Kat

Raced through this. There's something about the writing in this that just kept me reading. I could probably have gone on forever…

My book did include the epilogue “An Encore of Roses” and I was so happy it didn't end with the three of them separated. I need those three together forever!!! I also loved reading from Alexi’s perspective! Our sweet prince! These three give me all the feelings! Better than any romance could ever be for me!

So I finished this book last night and boy... was I disappointed!

I was so sure, I was gonna love this book! Everyone else seemed to do so. But all it did was making me feel terribly disappointed and annoyed.

Maybe I wasn't the target audience, maybe I didn't get it, but this book made me so angry and when it didn't make me angry it was kinda blah. (The gore was okay - I really don't mind me some gore! - but all in all too sparce for it to be really horrifying)

I was expecting a group of female friends kicking ass not a group of female punching bags who are kinda known to each other.

Possible spoilers ahead so be warned!

Firstly I really didn't like Patricia. And it's never good when you don't have some sort of sympathy with the main character (at least so far I often struggled with that) or really any of the other characters for that matter. She was just so annoyingly weak. I really am noone who is looking for confrontation but even I wouldn't let myself being treated that shittyly!

Also the strong female friendship everyone raves about felt more like a bunch of acquaintances to me. All of them were more interested in pleasing their shitty husbands than in helping their so called friends. Were wifes really that obidient in the 90s in the American south? I grew up during that time (I should've been around Korey's age) but my Dad was a stay-at-home Dad which wasn't normal in the German south either and not planned at all but even if my Dad had been the breadwinner of the house I can't imagine him treating my Mum like any of those shitbags did! Maybe we were too poor for that to be the case. 🤷🏻‍♀️

And don't even get me started on the "slaying vampires" part. There only ever was one "vampire" and not even a very vampirey one though that wouldn't have been the problem. And the slaying doesn't start until maybe 20 pages before the end and let's just say it's a mess... (what kind of choice was it to doll up your main character and letting her be passed out during the gand finale?)

I can't say much about the blatant racism I felt in every aspect of the book, being a white European myself. But let's just say that I would have preferred Mrs Greene (we never even learned her first name or did I miss that?) to be our main protagonist. Maybe than I would've been able to care. After all she was the hero in the end in my eyes!

So did I not get the satire or deeper meaning? Maybe. But I would argue about this being satirical in any way.

This was my first Grady Hendrix book and I'm really weary about reading another one now. There were quite a few that seemed worth checking out but out of all of those this one felt like the easiest hit for me... 🙈

Did not expect this to be this good. But this is definitely one of the best newer murder mysteries I read in quite some time (apart from the Thursday murder club)! I liked the characters and their dynamics very much. No-one felt completely forced out did absolutely outrageous decisions just for the sake of driving the plot along. All in all it was just great to spend time with Annie and Frances!

I didn't expect there to be more but goodreads says there's gonna be a second book so definitly looking forward to that!