Put Me First is written by one of my favorite FanFic authors (and now a good friend) AlphaEN. She’s got a great site on WordPress called ‘There’s More To It Than Just Blood, Sex and Vampires…’ Check it out, follow and read! The site is dedicated to fanfic and already has an unbelievable following. Put Me First also happens to be the first fanfic I ever read and what an introduction to the medium it was! I was instantly hooked!
Put Me First takes place after the events of Charlaine Harris’s Dead In The Family (Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Mystery Book #10). For those of you who haven’t read the book, Dead In The Family opens up more of Eric Northman’s backstory. By this point, Eric and Sookie are “together” but a wrench gets thrown in the gears when Eric’s maker, Appius Livius Ocella, comes to town and has his own plans for Eric’s future. By far the most intense in all of the Sookie books, Dead in the Family is a bit of an emotional roller coaster and it leaves the Sookie and Eric relationship with a few dents and dings to overcome.
Put Me First opens up and immediately has our couple struggling a bit with trying to be “normal”. Sookie, although fully aware that she’s dating a vampire, desperately wants a little normalcy for her and the Viking. She has very strong feelings about Eric’s prior commitments (vamp politics and his ever elevating powerful position) and has a very hard time taking the back seat to all of it. That’s when she finally puts her foot down.
With much prodding from the Area 5 Sherriff, Sook finally caves and tells him the one thing that she almost doesn’t want to say out loud. She does want to be with him. She does want a life with him. But she wants to come first for once. But at what cost to Eric?
Put Me First takes a super-supernatural couple and throws them into a very mundane situation. We are given a glimpse of what it would look like for this couple to struggle with every day feelings and emotions. Their situation could be translated to the real world so easily. One person in a couple with a high profile and demanding career and their significant other gets stuck on the back burner as an after thought. It’s a completely relatable situation. Put Me First is Alpha’s interpretation of how Eric would handle this and she did a fantastic job.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Southern Vampire Mystery without the mystery factor. Alpha wrapped this storyline in with a traditional mystery that would easily be found in Charlaine Harris’s world. It carries on the existing problem of Victor and his motives and Alpha did a wonderful job.
As for sticking with the character’s personalities, Alpha was spot on! Sookie, Pam, Eric….everyone reacted to every situation and conversation exactly as you’d expect them to. After reading 11 books in a series, you feel like you “know” the characters and it’s always disappointing to read a fanfic where a character acts completely out of….well, character. Eric is stoic. He doesn’t do things like giggle. Alpha stuck to their personalities through and through and really put herself in their mindset for writing this story.
Overall, to date, this is still my #1 pick for Sookie FanFic. I know that Ms. Harris is not a big fan of fanfic (she’s quite outspoken about it actually) but I really feel that if she could get over herself for a moment and read this, she would love this storyline and might actually be flattered because someone loved her characters/stories so much that they poured this kind of time into adding in their own tale. Put Me First is the best of the best and I couldn’t have picked a better story to start me off reading fanfiction. I give Put Me First 5 stars! Hands down.
If you would like to read Put Me First, you can find by clicking here.
If you are curious about what else is out there for fanfic (it’s not just Sookie stuff!!), just on over to the My Love Of FanFic page and check it out!
All art shown (except Dead In The Faily cover) in this post is by Kittrose (same artist that created the PureTextuality vampire fairy). Check out her gallery here!
Oh, wow, thank you Jena for this amazing review. I’m honored to be featured on your site along with many accomplished authors. Five stars! I’m gald “Put Me First” is one of your favorite fanfics, and I hope you’ll enjoy the sequel “Die Tonight; Rule Tomorrow” as well.
[…] an avid reader and a seasoned reviewer of fiction – Jena of PureTextuality – posted a review for Put Me First on her site, giving it five out of five starts. I’m totally floored and […]
Not a problem lady! Thanks for sharing your work! 🙂 <3
Reblogged this on JecaNS's Blog.
I just started it, and it is fantastic so far. As a side note, does anyone else get the same sense of panic when Eric and Sookie fight and yell “DO NOT GO BACK TO BILL FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!” or is it just me?
LOL!! Fanfic, books, the tv show…all of it! “FOR LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY!!! DO NOT GO BACK TO BILL!!!” LOL! I actually work with someone and we have a “bet” going on who she’s going to end up with at the end of the 13th book. As much as I would LOVE it to be Eric (because….well….C’MON!!), I think it’s going to be Sam. The chick at work INSISTS that it’s going to be Bill. Bleck!!! Gag me with a frikkin spoon!!! 😛
If it’s Bill I will have to do something drastic. For realz. Eric (please god Eric), Sam, Alcide, hell even Quinn, but please not Bill.
For the love of all that is holy is right.
Yeah, I would be alright with her ending up with Quinn too. They have good chemistry. I loved the Quinn relationship, short lived as it was.
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