The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
Ratings413
Average rating3.8
It was fine. The first section of the book had good pacing and some increasingly tense and terrifying scenes that lived up to the marketing. The pacing in part two felt too slow and then the author decided to use sexual assault as a plot point, which was unnecessary. It turned me off the book for about a month before I decided to just finish it. The end was solid and duly gruesome with only a slight nod to some of the racial dynamics that may have been true in the 90s but probably could have been reevaluated for this story.
From the title, I was expecting a clever satire. What I got was a mediocre, trope filled horror novel.
I agree with Grady Hendrix that the scariest things in the world aren't monsters, it's patriarchy and white privilege. But a little less desperate housewives and more vampires would've made this way less a chore to get through.
WTF, this book was pure anxiety. Toxic masculinity, racism, gaslighting, references to the ADHD-“craze” of the 90s, with hardly any actual vampire action. I think there was an effort to be like Dracula?
I really liked the concept of this novel and the way the lives of 80s and 90s housewives were described, especially with the Charleston backdrop. The gore was just too much for me, which is why the DNF tag. Definitely recommend though if you're into horror and can handle the gore!
This is the kind of thriller that I don't think I can handle, too well written to scare me and I don't know If I can finish it
The writing wasn't for me. Maybe it's just because I'm not in the mood to read something like this, but I felt the book was overly descriptive which made me want to skip sentences and sometimes whole paragraphs - the worst is that I wouldn't be missing anything if I did.
This was not what I was expecting at all! I think that was a good thing? 3.5 true crime books out of 5.
This was my first Hendrix read but I've heard so many good things about them. I think this book lived up to my expectations. I love a friendship story and vampires so why wouldn't I love this book?! I did find it a bit slow but I loved all the little inner monologue and time they took to build these ladies characters. Can't wait for my next read from Hendrix, even the new book coming out next year, pregnant witches? Hell yeah!
Contains spoilers
While I can say for certainty I loved the writing style Hendrix uses, I can't say I loved the content of the novel. There were a few times I found myself unable to put the book down and a few times that I couldn't wait to put the book down. It should be noted that there are graphic depictions of SA and implied SA due to lack of consent. Read with caution.
What started as a tame novel about house wives reading murder mystery and true crime novels turned quickly into a book filled with secondhand embarrassment, true disgust at the men who were in their lives, and wanting to throw up at the idea of nestling myself into a space with cockroach eggs, spiders crawling along my skin, and a cockroach trying to burrow itself in an ear. I have a new fear, as someone who lives in Florida, of insects crawling to my orifices and of rats banding together to rip their way through my lower intestines. I was appalled by how much this book made me feel at the worst moments. While I find myself upset with Patricia as a character, I enjoyed the refreshing aspect of a flawed character. Carter can eat dirt.
I will look for another Grady Hendrix book because I do find myself enamored with his writing style. This might not have been the place to start, but I am not mad I read the book. As a fan of Twilight and Vampire literature in my youth, this was a nice change of pace to a nightwalker who creates more damage than just punctures in someone's epidermis.
Contains spoilers
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... 🙈
I thought it would be funny and clever. And instead, it was just about women overcoming sexism (sometimes, mostly just living with it) and then killing a vampire (but not really, because he wasn't exactly a vampire).
Maybe it's because I listened to the audiobook (which is incredible) but I LOVED this book. The gender politics, the social structures, the absolute rage I felt at and on behalf of the characters? This was an experience and I devoured it.
This book was a pleasant surprise. General theme of men underestimating women (especially housewives), gluttony, and racism. I'm upset I've already read it because it would have been a great addition to book club.
Plus, now I know how to slay a vampire.
I wanted to love this book.
I love books, I love vampires and I love the south, however. This didn't hit right for me.
I loathed every male characters and I couldn't fully fall in love with the female ones.
I like the idea of the plot however. I think it was too long and could have been 50 to 100 pages shorter and still gotten in all of the high points.
Esta historia se desarrolla en la típica localidad pequeña de una ciudad americana en los años 90 donde todo el mundo se conoce.
