Reviews with content warning for Torture - The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

A book that puts a new spin on vampires and their victims. It offers believable social circumstances with race, gender, and wealth disparity that proved to be the perfect grounds for the vampire-like being to swoop in and place everyone under his thumb. As with other Grady Hendrix novels, you're going to have those scenes which unsettle and gross you out. (Perfect for horror fans although not everyone's cup of tea.) I enjoyed the progression throughout the book and how Hendrix paced things time-wise. It would have been interesting to see a bit more of the other book club members' thoughts, but, because everything was from only Patricia's pov, we had to balance the book club members, her family members, and various other townspeople who popped up along with her inner dialogue. With that being said, I felt at peace with the ending. To me, it made sense and answered most of the questions about how the ladies carried out their plans; however, I was left wanting to learn more about what exactly the vampire creature was - that's just personal curiosity though.

Content Warnings

poeths's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I am not going to give it 5 stars just because that rape scene was horrible. For me it didn't make sense. I am tired of men not knowing how to actually write a rape scene. But also, why it has always to be rape? Why it's always sexual violence against women? He was doing so well, you don't need that to make it more horrific. Nor to make someone a vampire, you don't have to rape them. Just as you don't have to drink from their thigh... In that sense, with violence against women and little kids that was pretty sexual, just like when he is basically having ¿¿sex?? with a minor... I don't know man but like, we have moved on past that. It made me disappointed on the author, as he talks about gaslighting and sexism and racism and he depicts very different and interesting female characters... I am just sad because of that, overall the writing it's amazing, the grotesque elements are chilling, the book is raw and you hate the villain so much.

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fanboyriot's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I have some mixed feelings about this book. I liked the plot, a bunch of true crime loving housewives starting a book club, reading their way through all the major serial killers. Only to be met with a new guy to town, a guy who doesn't like the sun and who is all too charming once it sets.

It started out well though I would have liked to read more about some of the side characters. I loved Mrs. Greene and would have liked to see more of her. It was at the halfway mark or about there that things kinda went down hill for me. Patricia was slowly being backed into a corner and the more she found out about her charming new neighbor the less people in her life believed her.

There are obviously some major issues within this book I'll add some content warnings that I think apply but I suggest looking them up if you're considering reading this.

The major problems I had with thus book were pretty self-explanatory. The misogyny, sexism, and child molesting really popped off in this book. I understand this took place at a time were housewives were seen as less than human and were it was common for misogyny and sexism. That doesn't mean I wanna read a book about it. And onto the child molesting vampire. What was the point of that? It wasn't like he could only feed off kids. So why add that to the book? It's absolutely disgusting. And lastly what was with all the world war ii stuff? Like dude your kid is drawing a swastika on their notebook and you're not worried?! It just seemed really random to add.

I will say that it ended decently and I really liked the small town setting. The kind of neighborhood that was safe enough to leave your doors unlocked all the time, and where the people who lived there would welcome you with some kind of food only to drop it off and learn your whole life story, that part was written really nicely.

Content Warnings