourth book he has just gotten married.
First of all, Jeff Lindsay is not one of the greatest writers out there. His voice is simple and sounds forced sometimes, which totally throws off the character for me. But I persevered and actually liked some of the differences that the book had to the TV show. I won’t give anything away just in case people are watching/reading any of this but there are a fair amount of differences.
So this continued for the first two books and then the third book came out alongside the third season. Suddenly, Jeff Lindsay had more and more similarities to the TV show, but he still kept it different (he had to, he’d done so many things different he couldn’t, well frankly, bring people back from the dead and so on). The TV show started to win huge points with me, first off because Michael C. Hall owns the role of Dexter and all the characters around him are amazing. The writers for the TV show are flat out, much better at their jobs than Jeff Lindsay is. I mean the storyline on the TV show is so capturing, so enthralling from the first episode to the season finale. There are pieces of the book that I wish were in the TV show, but I’m assuming the fact that we are sympathizing with a serial killer already, pushing the envelope with some racier subjects may be too much, even for Showtime.
But here’s my beef. I just finished reading the latest book (“Dexter by Design”) and I was thoroughly pissed off by the end. First of all, the character isn’t Dexter at all. He’s a blubbering idiot who kills one person throughout the whole book, and the dude ends up being innocent. The whole book is a cat and mouse race that is so utterly repetitive you want to just start skipping chapters. I’m going to throw out a little spoiler here, and say that in the TV show Dexter has a child with his wife Rita. In the fourth book he has just gotten married.
Jeff Lindsay actually started writing FROM the TV show. He literally STOLE things the TV writers had already done, and used them in the book, almost verbatim. Like what the fuck man? Seriously? The book ends in a cliffhanger just like all the others, with Rita telling Dexter she’s pregnant. So now, officially, the book is behind the TV show, giving Mr. Shitty Writer the opportunity to just plagiarize the seasons as they are written by far more talented people.
Frankly, I am pissed off. It’s offensive to the whole community of literature. If this is his plan of action, he needs to stop writing books, and just let the TV show go on, but of course he won’t. Why just collect royalty from the TV show when you can write books that people will read? Because let’s face it, people WILL read them. Even I will keep reading them, which is pathetic and pisses me off to say, but it’s only because I need filler before the next season is aired.
Jeff Lindsay shouldn’t be allowed to publish books anymore. He came up with an extremely impressive idea, and he’s now spending his time driving it into the ground.