Nos encontramos con un grupo de mujeres que después de irse de un club de lectura muy restrictivo, montan otro con más libertad y sin tanto mal rollo donde leen un montón de novelas de crímenes y asesinatos.
La protagonista, Patricia, tras dejar su trabajo y dedicarse a sus hijos y marido (el cuál no le hace ni caso) y su suegra, se siente bastante descontenta con su vida pero el nuevo club de lectura le alegra los días.
Hasta que un día es atacada por una vecina bastante mayor que parecía fuera de si al mismo tiempo que se muda un vecino nuevo muy misterioso y a la vez empiezan a suceder unas desapariciones y muertes en un barrio pobre cercano.
Los días pasan y el nuevo vecino, James, poco a poco va integrándose en el barrio y en la vida de Patricia y sus vecinos pero Patricia no es tonta. Tras pasar tiempo con James, empieza a sospechar que quizá James no sea una persona normal.
James tampoco es tonto y se da cuenta de que Patricia sospecha así que empiezan a suceder cosas macabras e inquietantes.
Me ha encantado cómo el autor ha descrito al vampiro con sus rasgos, personalidad, habilidades y forma de actuar. Es un vampiro de manual.
El suspense al principio del libro está muy bien llevado pero a lo largo de la historia va decayendo porque ya sabemos quién es el malo desde casi el principio. Pero aún sabiendo quién es, el autor crea situaciones y escenas que van acumulando mucha tensión hasta que llegan las escenas de terror que son muy gráficas y dan mal rollo de verdad.
También plasma muy bien el machismo, racismo y la desigualdad de esa época. Los maridos te darán mucha rabia.
One of those books that sounds spectacular in concept but falls rather flat in execution.
Okay okay okay. 2.5 stars and many thoughts that I will list haphazardly here.
I would not have ever picked this up or even finished it if it was not for book club. Which I love that book club gets me out of my genre comfort zones. But Yuck! This was really gross. Made me squeamish. I do not like horror or blood or scary things at all and this was graphic.
I love a run on sentence when used as a literary device. But when a (Kindle, size 3 font) page only has 6 sentences on it total, it makes it hard to digest the story.
Speaking of the story. I think a lot about own voice; should stories be told only by individuals who have the same lived experiences as the characters they tell (yellowface I'm looking at you)? I think context does matter and play a role in that. So why the f did a man choose to write from the POV of a southern housewife? It made me feel icky to read those run on sentences about how she was such a chaotic mess when I knew they came from the keyboard of a man. But could have been relatable if written by a woman. What was his motive? That was such a weird thing for a man to write. (insert book club group chat text “He for sure fantasizes about being a vampire”)
I will say this. I was never bored. I was at 10% on my Kindle when I picked it up this morning, and read the last 90% today. So while the characters fell flat for me and I was reading with one eye closed and my hand clamped over my mouth, I did find myself curious as to what happened next.
The ending was rushed and a bit dissatisfying. There were some loose ends that didn't properly get tied up. I also would have loved the story to have been about a unified book club figuring out the mystery together. I can relate to book club being your support system and would have enjoyed that theme to be present throughout the whole story. I wish the black characters had been taken more seriously.
My personal rating system is that 3 stars and above is something I would recommend, and while I was engaged in this book, I don't think it's something I would tell someone to pick up. So 2.5 stars feels right for me.
All in all, this just solidified to me the that I should only read female authors (except Rick Riordan I will read anything he releases), that I never want to go to the south again, and that I am done with thrillers for the foreseeable future. Can't wait to discuss this in book club.
I was sitting heavy on a 3.5 rating, but tbh the saving Grace (literally, pun intended) that bumped it up to 4 stars, was Grace Cavanaugh 😂🤌🏻
What happened to Slick kinda gave me the ick (lol) bc it felt kinda idk, unnecessary? Maybe that's just me. But yeah, overall, I did enjoy this book!
It was super creepy/disturbing at times, but great at keeping my attention throughout the entire 14 hour audiobook (PS highly recommend the audio bc the narrator had the perfect accent & really brought this story to life)
It was my first Grady Hendrix read & I will definitely be reading more in the future~