Dead Until Dark: Sam

Maggie: Do you like Sam? Like Jacob, I find him very likeable but I want Sookie to be with Bill more than I wanted Bella to be with Edward.

Ben: I dislike Sam. I was suspicious of him throughout the whole book. It may be too late for me to like him. Something about his description was missing for me right away, too, and in the absence of whatever details would've made him more of a viable candidate for Sookie's affections, I filled in his looks as being older, overweight, unattractive, and lecherous. A greasy, sketchy bar owner who hit on the waitresses.

Maggie: I pictured Sam exactly as you described him and then had to adjust my image as we learned more about what he looked like. I pictured him much older, short, balding but hair arms and chest, wearing a grease-stained white wife-beater and holding a spatula. But the actor who plays him is young and cute - I guess for a TV show he had to be in order to be a believable love interest.

Ben: First impressions are maybe even more important in books than they are in real life... Once I get an image of a character in my head it's really hard to change it. I feel like when I see the TV show I'll think of that Sam as a prettied-up, bizarro version of the true, greasy spatula-holding Sam. Like a biopic starring a good-looking actor playing a person who was rather homely in real life.